Many years ago, Emery and his life-long friend, Joe Kane fell in love with old cars --- and by old cars I mean cars from the late 1920's through the early 1940's. In fact Emery’s dream was to one day purchase and restore a 1941 Ford. At one point in their long friendship, they worked together restoring a more modern car, a Mustang for Joe’s daughter, Kirsten, as a surprise for her 16th birthday.
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| Emery and car buddy, Joe Kane |
Fast forward to a few years ago when Emery, attending a car show in Tahoe, with his wife, Nancy, fell in love with a 1929 Ford which Emery thought needed a lot of TLC. Right on the spot, he snapped up this gem and brought it to their home in Novato. Its name then was Rodney.
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| 1929 Model A Ford sedan as purchased by Emery and Nancy. |
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| Rear view of 1929 Model A Ford sedan. |
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| Engine "before." |
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| Dashboard/interior "before." |
So the great thing about living in Novato, in addition to it being, well, Novato, is that it’s also a hotbed of folks just like Emery who love to work on cars and, even better, there are a lot of small businesses in the area who help hobbyist car restorers with everything from parts to manual labor.
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| Emery and Max, mechanic. |
Emery knew he’d need help working on this classic car. His goal was not to do an authentic restoration, but rather convert it into a Street Rod. What that entails is beyond what most ordinary mortals would ever want to tackle, because basically every part was replaced. Some were rebuilt but most had to be specially made for this project.
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| Piece by piece, everything is removed. |
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| Emery's frame-off restoration begins! |
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| The body gets primed. |
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| Rebuilding begins and inspection happens at every stage. |
Four years later, as you might guess, the end result is nothing less than magnificent --- a real beauty complete with power windows, air conditioning, a functioning radio and wait --- a GPS!
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| Emery's car being delivered to their home. |
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| Joe and Emery take old "Rodney," now known as "Boxcar 29," out for a spin! |
The car’s new name is for Emery’s father, also named Emery who as a young single man in the 20’s and 30’s, rode the railroad cars and got the nickname Boxcar. 29 because it is a 1929 Model A Ford sedan.
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| Dashboard "after." |
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| Interior "after." |
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| Engine 'after." |
So all of this would be just a normal fun tale of a guy and his car, were it not for something unplanned that cropped up during this journey. Emery was diagnosed with Atypical Parkinson’s. And it became so aggressive in the past few years that it affected not only his mobility, but his speech. So imagine you are a detail person, a tinkerer, you’ve built your own home and have an engineering mind and a vision for a complete rework of an old car. Now imagine that not only are you battling a crippling disease with an unknown future and can no longer do any of the work on your pride and joy, but you also need to communicate your desires to other mechanics who have lives and full-time other jobs, fitting this in during their spare time. Yeah, wow.
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| Emery and Nancy enjoying "Boxcar 29!" |
The good news is that despite a few years filled with progress, yes, but also immeasurable challenges and frustrations, Emery (with the help of his amazing wife, Nancy), have seen his dream come true. Boxcar 29 was in his first car show in August, 2014 – Novato’s Nostalgia Days. Emery and Nancy hope to spend next year entering local car shows and enjoying sharing the fruit of their vision, struggles and ultimate triumph. If you happen to go to one of these shows, be sure to look for them and say “hi!” And let me tell you that although you may have to listen closely to hear everything Emery says, it will be well worth it. This 78 year young gentleman, with the mind and the twinkle in his eye of a man half his age, will have many a wonderful story to share with you. Now that’s inspiration! Thanks, Emery and Nancy!
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| Nancy and Emery, 2014. |
