"Lucille"........... part II

My "Best Deal at Walmart" story turned into a sudden change of priorities and scramble to get back home, for all the right reasons. So let me bring you up to speed on what happened, "meanwhile back at the ranch", in Lynnwood Washington.

When Harvey had called me to come over at look at this Olds on the computer, I was pretty excited about it. All through the years, it always seemed like whenever one became available, I either didn't have the money, or it was way back east someplace where they "salt the roads" in the winters and the cars are "rust-buckets." Whenever I DID have some bucks stashed away, there never seemed to be anything "out there" for sale. (story of my LIFE----look how many decades it took me to find Donna!)

In the early Spring of 2005, I HAD some money put away, and was looking once again, for an Olds. 55, 56, or 57. Harvey had stumbled onto a jet-black 56. I was originally looking for a two-tone car, but this one was only one color. Black. I HATE black cars. I had a black 53 Packard once, and like this Olds, it TOO was a great looking car, but black cars are hard to keep looking nice. They are gorgeous when washed & waxed, but they show every scratch or paint chip, and when they got dirty or water-spotted from rain, they look like they've got some kind of disease! They are also very hot in the summertime.

But it looked great, (they always DO in pictures), and I figured it would be worth the ride (Seattle isn't all that far from here), and whether I liked it or I didn't, I could still go out and spend a few days kickin' back on the beach (and you know how THAT turned out!).

So I called the dealer the next day, told him I was on the way, and would he please HOLD the car until I could get there to see it? Not a problem. So I threw some clothes in my travel bag, along with enough cash for the trip (AND the car, in case I decided to buy it), jumped in the old VW and headed for Seattle. It was late in the evening when I got there, so I got a motel for the night, then called the dealership the next morning and got directions to his lot in Lynnwood.

They wouldn't be open yet for a couple of hours. My phone call had rung through to his cell phone at home. But I had the directions, so I drove out to the lot. This was MY kind of "Used Car Lot!" Old Impalas, Galaxies, Mustangs, and INSIDE the big glass windows of the enclosed showrooms were some classic Corvettes, GTX's and even a SHELBY COBRA roadster! Man, I thought I'd died & went to "Classic Car Heaven!"

But I DIDN'T see the Olds. NOWHERE. They were supposed to HOLD it for me......did one of the other salesmen NOT know that and sell it yesterday when I was on the road?. I'd hoped I hadn't driven all the way up there for nothing!

FINALLY the manager came in, and I told him who I was....."Oh, you're the guy from Mountain Home, wanting to see that Oldsmobile?

"Yeah......only I DON'T see it!"

"It's locked up over there in the Detail Shop.....I had one of the guys put it in there when you said you were coming, so nobody else'd be looking at it."

"Whew"..........ok.

"The rest of the crew will be here in a few minutes, and I'll send you over there with one of 'em. Coffee will be ready in a few minutes if you want a cup."

I asked him about the car, and he told me a pretty interesting story.

They had just got it. Hadn't been online but a few hours when Harvey came across it, and I was the only one who called about it so far.

This particular Oldsmobile was purchased in Van Nuys, California, brand new in 1956. The original owner's manual (with his name and date of purchase) was still in the glove box and a very nice original color fold-out dealer's brochure on the back seat.

The owner drove it occasionally until he died of a heart attack in the Spring of January of 2005, just a month or two before I looked at this car.

The car was/is in exceptional condition for as old as it is, spinner hubcaps, the WORKS. Always garaged, and the odometer showing just a little over 40,000 on it (you NEVER know what to believe here, but it IS in awfully nice shape). COULD be original.......

Well..........the old guy's KIDS didn't want it! Incredibly, NOBODY down there wanted the car...........they just wanted to sell it for whatever MONEY they could GET out of it. Our "Lynnwood Lads" sent a truck w/enclosed trailer down there PRONTO to put some cash in their hands, and then they hauled it all the way back from Southern California.

These guys had the car less than a week, it was "hoisted" lubed, oil changed, detailed, and had barely made it "online" when Harv saw it.

Well, it was still on the hoist when I walked over with one of the guys to look at it. I walked all around under it.....pretty darned solid for something over 50 years old. Obviously well taken-care of. Hoist got lowered, & we cranked it up. That old "324 Rocket" came to life, and it took me back to my childhood. Out of the shop into the sunlight. The car looked BETTER in person than it did in the photos. Beautiful red & black interior. Oh there were a few scratches and blemishes here and there-------you expect that with a car that's been in California all of it's life.

"Let's go for a ride" says he...........

"Ok....but YOU DRIVE." (I'd been filming the pre-inspection with my cam-corder and wanted to do the same on the road from INSIDE the car).

