Paul's Love of Cars

Paul's Story

Paul grew up two blocks from the local car dealership.  He lived in the times of black and white televisions.  Where women wore dresses and heels every day and men always wore hats.

Every morning Paul would ride his red Schwinn bicycle to school and pass by the chain link fence outside the dealership, stopping to admire all the cars that were lined up row after row, Studebaker's, Packard's, all post-war cars.

Paul would frequently get detention after school for being caught drawing sketches of cars on his notebooks or in the margins of his papers.

Paul's dad was amazing and he understood his son's obsession with cars.  To appease Paul, his father would point to passing cars and say "Paul, what kind of car is that?"  This was Paul's favorite game!  More than playing marbles or jacks, "what car is that' was HIS game.

His dad would take him to auto shows that would come to town.  When Christmas rolled around, Paul had just turned 10.  His gift from his dad was a Sears Craftsman Tool Set.

When Paul turned 13, he got his first ride in a 1958 Lincoln Continental.  It belonged to a friend of his dads who actually understood the fact that Paul was obsessed with cars.  He even let him drive it up and down a few of the back roads of Detroit.

Paul said there were rumors that this car belonged to a member of the Detroit Mafia, but he didn't care who it belonged to.  He got to DRIVE a car at 13 years old!

When Paul went off to college, he and his room mates got the opportunity of a lifetime to buy a 1956 Packard Caribbean for $600.  They jumped at the chance and slowly restored it through their four years of college.

 Senior year, they drove to the Upper Peninsula to visit a friend from high school.  It was the dead of winter and the friend was out on a lake ice fishing.  I guess you can blame the case of Schlitz malt liquor (liquid courage) for the reason Paul's friend drove the 3500 lb. car out onto the ice

As you have probably already deduced, the ice buckled under the weight of the Packard and their beautiful 56 Packard sunk to the bottom of the lake, brown and tan beer cans began to pop up to the surface among the broken ice.  Luckily for Paul and his inebriated friends, no one was injured.

Paul's next car was supposed to be a Vette, but he ended up with a 1963 Triumph Spitfire...but we'll save that story for another blog!