The Back Story
I was 14 when I found my first ‘34 Ford, two of them actually, a coupe and a sedan, under a row of macrocarpas at Murupara. However, my father did not share my great wisdom that one of these would be a wonderful enhancement to our upmarket Rotorua neighbourhood. The love affair and the dream had begun there, but it had lain dormant all these years; now their time had come.
The first mistake I made was to watch a three-day-old YouTube clip during lockdown, showing an almost flawless, dusty old ‘34 Ford 5-window coupe buried among many other cars that had all just become available for sale. My unanswered requests to the clip producer inevitably led me to search on Craigslist, and there she was, a ‘34 Ford Fordor, running, rough and ready, ready for a new home. American owner Don, 84 years young, who had traded the car some 40 years earlier for two pistols and a roofing job, realised he was never going to get her across the line. However, he was adamant his price of “not a dime under $15k” was going to
