Recently I was working to contact John Nens of Ford Motor Company to discuss licensing options for my automotive artwork which contained Ford Cars. As I was preparing to contact Mr. Nens I began to think back about cars that had been in my family growing up and my first two cars and realized I had Ford fever in my background.
Our family's first car in my memory was a 1956 Ford Ranch Wagon. Living in Seattle, with relatives living in California and Minnesota, we spent a lot of summers taking family road trips to visit our relatives. Cheap vacations! Pay for the gas and live at the relatives once you arrive.
The most unique thing about this car was the paint job. My father was a car mechanic and painter and when the old metal flake paint jobs were first coming out, guess what my dad's first trial job was? You guessed it, the Copper Ranch Wagon soon was the first car on the street to have a gold metal flake hood.
Our family's first car in my memory was a 1956 Ford Ranch Wagon. Living in Seattle, with relatives living in California and Minnesota, we spent a lot of summers taking family road trips to visit our relatives. Cheap vacations! Pay for the gas and live at the relatives once you arrive.
The most unique thing about this car was the paint job. My father was a car mechanic and painter and when the old metal flake paint jobs were first coming out, guess what my dad's first trial job was? You guessed it, the Copper Ranch Wagon soon was the first car on the street to have a gold metal flake hood.
Now that was pretty impressive in those days and of course became good advertising for the paint jobs my dad did on the side.
Here's a couple pictures of the car and me as a youngster in 1961:
