1921 Franklin- gave original owners a ride!

[RansomEli]

Believe it or not, I dug up the original owners of my 1921 Franklin 9B touring and gave them a ride in the car.

They were speechless.

[Steve Braverman]

I was wondering where this post was going when I saw the title. That's great! :eek:

[keiser31]

I bet they were as happy as little ghouls.

[Dandy Dave]

Ohhh... Where is that Herman Munster when you need him???....

Here is the rundown on the Munster cars. The Munsters :cool: Dandy Dave!

Edited October 31, 2009 by Dandy Dave (see edit history)

[Guest sasmith4th]

I was wondering if you do know the pedigree of this car? Where is it located now? I am not positive it is the same car, but it sure looks it.

My Mom bought my Dad this Car, in St Albans Vermont, in 1956, for $75.00 when he had an Ulcer and had to stay home. He completely stripped it, and restored it, We took it on vacation a few times, and drove it in many parades. He sold it in 1967, to a former employee of The Franklin Motor Car Co. who lived in Washington DC at the time.

Edited August 1, 2011 by sasmith4th (see edit history)

[RansomEli]

Wow. I'll have to check with the former owner to see it this could be the same car. The history has been traced back to the late 60's. Everything earlier is unknown. Check back in a few days.

Wouldn't that be something....

[Guest sasmith4th]

That would be amazing

[RansomEli]

By gosh, that's my car! Or your father's. Whatever. It's the same car. The brass windshield, horn, custom door handles and running board moldings are just too unique.

This is truly amazing.

I am the current owner of the the car. It is now residing in Austin, TX, having moved from San Diego.

I bought the car from a party in Connecticut. He bought if from someone in Norfolk, VA, who got it from the person in Washington DC.

Now, I can add an additional owner, your father. I can now trace back over 50 years of ownership.

You can be proud of your father's restoration. The car is driven on a regular basis through the back roads of the Texas Hill Country. It's also a frequent participant in the local parades. We were quite a hit at the last Oatmeal Festival parade (in Bertram TX).

Did your father have a name for the car? We can't come up with a good nickname.

I'd love to obtain copies of any pictures you have. It would be quite a story to tell. I'd like to keep in touch. Please contact me at JamesRunde@yahoo.com. I'd really like to talk with you on the phone.

P.S. About the 1904ish Franklin next to my(?) car -- what's the story behind that one? Can I claim dibs on that, too? After all, we are almost family.

[Guest Paul Christ]

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That is awesome! Stories like that make this forum an incredible place to be!

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[Steve Braverman]

When this car resided in CT, it attended a small Franklin meet in my backyard on Long Island. It was somewhere in the early 1990s.

[Guest Charlie Smith]

My father, Sanford A. Smith (3), bought this 1921 Franklin from the people I took to be the original owners. I believe their name was Fuller, and the wife said years later that they took their honeymoon in the car. I was 4 in 1956, and my family was on vacation, during which we visited my father's Aunt and Uncle for dinner. We later went across the street to the Fuller's house where my brother Tom and I swam in Saint Alban's Bay (VT). Afterward, my Dad brought me to the Fuller's garage where I saw the Franklin for the first time. I could see only the back of it, as I remember that the garage was small and packed with other things as well. Dad said that he had bought the car. I could not imagine that a car could be so large, or later, not to have windows. The Franklin came to mean a very great deal to me for the years that we owned it, and all came back vividly as my brother (Sanford A. Smith 4), sent me recent pictures of it.

Within a few days of the sale, my father brought me to a garage in Saint Albans where he would spend a good part of the day working on it, I presume now to make it roadworthy. He put me into the car with our bag lunches that my mother made for us, and I rode up the lift to stay for what may have been hours while he worked underneath. Some weeks later, Dad and a friend of his went back to Vermont to bring the car to our house in Pittsfield, MA. He posed in the car in our Aunt & Uncle's driveway for the picture that my brother has posted before starting the drive. From that Fall of 1956 until 1960 when he reassembled the Franklin again, it sat in pieces in boxes in our cellar.

The car as originally built was as you see it in that first picture. I remember the green color as textured, but I believe that the paint had cracked with age by that time. The roof was a dark, waterproof covering. As the car was rebuilt, my father made changes to it, so that it was not a faithful restoration. That made no difference to any of us, but I suppose that, for a purist, it may have been an unforgiveable sin. Nevertheless, my father wanted to make it into something of a hotrod, hence the car became a highly-polished black with red pinstripes, done by a local high-school/college aged boy (Ned Callan). Dad added the extra brass trim solely for looks. He added the train whistle because it seemed like a good idea. He used it a lot.

