Dickinson College Homepage Dickinson Magazine This issue of the Dickinson Magazine was mailed on Friday, July 29, 2005
From This Issue
Volume 83 • Number 1
Summer 2005

Hot Wheels: Model-A Memories
By F. Scott Greenfield ’64
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On Christmas morning 1957, the presents had been exchanged and opened. My father asked my mother to ride with him to his business in town (highly unusual) while I watched my younger brother and sister. When my parents returned up the driveway, there was not only the family Buick but an amazing, noisy sight. Rumbling in the drive with a huge red ribbon over the hood was the best Christmas present ever, a shiny, black Model A Tudor sedan that my father had bartered for with scrap metal and cash. The wonderful presents under the beautiful tree and the sumptuous Christmas dinner faded in importance as I took family, friends and neighbors on introductory excursions.

I drove that wonderful machine through the last of my teenage years. In high school I began restoring it, learning about auto repair from my grandfather. The old “A” and I did lots of scary things together.

In 1962, I left Dickinson for the Navy, and the car was sold. Ten years later, I was on a sales trip driving Route 30 through Fraser, Pa., when I saw my car for sale. I made the error of telling the seller that this had been my car, and he promptly quoted me $950, a price at which I balked. I checked with my family to see if that was an inflated price. They responded that they had been quoted $1,200. My brother finally found the owner who had consigned the car, and I bought her back for $695, only to sell her again 10 years later for $2,500.

I miss that old girl and may look for her again.
F. Scott Greenfield ’64
West Grove, Pa.

 

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