I just read Patrick Moore's tale of garaging his newly acquired 58. Gosh,
but it must be something about the 58 that leads to such eloquent verbosity.
Not for us the truncated, close to useless, one liners.
I was reminded of how the 58 I have now come to regard as my own came to be
moved. I had been a member of the all volunteer transportation museum for
over a year, maybe closer to two. I cannot say for sure why I joined as I
didn't care too much for either trains or automobiles. I liked the people,
I guess. To this day we are an odd assortment of misfits. Anyhoo, I was
getting some grief from the longer serving members about getting the cars
running again. A vocal few was opposed to the idea. With another
volunteer, the 1924 fire truck was running nicely and the 1929 Ford Model A
truck had been returned to useful service. I was kind of upset about the
attitude and decided that I would start working on the most useless car out
there. That would show them!
We take visitors for rides and enter vehicles in parades, both under own
name and as rentals. The 58 Imperial, however, cannot serve for either
purpose. In fact, it was the most neglected car in the place. I have heard
two versions of why it was even still there. One says they could not find a
buyer for it, whereas a 1957 and a 1962 Imperial had been disposed of. The
other says that the fellow who donated all three Imperials and one other,
lesser, make thought the 58 was the best of the bunch and it was kept for
that reason. It is worth mentioning that when I finally got a service
manual for the car, I ended up in a dispute with some people about whether
the car had a hemi or not. The book and what was in the car said it did but
these others had been told it did not.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that the car was very popular with
visitors. At that time we had a 1946 Rolls Royce and a 1929 Cord sedan, but
it was the Imperial, to my surprise, that seemed to create the biggest
response. More than our 1967 Cadillac or 1963 Lincoln, the car seemed to
shine out as a car that folks remembered with warm appreciation. There had
been so few of them on the road even in its day. Everyone seemed to know
some wealthy relative or neighbour who had one and who therefore stood out
as being just that bit more classy than others in that income bracket who
got a mere Caddy.
With a somewhat disturbed Vietnam veteran with whom I got on like a house on
fire, it was decided to get it running again. I knew precisely and
absolutely nothing about cars. To this day I am regarded by most as being a
less than competent driver, let alone mechanic. We put Marvel mystery oil
in the cylinders and let it sit a week. Then we put water in the dry
radiator, installed a battery and, with me in the driver's seat, turned over
the engine with the plugs out. It spun nicely, Back went in the plugs and
we turned it over again. There was so much life in the old thing it just
roared back into action. Within moments, a cloud of dark smoke the likes of
which I have seen neither before nor since filled the building, 100 X 50
feet of it. My startled colleagues ran to open the roller doors at each
end. I sat inside the car, with the windows up, like a petrified animal,
not knowing what to do. After a few minutes and what seemed like an
eternity, I turned it off and exited the car as the smoke began to clear.
My colleagues were laughing like crazy.
We cleared an exit path through the over stuffed building. We had to move
an oversize late 1940s fire truck among other things in order for it to be
able to get outside. I started it again and put it into gear. Pressing a
button to do so seemed so cool. The car moved forward less than one wheel
revolution before it stopped and the engine stalled. Brake fluid had leaked
from the slave cylinders and had formed a ridge around the shoes. I
restarted the car and put it into reverse and it moved back just a little.
In this way, we managed to move the car, first forward, then back, freeing
up movement a little each time. It literally limped as the shoes caught the
ridge time and time again. It seemed to take hours to reach the door and
make it outside in the Texas sunlight again.
I stood and looked at the space we had created in the building and the huge
black stain on the wall. I was quite agog with our success. I did not
realize at the time that I had just formed a connection with an automobile
that has lasted twelve years and is still going. I did not know the people
who had helped me get started would soon get bored and wander off to other
projects. I did not know it would be about eight years until the car spent
another night inside a garage and that it would be my own that it came to,
or that I would choose a house, after years of living in an apartment, based
on the fact that its garage could accommodate such a big vehicle. It was a
special day but I did not know at the time just how special.
Hugh
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