‘But that’s
another story...’
In the interest
of brevity, during various conversations, and in some of my columns, I have
made brief referrals to incidents of autos in my past and made the statement
“That’s another story for another time.”
After several requests, it’s time to
tell the story of our armored limo.
In 1953, Phyllis and I had nearly
finished our Army tour in
We had written and told them we
would like to find an older LaSalle or Cadillac with low mileage and in good
shape. To our surprise, I got a long distance call at work one day from Auto
Procurement Services, telling me they had found a car that sounded ideal for
us.
It was described as a 1937 Cadillac
V-12 limousine with only 17,000 miles on it. It was armor-plated and in
excellent shape. We were told that it had been confiscated by law enforcement
officials and in covered storage since 1938 after being used in an attempt to
free a gangster being transferred to
We had a 2-year-old son and Phyllis
was nearly seven months pregnant with our second son when we left
By the time we arrived at the air
base about 50 miles out of
It finally pulled up. I don’t know
for sure what Phyllis expected, or if she was just spoiled from our beautiful
1940 LaSalle we were used to, but when this huge “gunboat” pulled up, she
started crying.
She thought it was ugly, and I
thought it was…well—not ugly. At any rate, after consoling her, we loaded our
baggage into the huge trunk and our son into the huge playroom called the back
seat. We then headed for
This is where the fun began. After
nearly two years of driving on the “wrong” side of the road in
We had spent weeks before leaving
Unfortunately, it was going into a
long weekend for the Fourth of July. We ended up too late to complete
processing before everything closed for the long weekend. This gave us four
days in the
I should have gotten my first clue
when it took 18 gallons of gas to go the 38 miles, but I figured we didn’t get
the full tank on delivery. The original invoice showed the car to have a
36-gallon gas tank. We decided to visit Phyllis’ uncle about 30 miles away.
Well—the insulation in the firewall
caught fire. We stopped at a firehouse, which happened to be closed, so we put
out the fire with a bottle of pop. We fixed that problem before finally heading
for
We quit buying oil by the quart and
got bulk oil in five-gallon cans. We continued on our way with the only thing
keeping us going was the fact we were on our way home. We began to worry about
the area between Wendover, Utah, and Salt Lake City, that had a stretch of 85
miles between gas stations. Our trip was spent mostly in one-way conversations
where Phyllis expressed her ideas about buying a car sight unseen and no test
drive.
Our son was happy, though…he had a
nice playroom in the back seat. It had somewhat diminished, however, by two
five-gallon cans of gas and a five-gallon can of oil.
I had to drive all the way because
Phyllis, as good a driver as she is, refused to drive that big boat. We finally
arrived in Montrose in the middle of the night. With gas between 20–25 cents a
gallon and oil at 15 cents a quart, it cost nearly $400 for the trip.
We left the car in her parents’ yard
and bought a 1950 Buick to continue on to Denver. That car wore out a set of
tires between Montrose and Denver due to a bent frame. I finally got smart and
traded for a 1947 Cadillac that we kept for quite awhile. The V-12 limo stayed
parked in Montrose for a year.
After discharge from the Army, we
finally got it to Denver after some repairs. Apparently, after being stored for
so many years, they had put a new battery in the car, poured gas in the carburetor
and started it. Several rings were broken and bearings were bad.
The car sat idle at our home in
Denver for quite awhile and was finally traded in—with our ’47 Cad on another
car. It left behind a tow truck. The new owner was a car dealer that was going
to restore it for its historical value with all the documented history we
provided.
I forgot about the car for several
years. Even Phyllis forgot about it because I soon learned never to talk about
it. One day, quite by accident, while visiting my sister in Lakewood, I saw the
car in her neighbor’s back yard. When talking to him, I found he had purchased
it from the dealer I had sold it to and the dealer had been jailed for car
theft. I was into restoring LaSalles by this time and even thought about buying
it back. He wanted $3,500 and I laughed at him. Again, that car was only a
memory.
A few years later, a local
collector, Arthur Rippey, sponsored and hosted an auction at his shop in south
Denver. The auction was well-advertised and he had five 1940 LaSalles to be
auctioned, so I had to attend.
To my surprise, there was the
armor-plated limo in nearly identical condition to when I was given $500 in
trade for it years earlier. It still had the burned area from our fire in
California. They had cataloged all of the history of the car and even obtained
additional documentation from Cadillac and authorities in California.
I was shocked when the car sold at
auction for nearly $45,000. I never knew who bought it and have never seen or
heard about it since. Phyllis is happier that way.
I often wish we had never sold our
beautiful original LaSalle in Japan and brought it back with us. We lost all
the big profit from selling it (and more). Did I ever tell you about our first
beautiful 1940 LaSalle? I would tell you all about it, but, that’s another
story for another time.
See ya next month.
— Walt