My second car - 1957 Vauxhall

This is a photo of the second car I ever owned. I called it "The Green Grunt." Why I came up with that name escapes me at the moment but it was a cool car back in its day. My father picked it up somewhere in Columbus Georgia. He was a Ford mechanic forever and was always picking up cars that had a different flavor. It being a car from England it was probably pretty cheap back then. I was 16 years old when he purchased it. It was four doors, four cylinder, two one barrell carbs and four speed on the column but was a left hand drive made for the U.S.

It took a very tough car to stay under me back in those days. I took it to the lake one summer Sunday afternoon that was about 50 miles from home and the bolts in the radiator worked loose and the radiator got into the fan blade and you can imagine what damage that did. It ran hot and I stopped and look under the hood and discovered that the radiator was beyond any simple on the road repair. Since the bolts had came out and were lost I simply took the radiator out and threw it in the trunk. Then I proceeded the drive it home. Yes folks, the whole 50 miles. It stayed together until I got it home but as soon as I switched it off the engine locked up immediately as you can imagine.

My dad was not a happy camper to say the least but he did say that at least I made it home safely.

To correct the problem we had to take the engine apart. We wound up having to drive the pistons out with a huge hammer and big round bar. Luckily the engine was equipped with piston sleeves. We mic'd the bore and did some research. The sleeves and pistons were the same size as a four cylinder Ford 8N tractor. What luck. We put it back together and it ran even stronger than before.

What a great car and was diffent than anything that any of my friends had. I think of it a lot today and you never here anything about  these much at all anymore.

Tons of fun. Yall have a good day now---yah heah...