Al Barany

Kings of the Road museum I have visited the Kings of the Road museum a couple of times in the late 1950s. The only two cars that I actually remember is a 1910 Cadillac Town Car and a mid ‘30s Packard sedan. The Cadillac really locked on to me, it was so tall you could almost stand up in it and walk around. The Packard had an electrical circuit board on front of the firewall on the drivers side which had fuses and switches that played a variety of tunes thru different horns. I saw this Packard at a car show, in operating condition about 35 years ago. Sometime in early 1960 my friend Dave and I (both avid old car nuts, both 18 years old) were told that the museum had closed down and a lot of old stuff was being thrown away. We went to the museum in my mom’s ‘47 Studebaker Champion and sure enough the place was closed. We walked around the building and found the back door was not locked. Went inside and nothing was there except for a few posters on the wall. There was a dusty, dirty, dim, room near the rear of the building that had piles of dirty, dried out old cardboard boxes and Black Widow spiders everywhere. Don’t know what the spiders found to eat in there but they appeared to be quite healthy. The boxes contained fuel pumps, magnetos and many other different unidentifiable mechanical devices. We just couldn’t let this stuff be thrown in the trash. Just couldn’t. We loaded up the trunk of the Studebaker until the trunk lid would barely close. The Studebaker wouldn’t move. The clutch slipped badly. (The rear main oil seal on the engine leaked oil onto the clutch and had to be replaced yearly). With Dave pushing and rocking the car back and forth (the ground was all soft sand) we got the car out and went home with our “saved” treasures. When we got home our church Pastor was visiting and he and dad helped Dave and I unload the trunk. Just before we left the museum for home we went behind an adjacent building and some old cars in fair to poor condition were parked outside. One was an early 1930s Rolls Royce convertible or roadster with the spare tires mounted in front of the rear wheels (interesting!!) in a concealed compartment. There was a 1934 Packard V12 Phaeton and a 1936? Packard convertible. There was a ‘37? Tatra which looked like a giant VW bug. (Incidently, Tatra, made in Czechoslovakia, sued VW in the late 1930s for copying their body and rear engine design. Adolph Hitler told Tatra to shut up. They did. In the 1960s VW was sued again for patent infringement. Look up Tatra sues VW, it's an interesting read.) A week or so later we decided to go back to the museum and “save” some more stuff. I made up a list of items we should take with us: gloves (because of the spiders and dirt), tow chain (because the clutch still slipped), jumper cables (because the battery didn’t always hold a charge), flashlight (because the room was poorly illuminated), some basic tools (just in case the Studebaker needed help). On July 4th (holiday, didn’t have to go to work) we went back to the museum. The two Packards and Rolls Royce were gone and someone took a bulldozer and shaved the body off the Tatra leaving only the frame, axles and engine. We went inside the back door again. Loaded up the car trunk again. Inside the building there was a beautiful 1914? American LaFrance fire engine sitting there. The hood was warm as apparently it was used in a local 4th of July parade then brought in here and parked. Well, I climbed up onto the drivers seat to see what it was like to sit on an old fire engine. Suddenly, the adjacent garage door rolled up and the Cucamonga police department was standing there!!! Dave and I went to jail, charged with burglary, trespassing, unauthorized removal of mechanical devices and attempted Grand Theft Fire Engine. The police thought we were professional burglars and car thieves because of the above list that I made. In jail, we couldn’t see the fire works but we could see the flashes and hear the echoes off the walls. The police called my parents who were at a big party at DeWald Dance studio in Alhambra, CA. The police recommended that we spend the night in jail to reflect on what we had done and what our future might be. Our parents agreed. The following day we went to court. I don’t remember how we pleaded but we were given a one year suspended sentence (because neither Dave nor I had any police record and the fire engine was re-classified as “assembled junk”) but we had to return all of the “saved” mechanical devices, visit the court once a month and violate no law for a year. We completed that with no problem so the judge had our police record expunged. The judge suggested that I eliminate Dave as a friend but we have been life long friends and haven’t “saved” any further car parts from the trash. I have been told that not too long after this incident that the city ordered the Kings of the Road building to be demolished as they are tired of the numerous problems being associated with it. That location is now a shopping center. Sometime in the 1970s I saw the Rolls Royce parked on the east side of a Standard gas station on the north side of Interstate 10 in Arizona. It looked like it might have been operational. I think about that Cadillac every so often and wonder where it is today. Al B