My brother and I are reconstructing why my father must have felt a connection to the Franklin. Our Great Great Grandfather served in the Union Army at Gettysburg during Pickett's Charge; after the war, he returned to Vermont where he became the richest man in the state for a period. Towards the end of his life, he corresponded with the H. H. Franklin Co. to establish a dealership. That never happened, and he died nearly exactly 100 years ago in early February. However, his son and my namesake, Charles A. Smith (1) became an engineer for the Franklin Co., and held a patent for starting cars electrically. He was famously known for being a master craftsman in wood, and for designing and building clocks with wooden works. Because of him my father told me, the Franklin had the unusual wooden chassis. I can't swear to this, but there was a large wooden hexagonal wrench used for loosening and tightening the hub nuts.

In others of the pictures, you see the car in various states of its restoration. My father had other experts paint the body, and plate the hardware, etc.. The Franklin sign on the grill was his own free-hand script, and the suspended wind-deflectors were his design as well. He was an engineer at the Pittsfield GE, and built or rebuilt parts there as well as in his cellar workshop (he claimed at the time that he owned $40,000 worth of tools when a $5,000 yearly income supported a wife and several boys). In one of the pictures, the Franklin sits next to a 3/4 size replica of a 1903 Premier, which was his next project after the restoration. Whenever he would decide to take either car out for a drive, all the neighborhood kids would show up. They would chase the cars down the street as far as possible before returning home. Some lucky kids kids would be asked to come with us, and we could fit 4, 5, or 6 in the back seat area.

Dad drove both cars in several parades in Pittsfield during the remaining 7 years that we owned the car. One of the pictures shows one of them. The entire family was part of that, as if wild horses could keep us out of it. Dad always drove because he had the strength to do so. I always sat next to him. My mother sat in back with our middle brother, now dead, and my brother Sanford was first in a baby basket in the back seat, before being able to sit upright. My Mother bought us all snap-brim caps, and herself a broad-brim tie-down bonnet so that we would look like we belonged to the period. If Dad thought that things were too tame on the parade route, he would pull the whistle full-out, and the enormous sound would echo off all the buildings.

From the beginning, Dad said that the Franklin was to be 'mine'. In the Fall of 1967, I began High School, and I needed braces for my teeth. My father decided to sell the Franklin in order to pay the doctor. During this period, he had discovered the magic of yard-sales. He found that we owned a lot of saleable stuff, it wasn't nailed down, and that hordes of people wanted it. That summer, I would look out the window to see furniture, or Nazi war memorabilia going down our driveway under someone's arm, and my dad counting a small wad of cash on the other end. He placed an ad in Harrah's magazine, and the man from Washington DC responded. He came to our house to buy the car, and my parents put me out of my bed to accommodate him. As I remember, I slept in my brothers' room in a sleeping bag on the floor, muttering the odd oath.

This man had also been an engineer for the Franklin Co.. and paid $2,500 for the Franklin. One thing that my father never figured out in rebuilding the car was how to synchronize the gears; for the 11 years that we owned the car, he was unable to shift into 4th gear without feeling for it. That night, this engineer borrowed a screwdriver, made a small adjustment, then drove away quietly to Washington DC the next day. That next year were the race riots, and all of us were sickened to think that the Franklin could have been destroyed easily. We had no way to know. I was greatly overjoyed yesterday to see that my/our old friend is indeed well!

[Larry Schramm]

Great story. What an emotional tale.

[Guest Charlie Smith]

By courtesy of my brother, I found more pictures of the 1921 Franklin while my father was restoring it about 1956-1957. In the first two pictures, he has various recognizeable pieces in boxes. He built this corner workbench, which became his favorite place to be, into one quarter of our cellar, though three-quarters of it were devoted to his machinery and wood-storage. We kids and my mother shared the last quarter with a washer and drier. In these particular pictures he is wearing a gift-shirt from a mechanic-friend from Pittsfield's Plymouth-Dodge-DeSoto dealership. During those years, he would polish parts while thinking of what next to do; time spent was never an issue.

Picture 3 shows the car stripped and on blocks in our garage, I believe this about 1960 as it neared completion. Picture 4 shows it under a sheet; Dad was particular about leaving it unattended for long times. We kids stored our bikes next to it and were specifically instructed not to ride them directly in, but to get off, walk them in slowly while shielding the car with our bodies. No price was too high.

