By Mark van de Kamp

 

Ron Long was 17 years old, tan and tall, assisting aircraft mechanics at the Long Beach Airport one summer day in 1960 when he saw it. The machine, painted black with a red pinstripe along its length, made quite an impression on him as its driver turned in front of the workshop.

“It caught my eye,” he recalled, “and my bank account. I wanted it. My parents didn’t say no.”

Like any teenage boy, he hungered for a car and considered the $600 investment worthwhile. He had wheels! But while many of his high school classmates were driving 1955 Chevys and hot rods, Long was the new owner of a 1930 Model A Deluxe four-door sedan.

“I drove it to Milliken High School every day,” he said. “We had a lot of fun. It ran great. It was three-quarters of a mile to school through the neighborhood.”

After attending a couple of Model A car shows, Long was inspired to restore the 30-year-old car, whose former owner had rebuilt only the small engine.

“I started taking it apart, and I stored it in a garage where we lived,” he said. “My grandfather was a woodworker who did very precise work for Brunswick. Dad was an aircraft mechanic in the Navy. I’ve always been very good with my hands.”
The hobby he started that summer of 1960 stuck. In time, other cars came and went, but he never parted with the Model A through high school, college, marriage or his career.

“I’m blessed with wonderful understanding from my wife of 40 years,” he says.

It wasn’t until 2003 that he finally finished restoring his treasured 40-horsepower automobile.

  


2005 Winter Home Page
Click Here

“You could say the car was on the back burner,” he said. “There were other priorities.”

Though he spent money on little things to keep the car usable, it sat in the garage most of the time. He focused on earning his bachelor of science in
zoology from Long Beach State University and married Cindy. It was time to get a job.

“One of her sorority sisters had a mother from Solvang. She’d heard about a vacancy because the science teacher was retiring.”

Two interviews later, Long was the new science guy at Solvang School. He began in September 1967. There was an upper and a lower campus, as there are now, and some of the more than 200 students even spoke Danish. They got a kick out of Long’s 1949 Studebaker pickup truck, but he kept the Model A at home.

“We brought the car here on a trailer and it went in one half of the garage in Buellton. I’d get enough money to get the bumpers chromed, do some work on the upholstery, and I had the wood graining done for the window frames.”

Teaching duties grew and soon he was responsible for multiple seventh and eighth grade science classes. Beyond that, he was busy as the swine project leader for the Solvang 4-H Club and was active in the First Baptist Church. The first of their three children was born in 1969.

Long finally resumed serious restoration work on the Model A in early 1998. He happened to read a note about Floyd Keinath seeking to create a local club. He soon became the third charter member of the Santa Ynez Valley Model A Club. Like-minded friends visited his garage and got their hands dirty.

“I started with the chassis. I took all the parts off, all the panels, the engine, transmission, everything,” he said, while opening an old folder with dog-eared papers. “I still had my notes from high school, when I’d taken off all the parts and traced each bolt and washer on ruled paper so I knew what size they were and how many of each there were.”

Fortunately, the four-cylinder vehicle was in excellent shape. The California weather and roads had spared the body from rust and there were only a few dings in the stamped metal panels.

After sandblasting the 68-year-old metal chassis, he was relieved to find its measurements true. The wooden frame was rotten, however, so he invested in a precut wooden frame kit of solid oak knot-free. Piece by piece, he carefully built the frame and positioned the metal body to fit. The car’s front and rear end were rebuilt, and the radiator’s stainless steel polished. He gave the Model A a two-tone paint job: copra drab on the lower body, chicle drab on the upper, and a straw stripe.

“It took me five years to really do it right,” Long said, noting the project culminated in 2003, the same year he retired. “I got a lot of help from the guys in the club. They’re very supportive.”

Long, 63, and his wife, drive in three to four tours per year and enter local parades with the 37 club members and their autos. The Model A’s
distinctive sound always draws attention—and smiles.
“People appreciate Model A’s,” he considered. “They appreciate any car that’s been restored.”


Copyright 2005, Inside Santa Ynez Valley Magazine, All Rights Reserved