10.06.2010

Love at First Sight

1939 Pontiac Coupe
Have you ever fallen in love with an inanimate object?  I can honestly say I have in the past - an old windup clock, a gauzy vintage dress from the 1920's, an antique armoire.  Usually, I fall in love with things I can just barely afford or can somehow scrape cash together to take it home with me.  But this time was different.  This is a 1939 Pontiac Coupe that I spotted at the Good Guys Lone Star Nationals at the Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth last weekend.   I'd never been to a car show like this one!  There were muscle cars, beautiful old cars from the fifties, bigger than you could ever imagine station wagons, an old school bus and my new favorite - the rat rods.  I swear, by the time I left that place at the end of the day I had a "happy headache".  And I had an ache in my heart because I had to walk away from this beauty.


Love the cracks in the steering wheel.

Isn't this hood ornament perfection?

You can see the famed Silver Streak in this shot.

Love the simplicity in the design here.
The sign on the car read:
1939 Pontiac Coupe
Barn Find, Always Garaged
6 Cylinder
Original Motor, Doesn't Run
$6,500.00
Donald Greer
(817) 228-1411

Gosh, if I just had a spare $6,500 stashed somewhere.....  And a friend who is a mechanic....  And the extra cash it would take to get it to run....   Yeah, that would be awesome!  I can see myself driving this lovely machine.

Here's a little history about Pontiac from Edmund's:

Pontiac originated as the Oakland Car Company of Pontiac, Michigan, in 1907; it was founded by Edward Murphy. Acquired by General Motors in 1909, Oakland introduced the first Pontiac vehicle in 1926. Dubbed the "Chief of the Sixes," the car was powered by a six-cylinder engine and made its debut at that year's New York auto show. It was so successful that the Oakland name was phased out in favor of Pontiac, the name of an 18th-century chief of the Ottawa Indians. Throughout the 1930s and '40s Pontiac made coupes, sedans and wagons in the low-to-mid price ranges. A unique styling cue of Pontiac cars from the mid-'30s to the mid-'50s was known as "Silver Streak," a set of art-deco-inspired chrome "speed lines" that ran up over the length of the hood to the base of the windshield.
Well, a girl can dream, right?  I mean, that's where it all begins in a dream.

3 comments:

Todd W. White said...

This was my dad's car! He bought it in 1952 from his Petty Officer in the Navy when he was stationed in Washington state, living on Whidbey Island there. It was originally from San Francisco, and had no heater when he bought it. He fully rebuilt it mechanically and drove it home to Oklahoma and married my mother. They loaded it up and drove it back to Washington. They made 1 more round trip in it back to Oklahoma, then one last trip down to Bartlesville, Oklahoma, where they settled after dad got out of the Navy and took a job with Cities Service Oil Company there.

My brother and I were born 2 years apart in Bartlesville, and we have pictures of the nurse handing each of us to Mom in "The Pontiac" at the hospital.

Dad taught me how to work on cars using The Pontiac. I learned to drive in The Pontiac. Dad drove it to work for years.

Dad got sick while I was in high school, and began to suffer from dementia. When I was in college, he traded The Pontiac for new carpet for Mom for our home (we had moved to Tulsa in the mid-60s). Mom called to tell me - she didn't have the heart to tell Dad she wished he'd kept The Pontiac. We both cried that day...

I found The Pontiac when I was living in Ft. Worth, Texas in the late 80s - it had been purchased by a guy who was going to chop it up and make a hor rod out of it, but he'd decided he was going to chop up an Oldsmobile instead. So, he had it for sale (this was before the internet) in the local shopper newspaper. I took my two kids - then very young - out to see it, and he let me take them around the block in it. He wanted $5,000 for it, which I didn't have, and wasn't interested in holding it and letting me pay it out.

We left saddened.

It turns out that he didn't do anything with The Pontiac - it sat there until it came up for sale where you found it. You saw it exactly as I saw it the last time I drove it - just like it was when Dad traded it for the carpet.

I contacted the people who got it - they sold it to someone else who was supposed to restore it. I pled with them to give the new owner my name and have him call me - I had so much to tell him about The Pontiac - but they hemmed and hawed, finally telling me they would. The new owner never called.

I would love to know what happened to The Pontiac - until I find it again, I have your wonderful pictures to remind me of it, and have saved them onto my computer as a reminder of my parents and all of the good times we had in The Pontiac....

Todd W. White
Sapulpa, Oklahoma

Anna Dykema said...

Mr. White - I am so pleased you were able to find this post and that you recognized your family car! Thank you so much for reaching out to me about it. I hope some day the present owner gets back in touch with you. If you do make contact, please keep me apprised. I would love to hear all about it. Thanks again for reaching out. - Anna

Todd W. White said...

I found the people that sold the Pontiac to the new owner. I explained to them the significance of it to our family, They told me that the people we're going to restore it. I asked them to pass my contact information along to the buyer. I have not heard from anyone About it since.