Car of the Week: 1935 Ford De Luxe Tudor

Photos by Morgan Taft

Throughout all of his 77 years, one thing has remained constant in Terry Taft’s life — this now-88-year-old 1935 Ford De Luxe Tudor.

“My uncle bought the car new in ’35, and my folks bought it from him in ’37,” said Taft. Like his 1935 Ford, Taft has lived in Necedah, Wis., his whole life.

Taft says his uncle worked for a creamery and used an early-1930s truck to pick up milk, making this ’35 Ford his personal car. When his uncle was ready for a new car two years after purchasing the 1935 Ford new from a dealer in or around Necedah, he sold the Tudor to Taft’s parents.

“He bought a new car — it was a coupe — and my folks needed a car,” Taft recalled. “They started a family and needed a larger car, and this ’35 was the only car my parents had until 1956, and so it got used extensively.”

“I was born in 1946 and I certainly remember, since I could start remembering, I could remember the car always.”

Taft’s father was the postmaster in Necedah, and so the Ford took him downtown each day there was mail delivery. It was at a young age that Taft developed an appreciation for the purr of a Ford Flathead V-8.

“I always remember the sound of the motor. I can remember my dad starting it up — he’d get up at 5 o’clock to meet the train for the mail, and I remember hearing that car start up. It had a sound of its own.”

By the time Taft was born, the Ford had been in daily use for more than a decade, yet the old car still left him with fond memories of riding in it with his two older sisters — even during the cold Wisconsin winters.

“There were three kids in the family, and we all sat in that back seat,” he recalled. “It had an add-on aftermarket gas heater, and that wasn’t sufficient to provide a lot of heat in that car in the winter. We kids had a big quilt in the back seat, and we’d bundle up in that quilt in the back seat to keep warm.”

“The cars back then didn’t have tremendous defrost ventilation, and I can remember my father had a large wool-like mitt and he’d rub the steam off the windshield as we traveled down the road.”

Since the 1935 Ford was the sole family car until 1956, when Taft’s parents added a 1952 Ford sedan to the driveway, it took them everywhere they went: on hunting trips, to work, to the grocery store and even on distant vacations. And even after the 1952 Ford purchase, the 1935 Ford continued its daily chores.

“Boy, my mother drove that car a lot,” Taft said. “She’d take us to the doctor, dentist, out of town visiting relatives in Tomah and Wisconsin Rapids. We doctored in Mauston and New Lisbon and Marshfield, and I remember my mother driving that to Marshfield,” a distance from Necedah of about 50 miles.

Taft’s father didn’t use the Ford quite as gently as his mother.

“There’s a picture of a buck on the fender — that’s how my dad used the car,” Taft said. “I can remember going with my father in the spring of each year, when the little chicks would come in in large cardboard boxes, and he’d deliver those chicks in a big box in the back seat and I’d deliver them with him. [The chicks] couldn’t sit in the office long. Once they came in, he’d deliver them.”

For about three decades, the 1935 Ford was a fixture in front of the Necedah post office, and as it aged and went from used car to collector car, it began to garner his father more and more attention.

“He’d park it on the main street, Highway 80, and many people remember that car sat there year after year,” Taft said. “He had people inquire about buying it. I can distinctly remember one — I don’t know why this guy wanted to buy it — he had a Ford station wagon, a ’50, ’51, with [wood]. He wanted to trade for my dad’s car and my dad wouldn’t do it. The fellow followed my dad home to the house and my dad wouldn’t do it.”

Taft’s father had clearly cared for the Ford all those years. When a tree fell on the roof, he had the dent repaired and the car repainted. He kept it running well enough through the years that he entrusted it when the time came to teach each of his three children how to drive. After the younger Taft obtained his license in 1962, he used either the ’35 or the ’52 Ford when he needed a car, depending on what was available at the moment. By the time he graduated in 1964, Taft had bought his own car, a 1957 Chevy, and his dad continued to commute to the post office in the 1935 Ford. It wasn’t until his father’s retirement in the late 1960s that the 1935 Ford was finally given a break.