Picture 5 shows the car almost ready about 1960, without the folding canvas roof. Constructing this was one part that Dad could not do well, and he had to have someone with a large sewing machine step in. Later by a year or two, we returned to Cedar Beach Vermont to show the results to the original owners and our family and friends. During the vacation, Dad left the car out of the garage for a short time, and a bird dropped on the roof in the middle of the front edge near the windshield. He swore great vengeance on the bird. He had made a plastic cover for driving in the rain. It went on immediately and stayed there.

Pictures 6 through 8 show the car when we showed it off to his college roommate and his family. Notice that the car has not yet been striped. I am the tallest boy sitting next to my younger brother Tom, and Sue and Dick Bailey. My mother always took the pictures. Dad, though brilliant in his own way, could never quite handle the complexities of the Kodak, especially the viewfinder.

[Marty Roth]

Charlie,

Those are some wonderful recollections. I have really enjoyed your recounting of the history of your family with the Franklin.

I wish I had my 1917 Franklin 9-A Touring back today.

Regards,

[Guest bofusmosby]

Great story just loaded with history!

[Guest Charlie Smith]

That particular car meant a lot to all of us in our family. But there are also old friends from my home town who took rides, or took pictures, or just chased the car down the street on foot or bicycle, and are now coming to this site to take another look 50 years later. Personally, I have been elated to see the car; it was supposed to have been 'mine' when my father thought I would be ready. Our family went through a lot of upset and upheaval beginning at about that time. The time when we owned the car were our (and definitely my) 'good old days'. I am very happy that you all have enjoyed my stories; it has been a true pleasure to think back to those times.

[Guest sasmith4th]

By courtesy of my brother, I found more pictures of the 1921 Franklin while my father was restoring it about 1956-1957. In the first two pictures, he has various recognizeable pieces in boxes. He built this corner workbench, which became his favorite place to be, into one quarter of our cellar, though three-quarters of it were devoted to his machinery and wood-storage. We kids and my mother shared the last quarter with a washer and drier. In these particular pictures he is wearing a gift-shirt from a mechanic-friend from Pittsfield's Plymouth-Dodge-DeSoto dealership. During those years, he would polish parts while thinking of what next to do; time spent was never an issue.

Picture 3 shows the car stripped and on blocks in our garage, I believe this about 1960 as it neared completion. Picture 4 shows it under a sheet; Dad was particular about leaving it unattended for long times. We kids stored our bikes next to it and were specifically instructed not to ride them directly in, but to get off, walk them in slowly while shielding the car with our bodies. No price was too high.

Picture 5 shows the car almost ready about 1960, without the folding canvas roof. Constructing this was one part that Dad could not do well, and he had to have someone with a large sewing machine step in. Later by a year or two, we returned to Cedar Beach Vermont to show the results to the original owners and our family and friends. During the vacation, Dad left the car out of the garage for a short time, and a bird dropped on the roof in the middle of the front edge near the windshield. He swore great vengeance on the bird. He had made a plastic cover for driving in the rain. It went on immediately and stayed there.

Pictures 6 through 8 show the car when we showed it off to his college roommate and his family. Notice that the car has not yet been striped. I am the tallest boy sitting next to my younger brother Tom, and Sue and Dick Bailey. My mother always took the pictures. Dad, though brilliant in his own way, could never quite handle the complexities of the Kodak, especially the viewfinder.

I found another loose photo of the car in the bottom of a box, wanted to include it. SAS IV

Edited August 1, 2011 by sasmith4th (see edit history)

[BMW1939]

Wow!

I believe the chap from Washington, DC, who bought the car was the late William Mackey. My family knew him well. Bill began working for Franklin during the 1920s and continued with them until the company closed. He lived in the Capitol Hill section of the city where the interior of city blocks are crisscrossed with alleys and filled with garages, and Bill must have owned or rented most of the garages in his block. They were packed with Franklin automobiles and Franklin parts. Because my grandmother's backyard faced his backyard, I had many wonderful opportunities to visit Bill and his cars--including this one. As I recall, this car was sold to another local AACA member before it left the area.

It's Bill I have to thank for introducing me to the AACA nearly 50 years ago and I'm sure glad he did!

[Guest Foggy norm]

Wonderful recollection's, still lingering question...was there a nickname for the car? Happy you shared that with us.

[Bleach]

An absolutely wonderful story and history of the Franklin.

Ohhh... Where is that Herman Munster when you need him???....

Here is the rundown on the Munster cars. The Munsters :cool: Dandy Dave!

Just a noob chiming in. There was one car that was missed on that list. It was the Munster's 1937 Cadillac V12 limo that was used in a few episodes before the Munster's Koach was built. It still exists and is in excellent condition.

Edited August 2, 2011 by Bleach (see edit history)