2nd Car in my Life

This is the 1950 Ford Victoria of Roger
Petschauer, and I show it only to visually show
you what a '50 Ford Victoria looks like. This is
a really nice remodel job, but it is NOT mine.

A couple of postings back I introduced you to
my first car,... a 1946 Ford Coupe that I had for
about a month.. My brother promised me a 1950
Ford Victoria if I would get rid of the '46. The 1950
was a car that he took in trade for some work he
had done on another car. The '50 was frozen up
and the windows were all cracked. If I would do all
the physical work, my brother would supervise and
also build me a Chevrolet V-8 engine for it.
I was only 16 years old and I would have the
neatest car in the world! Every day after school I
would arrive at his speedshop and he would give me
another task to perform on the '50. Since I would not
be using any parts from the engine or transmission,
I was junking them as I took it apart. The interior
was dismantled and completely re-upholstered in
cinnamon red and white naugahyde. My brother had just bought
a brand new 1960 Pontiac Bonneville and it was
Coronado Red (a deep cinnamon metallic). I wanted
my '50 to be the same color. All of the chrome of the
bumpers, grille, window frames was re-plated to
like-new condition. We installed a Ford 9-inch rear
end with 4:11 gears. The '50 came home from the
paint shop and glistened under the neon lights. I
was on cloud nine every day. While I labored on the
'50, my brother was assembling a Chevrolet V-8
engine and a close-ratio 4-speed transmission. We
were into a 6-7 month effort on the '50 and it was all
coming together.
It was about January of 1960 and there was a big car
show at the grounds of the State Fair in Dallas. All of
the big names and factory proto-types would be there.
Tony Nancy of Los Angeles was in town and he owed my
brother a lot of favors. My brother asked me if I wanted
Nancy to pin stripe my '50? I almost slobbered on myself
as I envisioned the '50 with accent lines around the
headlights and maybe down the side of the car. We hooked
up the '50 to a tow-bar and connected it to the back of
my brothers pick-up. On the way to the fairgrounds the
'50 came off the trailer hitch, went across the medium,
and was struck by a City of Dallas dump truck loaded with
sand. Since the '50 did not have an engine or transmission
in it, it fold up like an accordion. I was heartbroken! We
managed to salvage the rear end, the windows from the
driver's seat back to the rear window, and the upholstery
from the rear panels and package tray. The remainder was
totaled. I had now had two (2) cars and had never driven
any of them a single yard.