Quote:
Originally Posted by BrianCT
Mike WV have you seen these photos? Johnson City , Texas . Near where my wife grew up.
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I've seen them and the car. In the early 1980's, my Dad drove out to the LBJ Ranch at the request of Lady Bird Johnson to inspect the car for the purpose of giving her an estimate on restoring it.
It was an interesting car with a bar in the back seat, lots of horns, and lots of clearance lights bolted to the front fenders, like a Cuban or South American taxi. It also had folding windshield stanchions that were an accessory item for '33-'34, but I'm not sure if these were those or if they were homemade. You can see them in the pictures.
Dad remembers being confronted by a few really excited secret service agents when he drove in the gate, apparently Lady Bird had forgot to tell them Dad was coming that day.
Shortly after his trip, he received a letter from her, signed and on her letterhead, thanking him for his estimate and informing him that she could not afford to restore the car at that time. He's got the letter framed in his office. I guess she must have finally come into some money, because it looks like it has at least a coat of fresh paint, or maybe our tax dollars paid for it when the Ranch was turned over the Park Service. I know he couldn't have not got the job due to the estimate being too high, because he told me that every car he ever did from a bid, was way underbid!
Later on, Dad was involved in the restoration of a 1964 Lincoln 4 door convertible, formerly owned by LBJ, but in the possession of an Austin investor. The story was that LBJ used to like hunting on the Ranch out of his vehicles and, if the top happened to be up when he found some worthy prey, he would take his knife out and cut a hole in the top so he could stand up and shoot from the back seat, no doubt to impress visitors and foreign dignitaries.
Here are some scans of some polaroids that Dad took when he was out there. That's his orange 1980's Good Times Van in the background of the second picture.
