Carl Rogers’ pride and joy - a 1935 Model 48 Ford - was on full display during Hot July Nights last weekend.
The car is unique because its back doors open opposite the front, commonly known as suicide doors. It’s hard to find cars like that today, Rogers said, especially ones with the original factory doors.
“It’s those suicide doors in the back, they don’t make them like that anymore,” Rogers, 63, said. “I just think of Bonnie and Clyde hanging out the back with a machine gun.”
The Model 48 Ford was among hundreds of vehicles on show at Hot July Nights, which drew a huge crowd to Birch Avenue for the event. The street was packed Sunday during the Show and Shine.
Rogers, a new member of the 100 Mile House Cruzers Car Club, bought the Model 48 for $3,000 when he was 16. Over the past five decades, when he wasn’t building roads, he customized and restored almost every inch of the vehicle by hand. He repainted the car a glossy red, put in a new backseat, found an original emblem for the hood and replaced its engine with one from a 1971 Corvette Stingray to give it more horsepower.
Rogers said it’s important to keep the chassis’ original steel because people appreciate it and you don’t have to “burn your tires” to impress them.
He intends to keep the car for life.
“It’s not for sale,” he laughed. “You can’t replace it and you can’t find one like it, it’s a one-of-a-kind thing you don’t find very often in life.”
Rogers, who moved up from Langley to 100 Mile House after suffering a heart attack, said he was excited that 100 Mile House had a vintage car club.
“I’m very impressed with all the good-looking vehicles here, they must have been hiding them too.”
patrick.davies@100milefreepress.net
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