How I Met Betsy

Rick's Model A Ford

The beginning - 1968

I got out of the Army in 1967 and moved back to California to continue my college education. I had a 1929 Model A Tudor Sedan before I joined the Army, and I longed for another Model A. In May 1968, as I was riding my motorcycle in a rural part of the San Fernando Valley, I spotted a Model A behind a fence and under a tree. I could tell it was some kind of sedan with the spare on the back. An old man was walking through the yard and I hollered out to him, asking if the "old car" was for sale. It was.

A closer look told me it was a 1931 Tudor Sedan. The car was on blocks, nearly complete but devastated by being stored outside. The license plates on the car were from 1951, so the car must have been sitting 17 years. Not much upholstery was left but the seats were there, but the top had torn off and the wood bows sagged sadly. Several inches of mulch from the tree sat on the rotted plywood floorboards.

The body didn't have a dent on it anywhere. The fenders were rough but very usable. Other than the lack of wheels, the only other parts missing were the gas and radiator caps and the oil cap. It was love at first sight! Then the question I hesitated to ask: "How much do you want for it?" The old man told me that he'd been refusing to sell the car for years, but his doctor had just told him if he wanted to keep living, he'd have to move out of the Los Angeles area - he was buying a place in Turlock. So, he said he wouldn't take anything less than $100 for the car.

I hopped back on my motorcycle and raced home, got the checkbook, and gave him a check. He gave me a bill of sale and the car was mine! A couple of weeks later, I had borrowed some 18" wheels and tires and my buddy, and I towed the car home behind his red 1957 Chevy.

College Days

Over the next two years, I took Betsy apart, cleaned her up, and put her back together again. I got Betsy running and drove her around as-is. She was very reliable. During this time, we had a baby girl and joined the San Fernando Valley Chapter of MAFCA. We went to most of their events.

In the summer of 1970, I graduated from college, got hired by Bank of America as a Systems Analyst, and prepared to move to San Francisco. We loaded our household things into a U-Haul truck, then I drove the Model A solo up Highway 101 the 400 miles to San Francisco. The only problem we had was a stuck cut out, but a few taps with my shoe got the points unstuck and the generator charging again.

San Francisco Days

In 1971, we were able to buy a little 2-bedroom house in San Bruno. As we settled in, I longed for another Model A chapter. There was one in San Francisco and one in Santa Clara, but both were quite a distance away. There were 105 names in the MAFCA membership roster between those two cities. I sent out letters and got a dozen replies, and we arranged for a first meeting in our home. Eight people showed up and we signed a new MAFCA chapter petition. El Camino A's was born.

I divorced in 1974 and the car project didn't move very quickly. I had the all the sheet metal chemically stripped, primed and painted, and stored it in my garage. I acquired a pickup cab and bed and put it on my Tudor chassis and drove Betsy around while I worked on the sheet metal. She looked pretty ugly but kept chugging along.

In 1976 I got distracted by a 1931 Mail Truck that I just had to have. I flew up to Everett Washington and hauled it home in a rented U-Haul truck. It sat in my already crowded garage for several years. Finally in 1978, with the help of the El Camino A's, we built a new 2-car garage which replaced the 1928 single car garage in my back yard. SPACE. It was great.

The restoration crawled along. The body was put back on the chassis and taken to Acme Body Shop in San Bruno. Owner Ralph Cook hammered the fenders into amazingly good shape and even cut a welled fender hole in the left fender.

In 1979, I finally had saved enough money for the upholstery kit from LeBaron Bonney. I paid $800 for the mohair interior, new seat frames, and carpets. They sat in boxes for the next 13 years. The same year, I got Betsy's engine rebuilt by Cal's Machine Shop in Escalon. They did a great job, even shaving off the 1929 engine number and stamping the original engine number that was on Betsy's frame.

The 1980s and Oregon

In 1980, I met Dana. We dated for two years and the Model A project sat untouched. In 1982, Dana and I were married and my attention was away from the A. We remodeled our house over the next two years, then decided to move to Southern Oregon. We left all our El Camino A's friends behind and moved to the next adventure.

Oregon was really nice, and we both found work quickly, but our focus was on setting up a horse farm, so the Model A sat patiently in storage. In 1986, the company we worked for got sold and we both were laid off. I found another job at 1/2 the salary and we were really strapped for money the next few years.

In 1989 we decided to sell the farm and move to a smaller place. The Model A followed us there. Our economic condition improved and I found a painter who could give the Tudor a regal paint job, which was completed in 1991. The project was finally moving again. The following year, I got a call from daughter Shaynee, who by this time was 23 years old. "Dad, I'm getting married next year - can we use the Model A in the Wedding?" "Sure," I said, no problem. I have a year to get it finished.

1993 and The Wedding

It was a race to the finish line. In the spring of 1993, I had installed the new engine (which had sat unused for 14 years) and got Betsy running. I powder painted the wheels, put on new tires, and drove the chassis around the neighborhood with a only a cowl and VW seat to make sure all was well. The transmission had a bad whine in 2nd gear. A quick call to El Camino A's member Neil Chichizola and he was able to get me replacement gears. After the reassembly and another spin around the block, Betsy ran like a clock!

I took the cowl off, and mounted all the painted fenders and running boards. Then a group of friends visited and we got Betsy's Tudor body on the chassis. I put on the hood and aligned all the body panels. It was May now, and we had until August 1 to finish. In the next two months I got the top installed and then one hot day in late July, Dana and I installed the LeBaron Bonney interior, fresh from a 14-year snooze in storage. Fit like a glove.

With fewer than 100 miles on the engine, I didn't feel comfortable making the 350 drive to San Mateo, so Betsy got trailered behind our pickup. The trip was uneventful. My daughter and future son-in-law had never seen the Tudor restored, and we drove Betsy to Carl Pileri's home in San Mateo until the wedding day. Carl volunteered to be the Chauffeur since I would be busy during the ceremony. While the wedding was in progress, Carl drove Betsy up to the Church and parked right in front. No one in the wedding party had seen the car since we left California in 1984, and Betsy made quite a hit. The bride and groom got into the car, obliged the photographers, and were whisked off to the reception with ahoogas and horns blasting.

Heading to El Paso

In the summer of 2001, I got job offer which required us to relocate to El Paso Texas and take over the Network Systems Manager position at the El Paso International Airport. It was too good an opportunity to turn down. We packed up our house and all our belongings and Betsy were loaded into the moving van for the trip to Texas. We lived in El Paso for over 10 years, joined the Southwest Classic Car Club in 2005 and later started the Borderland A's Model A Chapter of MAFCA in 2008. We drove Betsy all over West Texas and southern New Mexico. I was tempted to drive into Mexico but the climate there wasn't very hospitable so I just drove to the border and back.

After 10 years with the City of El Paso, I retired in June 2012 and we once again packed up our belongings and a moving van loaded up including Betsy and new project 1959 El Camino for the trip back to Medford Oregon.

In Summary

Since 1993, we've driven our Deluxe Tudor 13,000 miles, mostly around town. The longest trip was from Oregon to Reno in 1998 for the National Convention, where Betsy won a third place in the Blue Ribbon judging. She's given us many miles of smiles, both from us and from passers-by.

Now that I'm retired, I'm happy to tool around town and wave back at smiling, waving admirers. Betsy seems to like that too.