Ford Family of Fine Cars in the Forties

Panama City is defined in my heart by how it was when I was a boy. When I was a boy, Harrison Avenue ended at the Tally Ho and 15th Street was unpaved ruts out in the boonies. When I was a boy, you could get stuck in the sandy mess that was 11th Street. When I was a boy, West Beach Drive in front of my house was two ruts running through the lower part of the front yard, not only no pavement, not even a road yet, just the two light ruts through the Bermuda grass. My father’s older sisters remembered the nineteen-teens, before even the ruts, that there was no road, but a boardwalk along Bayview Avenue (as it was named then), starting east of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, running west in front of the houses, down and round into St. Andrews and north as far as I’m not sure where.

When I was a boy, that long stretched out now pink building, southeast corner Harrison Avenue and Fourth Street, was Cook Ford, the Ford dealership. Seems to me the service entry on the back side of the building had this sign on it. 

My freshman year at Bay High there was a “student work day” with the merchants down town paying the school a small donation for a student to come work for a day. My assignment was to Cook Ford, and taking it very seriously, my expectation was to be put to work in the showroom as a salesman! Or at least trained for that! But they had forgotten all about it and, surprised when I walked in that morning, gave me a stack of leaflets to hand out to people as they walked by on the sidewalk. My introduction to the car business was a career ending disappointment! 

Some merchants don’t take kids seriously when they come in the store, being too shortsighted to visualize that someday that obnoxious boy will grow up and, with a good memory, shop here. Or, with an unpleasant memory, shop elsewhere. Same with noisy kids in church. The more kids the happier. They’re noisy? It’s the best part of the worship service. A crying baby is better than a sermon any Sunday morning, and that ain't no bull.

Ford was not an especially nice word in our family when I was a small boy. When my grandparents moved away from Panama City in 1920, running from the grief of having lost their son Alfred, drowned in the wreck of a fishing schooner in January 1918, they went to Ocilla, Georgia, where Pop was the Ford dealer for several years. It was the age of the Model T, and my father told me the new Fords arrived in town by freight train, in a box car, “knocked down” - meaning they were not fully assembled. Eleven, twelve, thirteen years old by then, he was sent to the train depot with the necessary tools to put on the tires, bolt on the fenders, running boards, windshields and whatever, and drive them the few blocks to their Ford garage. 

Ford Motor Company was a bully in those days, never above treating dealers shabby and highhanded. One day a freight car arrived in the tiny town of Ocilla, Georgia with a full inventory of Lincoln parts. There wasn’t a Lincoln automobile within forty miles, and so Pop refused the shipment and sent it back to Detroit, saying he would never have use for Lincoln parts. One day soon after that, representatives of Ford Motor Company drove up to his Ford garage in a disabled Lincoln that needed just the parts in the shipment he had refused. Don’t remember whether the end of the story, which I’ve told here before, was that he lost his dealership franchise over that, or he threw up his hands and the family moved on. Whatever it was, he was left with a bitter dislike for Ford. These things can carry down for generations just like hatred of Yankees. And so, Pop and my father drove Chevrolet cars and trucks only for many years. 

Nevertheless, when the dazzling new 1949 Ford arrived in showrooms, late 1948, Pop took me down to Cook Ford to have a look, and I got a 1949 Ford brochure, which doubtless is among the treasure of old car folders in my trunk upstairs. The difference in the pre-war 1941-48 tudor and the ultramodern 1949 tudor was stunning:

My own first recollection of Ford cars is our next door neighbors’ 1940 Ford DeLuxe V8 tudor sedan, which they drove through the war years and beyond. That car was traded for a new 1949 Ford fordor sedan. Only FoMoCo spelled it tudor and fordor.

Early forties Fords are somewhat classics today. Each year model was noticeably different, a marketing strategy. The 1940 was distinctive:

Some will remember the classy chevron taillights:

The 1941 Ford was different, new body style:

The 1942 year model Fords were only produced and sold a short time because WorldWarII broke out and automobile production was converted to war production:

So there were a few 1942 Fords, but no 1943, 1944 or 1945 Fords at all. The 1946 Ford was the prewar Ford with a different grill treatment, which stayed in production for 1946. Notice the open cowl vent on the '46 convertible. No air conditioned cars in those days.

1947 and ’48 had slight grille, parking light and chrome strip changes from 1946 that only a certified car lunatic can distinguish today; 

although anyone who looks closely may spot the differences. 

Parking lights location. Ford emblem. And the 47-48 had different chrome stripping on the trunk lid. These things are important, undoubtedly will be on the exam St. Peter gives in deciding who gets in and who gets the trap door treatment. All I'm saying is you'd better be able to identify the different year models by the Ford pics that Pete flashes when you show up at the Pearly Gates.


Those model year Fords were favorites for enthusiasts to chop and channel and do custom paint jobs:

The pre-war cars went out of production with the 1948 model year, and the 1949 Ford was a totally streamlined beauty with no fenders; and the "suicide doors" were gone:

Our neighbor’s mother had a red 1949 Ford convertible that became Bill’s after his mother died when we were in high school. One of my great memories is of the summer Bill went off to visit his aunt and cousin in St. Paul, Minnesota and left the Ford convertible in my sole care:

SHMG, I have no idea. In the middle of the "bomb" in the center of the grill was a "6" or an "8" that told whether the car had a six or V8 engine.

Ford woody station wagons were classy cars, but through 1948 they had the old fabric tops. A 1946 model, and a 1947-48 model are below. Check out the difference: parking light, Ford emblem:

With the 1949 model and for the next few years, Ford station wagons were two door cars, quite stylish, and finally a steel roof instead of fabric:

This would have been the forerunner of the Ford Country Squire wagons with fiberglass and decal trim that were America's most popular station wagon for many years. The final model Country Squire was a 1991, because minivans had replaced station wagons as people and stuff haulers; and the Ford Taurus, a new and modern size, style and design, had become the rage. This is a 1959 Country Squire:

There was also a Ford Sportsman convertible offered for 1946 and 1947-48:

Linda and I had several Fords during our years. Our first brand new car was a 1958 Ford Custom 300 tudor sedan, two-tone white and blue.

After that we didn’t have Fords for years until 1969, living in Newport, Rhode Island, we bought a Ford Thunderbird, one of the four door sedan models with suicide doors that Ford offered for a few years: 

In 1984 we moved to Apalachicola, where the Ford dealer was a parishioner and good friend. This made for many years of visiting and shopping and trading to the heart’s content.

TW+