Automatic $3 off on any hat in the store (here), but you only have 2 days left! Just wanted to bring this up one last time, now let’s move on.

I have a lot to appreciate about this show. It’s heavily influenced who I am today when it comes to cars I’m passionate about, and what I’m creating here at Hard Luck Media Co.

I wanted to tell you a little bit about why this year was so special to me. Driving my Model A onto these show grounds meant a few different things: It was the car’s first time out in public in maybe 50 years, my first time showing the car at all, and getting to share pieces of the story with real people was the real treat.

This car holds a lot of history in my family and in my own life growing up. Walking by, you may not think twice about it, but with a closer look, the car lets you know there are a few stories to be told. I’ll give you the cliff notes:

It was my Dad’s first car at age 12. My Grandpa talked him out of buying a golf cart and into buying this, a ‘28 Model A Tudor Sedan. He and Dad pulled it out of a field in McAllen, Texas around 1970. It had chickens living in it and bullet holes in the side. They pulled it apart and fixed it up in the back yard. They took it in parades and had fun tooling it around. When the family moved back to the Midwest, it came with them. He kept it. He kept a lot of things…

Most of my early life it was tucked in a corner or under a tarp, but after I asked about it a thousand times, we got it out and running when I was about 13. Talk about an impressionable age. I learned how to drive a manual on this car at 14 or 15; a story I still love to tell.

Dad passed away in 2017, but before he died we talked about and agreed on what to do with the A. I’m working toward that end by making it something that’s ready to go when I am, and something to be actually driven. I’ll be keeping it a 1940s style mild hop up, and all the work my Dad and Grandpa did will be preserved and unchanged as much as is practical.

I’m keeping a small part of my Dad’s legacy alive while building on my own. I have a lot to appreciate about this car, and it’s more than just an old car to me. Most of these cars mean more than the sum of their parts to us, don’t they?

Thanks for reading!

Jon

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