Locals share beloved stories about their first vehicles

 

By Rich Wicks | Guthrie Center Times

Whether it was a brand new roadster or an old jalopy that was barely road-worthy, most of us can recall our first car. And these first cars often have the best stories. Here are a few from the area.

 

King found a car she can’t part with

The story of Rita King’s first car is really the story of her second car. She didn’t keep her first car very long, and the “old Ford” didn’t find a special place in her heart during its brief tenure.

But her second car is another story.

“I had just turned 17 on Sept. 24, and on Sept. 29 I was driving by Erickson’s Garage, which is a car dealer in Denison. I saw this car there, and I called my mom, and she said, ‘Walk across the street to the bank, borrow some money, and I’ll co-sign.’ The bank lent me the money, and I walked across the street to Erickson’s. Then, as I was paying for it, some other people came in to buy it. So, I had just beaten them to it.”

The car was a 1969 Camaro Rally Sport.

“I sold my old Ford to a friend, and I’ve kept this car ever since,” King said. “I bought it for $1,100, and it has 49,000 actual miles.”

King explained the car wasn’t a showpiece when she bought it, but she was able to see the beauty underneath.

“When I bought it, it was kind of an olive goldish green color, and it had a brown vinyl top and a green interior. It was not pretty.”

So King undertook the long process of getting the car into the condition she wanted.

“I parked it for several years in my dad’s garage. Later on, after the kids were grown, I had more time and money to work on the car. We took out the seats and brought them to Fort Dodge and had them reupholstered up there,” King said. “We hired someone to do the rest of the bodywork.”

She also upgraded the engine.

“John Hoaff of Stuart did all of my motor work. It originally came with a 327, and I didn’t like that motor, so I had it replaced,” King said.

Now that the Camaro is all fixed up, King has chosen to show it off more often.

“I just started putting it in shows last year,” she said, adding that it has already won several awards at local shows. 

King explained that, over the years, she has moved many times but always kept the Camaro. Also, although she has heard numerous offers from people wishing to buy the car, she has no plans to sell it and said that seems to run in her family.

“I have a sister who has a 1969 Chevelle Convertible. I have a brother who has a 1930 Rat Rod. I have another brother who has a 1966 Chevy SS 2,” King said. “So, we are full of old cars in our family, and we always hold on to them.”

King has only one minor change planned for her car.

“I just need to have new springs put in back, because it sits too low and puts a little twist on the driveshaft. But that’s the only thing I’m going to do to it,” King said. “I just love driving it. It brings back memories from years ago.”

 

Coffman blows off steam in his 1955 Chevy

Jack Coffman not only remembers his first car but still has it, along with some great stories. It’s a 1955 Chevrolet that he has owned for more than 50 years. 

“I bought it from my brother in 1969. He’d bought it as his first car in 1966, and he paid $150 from my uncle,” Coffman said. “Then in three years, when I turned 16, he sold it to me for $75. And we kept that until about the time we got married, in 1973.”

Coffman told of an explosive incident back in the day.

“Really, the fun story about that car is I took a bunch of kids to the drive-in theater over in Panora around the Fourth of July. We snuck three of them in the trunk, and we had fireworks with us,” Coffman said. “Well, after the movie was over, we left and started lighting the fireworks and throwing them out of the car. Well, they lit a cherry bomb, and it hit the upright on the window and bounced back into the car and went off. It blew a hole in the seat.”

Naturally, this required a pit stop.

“We pulled over to the side of the road, and smoke was just pouring out. We were lucky we didn’t get killed,” Coffmann said. “I left that hole in the seat as a reminder. And, actually, the kid that was on top of the cherry bomb, it didn’t blow a hole in his pants, but it blew a hole in his underwear.”

Sometimes, what goes around comes around. 

“When I had the car in the All-School Reunion this year, the radiator blew, so smoke and steam were everywhere,” Coffman said. “And then somebody in our group said, ‘I remember the last time I saw this car with smoke pouring out of it.’ ”

 

Thomas recalls one of many cars

Garold Thomas has always liked cars, and it shows. Over the years, he’s owned many, but one of his first cars stands out. 

“I have several Camaros, but there is a 1967 Camaro, and I can’t recall exactly how long I’ve had it. It’s not a fancy one, but this is one of my first cars that has special meaning to me,” Thomas said. “I got it from a friend of mine, and the reason it’s special to me is because he passed away from cancer at an early age. He had sold the car to a guy that was going to make a stock car out of it, but he never paid my friend, so my friend said, ‘I’ll sell it to you. You’ll just have to round up all of the parts.’ ”

To say the car was a “fixer upper” would be putting it mildly. 

“When I bought the car, it was basically four wheels and tires and two doors and a steering wheel,” Thomas said. “The motor was gone, the transmission was gone, the whole front clip was gone, the interior was gone. It took several years to get it done, but I got it back to its original form. It’s just a nice little car. I don’t even drive it much, but I do get it out once in a while. It’s special to me because my friend passed away about four years after I got that car.”

Thomas explained that he restored the car his way.

“I got the car put together the way I wanted. I got stripes on there, even though they’re not ‘factory stripes,’ but they’re the way I wanted them,” he said. “I used to do a lot of the work myself. I can install an engine or change a transmission. At one time, I used to do the body work and painting, but I haven’t done that in several years. I learned by working at a body shop part-time when I was growing up in high school and college.”

Camaros are well-known as sporty muscle cars, so it is natural to enjoy “putting the pedal to the metal.”

“If anybody has a sports car like that and tells you they don’t know how fast it goes, they’re probably not being honest,” Thomas said.

He recalled being a lead-footed driver in his younger days.

“When I was in high school and my first couple years of college, I was a street racer,” Thomas said. “In my hometown, we had a spot where we would go out and block off the highway and have drag races. The farmers out along there would bring out their easy chairs and sit down to watch.”

Nowadays, Thomas doesn’t feel the need for speed like he did in his youth, but he enjoys driving his Camaro occasionally, and sometimes enters cars in a show.

“I used to put my cars in shows more often, but, in the last few years, I don’t do that as much,” he said.. 

Thomas admits, with a smile, that his urge to collect and restore cars may sometimes go beyond a simple hobby.

“It becomes a sickness. I’ll see a car sitting there in bad shape, but I visualize it as it will look when it’s done, and that’s a bad trap to fall into, because I forget how much work it will take to get it there,” Thomas said. “It adds up in a hurry. I went through my car titles the other day and counted them up. I have 84 of them, in all kinds of conditions.”