"But don't you want to drive it yourself?"

"Naw" I said......."I'm INTO old cars.....I can "feel its pulse" just sitting right here. If I like it and BUY it, I'll be driving it myself from now on, anyway!"

So I climbed into the passenger side, sat back in that "sofa seat" and stretched my legs out with room to spare that was TYPICAL in cars back then. And we took off for a few miles. I talked with him as I filmed. It rode like it should, and accelerated from stop signs just as I remembered in Dad's old 55. The Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Buicks back then were fairly heavy cars that rode on massive frames, so even with their slightly larger engines, they didn't "jack-rabbit away" like their much-lighter Chevrolet "cousins", but it WAS a solid, steady comfortable push back in the seat as the salesman got ON it a little. Once out on the freeway of course, they would outrun any Chevrolet of the day..........and they were a lot more comfortable doing it.

I was really "lost in 50's" again by the time we got back to the lot, but I'd already made a prior decision to NOT let the "magic rockets" of my boyhood, influence this purchase in any way. I looked the car over OBJECTIVELY and still.......I just LOVED it! Black color and all! (I can always re-paint it later if I decide to). I walked around it one more time, and told the salesman, "Nobody else is gonna look at this car. I'm buying it right now!

So we went back inside, I put the cash in his hand and we did all the paperwork. The manager I'd talked to earlier sat down with us and we all sipped some coffee while we were doing the paperwork, and I said to him......"It's hard to believe that old guy's KIDS didn't want that car! I'd be ECSTATIC to have inherited something like this!"

"Well" says the manager.........a lot of kids these days don't appreciate anything......and look at the OTHER side of it......if they HAD kept it, they'd probably have put "hydraulics" in it, lowered it to the ground or jacked it up in the back, and put those stupid-looking wheels on it............it's better off going to a collector, don't you think?"

"Yeah.........I sure can't argue with THAT, and it'll sure have a good home!--------which reminds me, can you keep it locked up here in your shop until I can get back up here with a trailer?"

"Yeah" he says......but let's take a look at the map......I'm sending our driver to Las Vegas in a couple of weeks to pick up a car .......he'll be going right through Mountain Home to GET there.....tell ya what----------For another $450.00 we can haul YOURS down there in an enclosed trailer, and drop it off right in your driveway."

"Well.......I'll just give you 450 more and y'all can just DO that!"

I headed for the coast with Olds title in hand, for a few days of rest out on the coast that turned into an "emergency" run back home (if you read that other blog).

One day, I got a phone call, that the driver would be in Mountain Home in a few hours. I met him at Exit 90 and he followed me in. We unchained it from the floor of the trailer, he backed it down off the ramp, I signed for it, and just before he got back into his truck, he turned and asked me if I intended to KEEP this car.

"Well sure" I replied. "Why do you ask?"

"Cause I'M the guy that just went all the way down to Van Nuys to GET it......fought L.A. traffic going IN, and more of it COMING out. It was a JUNGLE down there! Then I hauled it all the way to Lynnwood, no sooner got it OFF the trailer, now it's back ON again and I'm hauling it 5 or 6 hundred MORE miles down HERE....."

and he started to chuckle a little....

"I'm getting tired of LOOKING at this thing!"

"Well, you won't have to look at it again after TODAY.....it's stayin' right here!"

With the title having passed through that dealership, I'm technically the third "owner", but for all practical purposes, I'm actually the SECOND owner.

I've added a little to it over these past 5 years......there's a little "Hula Girl" on the back shelf who wiggles when I go over the trains tracks, some "Betty Boop" floor mats, red fuzzy dice with black spots (ya GOTTA have the dice), "8-ball doorlock pins", special license plates...........and DONNA (being the classy lady SHE is, bought me a "necker's knob" for the steering wheel on EBay, with that famous NUDE PHOTO of Marilyn Monroe!............VERY "FIFTIES!"

("necker's knobs"--or "suicide knobs", as they're sometimes called), have been technically outlawed for many years--------but some of you out there know the old "radical" here--------

ASK ME IF I CARE!!

That "big black tank" is more than just a car to me. It is a "time capsule", a return to a better era, and a GOOD place to go when I need to "leave" the lunacies of 2011 for awhile. I usually pick a day and time when traffic is light and the weather is nice enough to go pull it out of storage and "cruise" for a little while. Had it out YESTERDAY as a matter of fact.

I hate the 21st Century and everything that goes WITH it. But every great now and then, I can ease out onto the road in that big Olds "88"...........where the glass packs rumble, the little Hula Girl "Dances", the dice swing gently from the mirror.........and for an hour or so............2011 doesn't EXIST anymore!

Now......if I could only turn the radio on and hear the "WOLFMAN!"