Backstories: The Hard Luck Jalopy

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THE HARD LUCK JALOPY

We gotta hit rewind. The start of this story goes back at least a decade. I had the hot rod itch and I had to scratch it.

It’s hard for me to remember, but I think this predates the times when Facebook Marketplace was the place to buy and sell. I think we were living the the Craigslist days. I had just bought my first house, and eagerly set out to fill up my two-stall garage. I kept running into this little Willy’s Overland body every time I would browse the list. It was a touring car body with the back half cut off, sort of like the middle part of a Model T roadster body. I even crossed paths with it at a local swap meet, but didn’t have the stones to actually pull the trigger. Eventually I was taunted enough by it that I just sent the email and met up with the guy to make it mine.

I was on a mission to build something cheap. I didn’t have a lot of money to throw at a big project, so I looked at a lot of “off brand” parts both in the spirit of being cheap and in the spirit of hot rodding in the great depression era. Think of it as my very own “depression era.” Use what you can find and afford to go “fast.”

After a few more craigslist meetups and conversations with friends, here’s what I ended up with:

It was a Model A frame, the aforementioned Willy’s body, a late ‘30s Desoto Inline 6 with transmission and pedals, and some random Ford wire wheels I managed to pick up locally, all propped up on cinderblocks and lumber in my garage. Just enough to give me a vision. The vision didn’t last, however. I got sick of walking around it, tripping over it, never working on (or prioritizing) it, and I sold off the frame and drivetrain. I think I was also realizing this project would take a lot more work and money than I could swing at that time in my life.

Fast forward. I don’t even remember how many years it was, but I was back-of-mind looking for a complete Model A chassis, just to simplify the process of getting a car together. Lo and behold, I found one. It turned out to be a 1930 chassis, complete with running gear, that looked like somebody harvested the body off of and didn’t care about much else. I bit.

I drug the chassis home on a borrowed trailer with the help of a good friend. I wheeled the chassis into my garage, turning the cut-off steering column with a vise grip every 2 feet, pushing the chassis into position. I had my buddy help me hoist the Willy’s tub onto the rails, and the dream was alive again, at least for a while.

Time passed by, the “car” got demoted to living under a tarp in my backyard with soda cans covering the windshield posts so they wouldn’t poke holes. At this point, a pivotal event in my life happened in the loss of my Father. He lived the last 10 months of his life battling cancer, and did not come out of the other side. All the sad stuff aside, for the sake of this story, another important thing happened, albeit way too soon. I inherited his 1928 Model A Tudor Sedan. I will save the backstory on the sedan for another article.

What this meant for my “hot rodding” career is that I had a complete car to hop up now, and building one from the ground up was much less interesting to me. Remember how I said I was cheap? See the “Van” at the beginning of my last name up there? Yeah, I’m Dutch. 100%. I knew I couldn’t get what money I had dumped into the project back out of it in this condition, so I decided to keep it until I could actually put it together some day.

At one point during the pandemic I decided to pull the head on the engine to see if it was feasible to get it running. I had battled a few stuck valves and a very grimy valve cavity along with some questionable assembly of the engine. I was definitely not the first joker in here, which could be good or bad. I got the valves moving again thanks to some marvel mystery oil (don’t know what’s in that stuff) and reinstalled the head. The car went under the tarp yet again.

I was newly married, so the jalopy got to sit on the back burner. Anyone else’s stove have a lot of back burners? Eventually, we moved out of that house, the Jalopy in tow, to the place we’re in now. My wife and I even welcomed our firstborn into the world before I got wrenches back onto this car, but here I was with the space to work, and the means to do so. I decided to launch my YouTube channel by attempting to get this old banger running while it was parked under my fallen lean-to, and to my surprise, I was able to get to tick over on its own.

This catches us all up to present day. I’m working on the car again with one goal in mind, put it together, make it “operate,” whatever that means, but make it fulfill its purpose as a ‘30’s-era hot rod and likely move it on to a new owner. Priorities change, time means a whole different thing to me now, but I want to see this thing through to an end if for no other reason than to satisfy the stubborn little Dutch man that lives inside of me.

You can watch me struggle to get this jalopy running again right here:

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This month, I want to highlight my very own YouTube Channel. My personal goal is to reach 1,000 Subscribers by my one-year channel anniversary in May. Check out these playlists, and if you feel like I’ve added value to your life through entertainment or otherwise, hit that subscribe button for me.

Until next time,

Jon