It isn’t the Dead Sea Scrolls, but this little piece of auto archeology made my day. I found a folded paper stuck on the backside of my old door panel. I was hoping for a build sheet as I carefully pealed the surviving pieces apart, but got this instead. From what I can read, it is an invoice for a tune up, oil change and repacking the front bearing for my car’s first owner, John DeSilva, of Hollywood, California. I have tried to research Mr. DeSilva’s ownership of the car, but have never found anything. The car was manufactured in November, 1956 but was first sold and titled as a '57. The invoice is dated December 4, 1958, so the car was maybe 18 to 20 months old, and had 19,739 miles on the odometer. Would I have loved to have driven it then! You knew the price of parts and labor was low, but this low? $6.00 for a tune up, and another $6.00 to pack the bearings. 12 1/2 quarts of oil for $6.25. Total bill, $28.10. Those were the days. Of course, the minimum wage was $1.00, so that could have been four days wages, but I think Mr DeSilva could afford it since he special ordered the car.
Great finding that sort of item relating to your car.
Frame that!..
that was a great mag for teens
…eBay!!!
Na, it’s part of the car’s history. The next owner will get it.
gonna go check under all mats now…before my wife helps me detail the car…
Three years after they had moved, a friend’s wife was looking for items to send to their church’s rummage sale. She found several boxes in the garage that had not been touched in the three years they had lived there. She opened the top box and found old kitchen appliances. She had the church pick the whole stack. In addition to two toasters, she sent 20 years of Playboy magazines to the Bardstown Baptist Church rummage sale.
…to have been a Protestant fly on the wall, when THAT box got unpacked.
I found the broken top of a tequila bottle in the driver’s side seat, between the foam and the leather. Installed with the pointy parts up.
Originally an Arizona car with two tone blue seats, it must have gone across the border to Mexico for re-upholstering in the red leather it came to me with. Undoubtedly a derogatory comment on gringos.
Rob
'51 120FHC
679080
That cap is prolly worth a few pesos!