The Watsonville Fly-in and Restoring a Rare Car

In May, David Beasley (Bob’s brother) visited Bob on his way to Viet Nam. He visited Big Basin with us

David and Bob on a trail in Big Basin

Waterfall

Bob and his brother

Father of the forest

On Memorial Day, we went to the Watsonville Antique Airplane Fly-in.

Every year since 1964, the antique airplane people had a ‘fly-in’ to Watsonville Municipal Airport. In 1965 or 1966, our antique automobile club local chapter volunteered to serve as shuttle transportation from the airfield to town.

Looking at the planes from between the antique cars

Antique cars for transportation

Antique bi-plane

Antique plane landing

I decided to write the event up for the antique automobile magazine. I wanted a photo of the whole layout, so I got permission to go up into the tower. But the angle was wrong, and I thought it would be even better to get a photo from a plane. So I asked around, and a guy said he’d take me up in a 1929 Waco biplane. He gave me a leather helmet and told me not to touch anything. I got into the front seat - we took off and circled the airport.

I took one picture.

My photo of the airfield

He asked me if I had the photo and I said Yes (although I would have liked to take more, just in case)

Photos being taken of us as we land

After we landed, he told me he’d just bought the plane and had never flown it before.

Forty years later, I put the photo up on Virtual Tourist. An intern at the airfield found it and put it on the airfield website under the impression that it was free of copyright. After I straightened them out about that, I told them they could use the photo if they gave me credit.

In June 1966, Fred who was in the auto club and had a 1931 Plymouth

Two 1931 Plymouths (PA) Fred's is the red one

told Bob that there was a 1932 Convertible Sedan at a junkyard. This was a very rare body type - it was the first convertible that had roll down windows. Only a few of them were made. One of the guys in the club had a car trailer and he and Bob went down to the junkyard in Paso Robles to get the car. It had to be removed from the junkyard with a crane. Even though it had basically been trashed, the junk yard dealer knew what he had and Bob had to pay $500 for it. All the wheels were seized and the tires were flat and it wouldn’t roll. It took several of them a maximum effort to get the car into our garage.

Convertible Sedan before restoration

Fred was there because he had the wrong headlights on his car and the converible sedan had 1931 headlights. Bob traded Fred - he gave him the 1931 headlights in return for Fred’s 1932 headlights. Bob’s friend with the trailer knew where there was another 1932 PB sedan that Bob could use for parts.

Parts car being backed off the trailer

Two 1932 Plymouths

Now both of our card had to be on the street.

Bob had his leave in August. This year I was going to go north up to Oregon. Scratch that. Bob spent his whole leave working on the car It was in terrible shape. He took it down to the bare frame and built it back up. Some of the frame was wooden and had to be remanufactured.

Down to the bare frame

Firewall restored

Still pretty rough

PB partly restored

He spent every minute working on the car. He went out after breakfast. I brought him lunch to eat and dinner. He didn’t come in until bedtime. He lost 14 lbs. By the end he had a pretty good looking car, with mostly original parts. But it didn’t have a top and the radiator wasn’t reliable - it wasn’t driveable for any distance.

Three Plymouths

Convertible sedan and Fred's 1931 Convertible

Note- the Convertible Sedan has a back seat instead of a rumble seat. Previously cars with a back seat were called Phaetons and had side curtains instead of roll up windows.

Two convertibles

Bob was in Caifornia to go to Post Graduate School

Originally the post graduate education in the Navy was at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. In December 1951, the Postgraduate School moved from Annapolis to the old Del Monte hotel campus in Monterey "lock, stock and wind tunnel."

The Post Graduate School is still in operation

Monterey PG School

In October 1966, the war in Vietnam was heating up so they took all the pilots out of PG school and sent them back to the fleet. Bob got another bachelor's degree in engineering instead of the masters that he was to have gotten.

Bob graduation (he's the one with the tree coming out of his head)

Bob with his diploma

Bob who was flying anti-submarine planes (very few submarines in Vietnam) got orders to Key West Florida. Again a dilemma. We had 3 cars and only two drivers. Debbie was in kindergarten and didn’t have a driver’s license yet. Plus only two could be driven long distances and neither the PB sedan or the VW was a good tow vehicle.

After consultation with my parents, we decided to ship the Convertible Sedan by rail from San Francisco to Miami,

On the trailer to go to the San Francisco Rail terminal

where one of my dad’s former students would get it and take it to his house to wait for us. Mother and Daddy would come west, help us move, and drive with us to Miami. In Miami, we would pick up the third car. Bob would drive that, I would drive the four door sedan and Mother would drive the VW Bus down to Key West. And that’s what we did - via Calico Ghost Town, Grand Canyon, Sand Dunes NM, Mesa Verde, Silver Cliff, Denver and Miami The next section of this blog will be a report on that trip