Yard Art

[plymouthcranbrook]

Some time last year one of the members posted about a Ford truck he was delivering to a place in Wisconsin.  I thought perhaps some here would like an update on it's current status. My youngest daughter's friend and her husband live a ways west of Milwaukee and were the folks who ended up with the truck.  They have it in their front yard out in the country and my daughter took a picture of it there and also enclosed a story that is supposedly about the truck. So hopefully here it is:

 

 

 

 

 This 1935 Ford Truck originally was on our family farm in Hastings, Pennsylvania.
 It was used to haul cases of whiskey which was made in a cave on the family property by my great-grandfather after prohibition ended.
 My great-grandpa was good at making whiskey. He developed a fan base in the region which meant that production went up and the truck was needed for transport.
 This particular truck and others like it were popular for transporting illegal whiskey during and after prohibition.
 Buying a brand new vehicle like this during the depression wasn’t such a good idea as it attracted too much attention. 
 My great-grandfather ended up going to jail. The entire family was part of the business but he took the fall and did the time.
My father took the truck when the farm left the family. At one point in the 1980s, the cab of the truck was vandalized with a molotov cocktail. 
The fire was contained mostly to the cab.

 

Looks like a nice truck. As far as I know they have no plans to restore it but who knows what the future will bring. I know her Husband had a 68 or 69 Chevy Impala Convertible several years ago and I believe he still has it.  

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by plymouthcranbrook (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

I like it. Not sure my neighbors would but who cares!  I dont know if it was a thread on here  or somewhere else I saw, but there was a guy with some crazy landscaping with old cars. He had a dump truck with the bed up, sitting on a pile of rocks and had turned the bed into a water fall. It was really cool.

[gossp]

Mother Nature gave my yard art an assist this week. 1915 Dodge Brothers. 

[zepher]

That Dodge Brothers has not moved in a very, very long time.

[Pfeil]

3 hours ago, TAKerry said:

I like it. Not sure my neighbors would but who cares!  I dont know if it was a thread on here  or somewhere else I saw, but there was a guy with some crazy landscaping with old cars. He had a dump truck with the bed up, sitting on a pile of rocks and had turned the bed into a water fall. It was really cool.

Now you know why HOA's came into being.

[auburnseeker]

7 minutes ago, Pfeil said:

Now you know why HOA's came into being.

Actually because some people just need to be controlling, seems more of the reason after talking to my sister that lives in an HOA.  Maybe the original idea was good,  but from what she's said it's strayed far beyond keeping things looking nice to micromanaging every aspect of someone else's home. 

[gossp]

27 minutes ago, zepher said:

That Dodge Brothers has not moved in a very, very long time.

Actually, I recently got it as a complete car but the body was so rusted that no tools were required to remove the front seat, only a couple bolts to get the rear tub off (the bottom of the rear tub is somewhat still on the frame in my garage) and then a half dozen bolts between front fenders and cowl. I carried the five pieces over and placed them around the tree by myself as not a one of them exceeds 100lbs. I would have loved to have saved the car, but many others will benefit from it coming apart, and a very nice 15 dodge can be bought for a lot less money than it would take to make this one a car again. 
 

[Pfeil]

44 minutes ago, auburnseeker said:

Actually because some people just need to be controlling, seems more of the reason after talking to my sister that lives in an HOA.  Maybe the original idea was good,  but from what she's said it's strayed far beyond keeping things looking nice to micromanaging every aspect of someone else's home. 

Yes, I know all about it and that's why I bought a house WITHOUT a HOA. Even so, I have a 1/2-acre lot and wanted to build a bigger shop, the city would only approve a 36'X48' and said that any bigger I would be exceeding my footprint! 

In regard to the picture, I still believe it's one of the reasons HOA's formed.

[8E45E]

5 hours ago, TAKerry said:

I dont know if it was a thread on here  or somewhere else I saw, but there was a guy with some crazy landscaping with old cars. He had a dump truck with the bed up, sitting on a pile of rocks and had turned the bed into a water fall. It was really cool.

This one?  https://forum.studebakerdriversclub.com/forum/your-studebaker-forum/general-studebaker-specific-discussion/23993-studebaker-waterfall

 

Craig

[plymouthcranbrook]

I wish I could remember who had posted the original thread. I want to said it was someone who transported cars as a career. 

[wayne sheldon]

I seem to recall it being "Freighter Jim" aka "TrulyVintage" on this site that posted the original tale a couple years ago (But I could be wrong?)

 

For over thirty years I earned my keep working as a communications systems contractor. We did everything from the dirty jobs to real cutting edge design and repair engineering. Our "bread and butter" work was mostly private cable television distribution systems where we built some of the best around, and fixed a lot of the worst systems built by others. Such private CATV systems were very often owned and operated by "communities" run by HOAs. After doing so much work for dozens of HOAs? I would NEVER want to live under one! Talk about cliquish politics? They can be fine for awhile, then turn nasty and bankrupt the association in a couple months.

There was a famous case outside San Francisco over thirty years ago (we were not in any way involved!), where the developers followed by the HOA messed it up so badly, that each and every homeowner became liable for costs and reparations more than what they had paid for their homes! About half the homeowners had to file for bankruptcy and lose their homes and all they had invested in the process. Like a snowball, the remaining owners had to make up for the remaining balances and lost another half again their original purchase cost. And another round of remaining owners lost everything. 

IF (Big IF!) one wants to live under an  HOA? Have a very good attorney specializing in such things very carefully read the contracts! Be SURE as a homeowner that you are protected by a solid limited liability contract. Many HOAs do not protect the homeowners because major developing financing wants SOMEONE to be ultimately responsible if things go bad.

Another loophole to remember. The HOA legally owns all the common properties. This includes the streets, the clubhouse, and might even include the inside of your unit's walls (a factor WE were well aware of because the cables we often had to repair were inside those walls the homeowner did not own!). (Oh the stories I could tell!) If the HOA loses that ownership in a lawsuit, the new owner can raise the fees for you using their road to get to your home as high as they want to!

 

Usually, homes under an HOA work out okay. But only rarely do they work out nicely for everybody.

 

 

Sorry for the continued drift! Enough of that (albeit important) nonsense.

How about some more good photos of antique automobile related yard-art!