When Ford announced the release of the Model A for the 1931 production year, it wasn't the most ideal time to launch a new model car. Only two years after the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression and many automobile dealers across the country were feeling the pinch in their coffers. George Sutton Ford of Inglewood, California, was one of these dealers feeling the backlash from both the economic woes and those of Ford's nine-month plant closure to retool so that they could regain the sales lead from Chevrolet. But when the new models began arriving on the lot, slowly but surely they found buyers amongst those living in the Los Angeles basin.
Shortly after the dust of the Depression cleared, the country was once again thrust into a trial of wit and will with America's inclusion in World War II. The attack on Pearl Harbor saw the enlistment of men into the armed services reach record numbers and included two young men from Southern California named Bill Raymond and Dick "R.H." Wilson. Enlisting in the Navy in 1943 and trained at nearby U.S. Naval Reserve Aviation Base Los Alamitos, the two friends were assigned to separate ships, Bill to the USS Wasp and R.H. to the USS Hornet, and served as Naval Aviators over the Central Pacific flying TBF-1 Avengers and SBD Dauntless'. A short year later, R.H., flying as an Ensign in the United States Navy, was shot down over the Central Pacific island of Eniwetok, an atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Following the war, both R.H. and Bill settled in the sleepy community of Manhattan Beach where R.H. found work at George Sutton Ford in the parts department. In the first of many twist of fates to come, R.H. purchased his parent's Model A coupe that they had purchased from the same George Sutton Ford dealership back in 1931. Bone-stock and showroom fresh, R.H. began using his connections through the dealership to hop up his new gow job.
First to go was the stock Model A mechanical brakes. By 1945, hydraulic brakes were standard in Ford automobiles, so the upgrade to juice brakes was only natural. The Flathead Ford engine had also begun to prove its mettle so the old Flathead four-banger was scrapped for the smaller variant of the Flathead V-8s, the V-8/60. Designed to meet European laws that tax on displacement as well as British laws that tax on bore size, the smaller V-8 not only got the best gas mileage of Fords at the time, it also fit the tight confines of a Model A better than the larger V-8s. Power was transferred through a '39 gearbox to a Model A banjo rearend. R.H. drove the coupe in this guise for roughly 15 years before he parked it permanently in his Manhattan Beach garage.
Five years old at the time, Ken Sanders can still remember seeing the old coupe parked in his uncle's friend's garage as he passed by the house on his way to school, his father even asking for the first right of refusal if R.H. ever decided to sell the coupe. R.H. politely declined and the coupe sat in the beachside garage for another 43 years. By then, his health had begun to decline and just before passing away, R.H. signed over the pink slip to Ken's father, whom turned around a few years later and signed the coupe over to Ken.
Suddenly, he was the new owner of a true-blue, gennie post-war hot rod that hadn't seen the light of day since 1959. The same car he remembered seeing in the Manhattan Beach neighborhood in which he grew up was now sitting in his garage, awaiting its second incarnation as a hot rod. As the emotions swept over him, he suddenly realized the responsibility he now had, not only as caretaker of the car, but as a preservationist of the memory of guys like R.H. and his uncle Bill and the sacrifice that they made for our country.