“Around ’68, ’69, the car kind of got parked,” Taft said. “My dad was retired, and I remember we blocked it up and took the tires off in spring and then in ’74, I took possession of it and then I started to run it.”

By the mid 1970s, the 1935 Ford had become not just an antique, but a family heirloom. Taft’s father offered the car to his children, but when his sisters declined the opportunity to purchase the car, Taft became its next owner. Despite daily year-round use in Wisconsin, the Ford remained solid. It even continues to wear the enamel paint it received in the early 1950s when the tree damage was repaired. However, Taft has seen fit to improve the car’s condition as it becomes warranted.

“I see to it that everything works on it,” Taft says. “Everything works on it but the odometer. The gauges work, the motor works good, the transmission works good. I did put new glass in it, because the original got distorted… so I had to do something with that. And then the interior was very ragged, wore down from us kids slipping between the seat and the post. I bit the bullet and pursued recovering the interior. My sister-in-law (Bernadette Froehlich)helped me do that. But it’s never had an off-frame restoration, nothing like that at all.”

The Ford’s front bumper pushed many things while Taft’s father owned it, so he said that it’s been re-plated, but the rest of the chrome remains original. Even with more than 100,000 miles of estimated use, the generator remains original, the car retains its mechanical brakes and the original engine has only been freshened up. When it comes to mechanical upkeep, Taft has received assistance from gentlemen who were experienced enough to remember working on Flatheads when they were new or nearly new.

Jim Sauter, Taft’s late neighbor, was an expert when it came to Flathead Ford V-8s, and Taft says he often went to him for advice or additional help with keeping the Ford running at its peak. Sauter was also able to provide assistance when it came time to put a new roof insert on the 1935 Ford.

“That top is not leather, it’s like a vinyl material, and the old top got all cracked up; it was falling apart,” Taft said. “I couldn’t have it out in the rain, it would leak, so I had to do something and I replaced that top, and boy, that was a job. Jim Sauter, he helped me, and it took the two of us a full eight hours to take it off and put a new top on.”

Today, the old Ford continues to receive regular use, but only by taking Taft and his wife, Judy, and their children, Joseph and Morgan, to car shows around central Wisconsin. Taft says 45-50 mph is a good cruising speed, but he drove it 50-55 mph to the 2023 Iola Car Show with no problems. For added safety while cruising, he says he’s installed LED taillamps and turn signals from fellow Early Ford V-8 Club of America member Ken Check (w6ski@comcast.net), which greatly improve the car’s visibility on the road.

At the Iola Car Show, Taft displayed several of the car’s original tools and black-and-white photos of the car from his family album. He says many people stop to see the car and look at the old photos of it, but most want to remember hearing that sound Taft has been listening to since he as a kid. He obliges by turning the ignition key and pressing the car’s starter button.

“I am amazed at how many fellows love the Flathead eight, especially at Iola,” Taft said. “I said to my wife, ‘I must have started that motor a dozen times.’ My wife said, ‘More like 30.’ Folks want to hear a Flathead motor run — they haven’t heard a Flathead motor run in 50 years. They start talking to me about the motor and ask if they can hear it run. It runs really good, just quite and nice, and these old timers, they start reminiscing. You don’t see a lot of Flatheads anymore.”

Taft has no plans to ever part with his family heirloom, and since his children often accompany him to car shows, there’s a good chance its image may continue to be added to the family photo albums. Regardless, Taft has only one regret from all his years with the Ford — he never asked his uncle, who passed away in 1971, or his late father, exactly where the Ford was originally purchased.

“One thing we don’t know, and I don’t know how to pursue, is where the car was purchased new,” Taft says. “People talk to us, and they want to know where the car was purchased new. And I don’t know.” 

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