One summer over 50 years ago, a college-bound student named Dave McCready had a few free days and decided to spiff up his Model A Ford. He used a forklift to suspend the car while steam cleaning the undercarriage, then undercoated it at the local Ford dealer’s body shop. He painted the car himself, with Bronson yellow enamel and was surprised at the results.

“I painted it in 1955, and the bugs were out that night and God, I never thought the paint job was going to live,” said Dave. “I finished at about seven and looked it over and there were mosquitoes all over the car. I didn’t know what I was going to do, so I walked away from it because what could I do? Well, the mosquitoes died, and their little legs don’t make much mark, so I rubbed it out and that’s the paint job you’re looking at, except I did not put the seal brown or orange pinstripe on it until later.”

Dave must have had a knack for painting cars because, even today, that same yellow paint looks as good up close as it does in the photos. During Dave’s first winter vacation from college, he drove the Model A to the mountans to go skiing with a college youth group.

“I went up to Hoodoo Ski Bowl and Lodge with a contingency from Willamette University. They rented a bus, but I took Agatha [the Model A]. We got up there and the road was snowed in to the lodge. The bus stopped a mile back and the driver said he couldn’t go any farther. They began to unload the bus and I said, ‘Put your luggage in the car,’ and I drove it up to the lodge. Model A’s are very capable in snow--I was carrying chains, but didn’t have to use them.

“Jeanette, who is my now wife, but did not know me from Adam, had come up with the youth group from the University of Oregon. She told me later that she looked down at the parking lot and thought, ‘I wonder whose funny little yellow car that is?’ It wasn’t until my junior year that I met her, and it wasn’t until after that she knew that it was my Model A.”

By the way, this isn’t just any Model A Cabriolet. Its body type is a 68-C, known as the Cabriolet Slant Windshield, which Ford began selling on March 31, 1931. The slanted windshield gave the car a more modern appearance and the angle of the glass was said to help to reduce glare from oncoming headlights. This one has had little use over the last 50 years, but Dave used it frequently in college.

“According to the speedometer, I’ve driven Agatha more than 28,000 miles, mainly for transportation during the first five years I owned it. The car was in storage for a period of time, but after we established our current home I added the seal brown paint, the orange pinstripe, and put the 19-inch wheels back on; it had 17’s when I acquired it.

“The radiator stone guard is unusual. It is actually an original but when I finished the paint job, I took it off because it was rusty. Years later, I had it replated along with the side doors on the hood. People look at the stone guard and notice there is no cut out for the radiator’s Ford emblem. That’s original. The reproduction ones have a cut out like this one does for the crank.

“When I restored the stone guard I also added the quail radiator cap. I dolled it up! I put it back in stock form and made it the way it was originally produced. One of the Model A club newsletters is called the Quail Call, and that is where the terminology came from.”

Dave has installed an overdrive on his Model A so it’s now possible to drive at highway speeds.

“We have corrected the speedometer and it’s easy to drive it 50 mph. But the comfortable speed this car had, the “happy speed,” was 40 mph. All those years, that’s the speed I drove it.”