Check out the 2024 Crown Victoria Association National Convention Website 

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Cover Stories

paul sutherland

My 1956 Ford Victoria is my dream come true. This black beauty is a 2-door hardtop with a rare P code, 312 cu. and three on the tree with overdrive.

As a young man, I had a similar 1956 Vicky, but when I joined the Army in 1967 I sold it as I began a new journey in my life. When I was discharged from the Army, I went back to remodeling and building homes with my dad. And I was busy working and raising my family through the year, but after retirement, I made it my goal to find a nice 1956 Vicky again.

It took a couple of years, but I finally found the one 75 miles north of me. It only had 61,200 miles on it and had been repainted in the early nineties. Once I got it home, I wet sanded and buffed it.

I drove it that summer doing changes a little at a time. I put all new coil and leaf springs and also gas shocks. I wasn’t really satisfied with the way it was running so in the fall, I had the 312 motor completely rebuilt. The board out .030 over and put in a midrange Isky Cam for the rumble sound. Had the motor painted and put on the dyno machine for tuning, it’s 8 pulls (220 hp) and 300 ft. lbs. of torg. Next put in Pertronix 2 ignition and coil, no more points. I also cleaned and painted the engine bay and put in all new bushing, hoses, belts, cables and 6 blade fan.

Once the motor was all put back together, it ran “great” even made the 2 glass packs sound better.

To make it ride even better I purchased Kelsey Hass wire wheels with 2-1/2” white wall radial tires. This improved the ride even better.

My wife and I ride through upstate New York and Vermont with all the hills, so I put power disc brakes and seat belts in our car.

When we are at car shows, people always ask me about the curb feelers, they call them antennas!! I have received many awards when participating at car shows, but the real joy is having my teenage car again.

The CVA club members has been so helpful in guiding me to the best places to get parts. I look forward to this summer to meeting some of the club members.

Submitted by,
Paul Sutherland

westermeyer cover new

I always had a soft spot for a 1956 Ford Crown Victoria. I finally found my car on Hemming’s Website. The owner of the car told me it was supposed to be a National Crown Winner in 1992 and 1993. I wanted a car that I could drive, and one that looked nice.

The car was purchased in Louisiana. I decided to purchase the car sight unseen! The pictures that were sent looked great. A lesson was learned - never buy a car without looking at it first hand. My wife call the car a bad nightmare.

We had to redo the engine, transmission, rear end suspension, brakes, etc. We started dismantling everything. Even the body needed work. I had it in the body shop for a year. Needless to say, it cost a fortune.

I am pleased with how it looked now and have received many compliments on the car. Even thought, I probably won’t get the price I put into the restoration of the car, I am going to enjoy driving it and taking it to car show. The good news is that my wife is still married to me and goes along to the car show with me.

I am also the owner of a 1962 Pontiac Grand Prix that was restored, and I enjoy going to car shows with my friends with this car too.

Frederick Westermeyer
Cleveland, WI

sioux falls meet

Each year, I get the opportunity to visit a couple of Regional Meets and write about my experiences at each one. This past year, I had the privilege of visiting Dick Rath’s Upper Midwest Regional Meet. It was held in Sioux Falls, ND. Living in Northwest Ohio, it was about a 14-hour drive to get there. The adventures that I faced on the trip there should have been an indicator of the awesome adventures that I would face the rest of the trip.

Thursday, after work, my buddy Roger and I started to make the trip to Sioux Falls. We made it to the east side of Chicago and decided to stay overnight there. Roger woke up early the next morning and decided to go get some coffee. He got lost on the way back up to the room. He forgot which room we were in and wandered the halls trying his key on different doors. He finally went to the front desk and inquired what room we were in. Well, they had my last name spelled wrong, so it took a while for them to find out which room we were in. This gave me some extra time to sleep in. After Roger showed back up, I took the opportunity to laugh at him and offered to hang a sign around his neck with his contact information.

We got around and left the hotel began the trek through Wisconsin and Minnesota. As we were almost through Minnesota, we noticed an exit sign that said that Kiester was just a few miles off I-90. No way could it have been the town from the Preparation H commercial. We crossed into North Dakota and arrived in Sioux Falls just before dinner time. The evening was lovely, and it was good to see those members that I had met at past National Conventions. The many cars were lined up in the lot and made for a very colorful display. I asked around and was told that Kiester, Minnesota was indeed the town that the commercial was filmed in.

Saturday started with a car show at the American Legion. The city’s local car club was invited to join us. Later that night, we returned to the American Legion for an absolutely fantastic buffet dinner. After dinner, friends met in the hotel lot and the conversation flowed. The day was very fun.

 james pope cover

Editor’s Note: James and Sandra Pope are new members. Welcome to the Club!

James Pope recently restored a 1955 Ford Victoria that he purchased from the original owner, Ray Welch. Ray was the owner of “Roy’s Gulf) at the corner of Mint Street and Summit Avenue in Charlotte, North Carolina.

This car has special meaning for James because he remembers the day it was bought. It was around Christmas of 1954. His dad had purchased one like it at the same time. You could often see the two cars parked together at ‘Roy’s Gulf’. James’ dad worked across the street from the station.

After being parked in the garage at home for forty years, it has finally been restored. It has had some extensive body and paint work completed, as well as a complete new interior kit that we purchased from Mac’s. It has a 272-automatic engine that has 74,000 original miles.

James has taken it to two car shows and is looking forward to many more!

Submitted by Sandra Pope, Charlotte, NC

 Royce Massey Cover

Sometime in November and December 2011 my wife and I were eating in a Subway restaurant in Russellville, Alabama after church one Sunday with some friends. My friend Dale said to me Royce your are a Ford man I know here there is a Crown Vic that I think you could buy. Dale had purchased a 1957 Chevrolet from this man. I owned a 1956 Ford Club Sedan at the time a driver but a pretty nice driver. I asked if the Crown Vic had been restored and he said it was in the process. I told Dale if the man ever mentioned selling the Crown Vic let me know and I would go look at the car.

About the middle of February 2012 Dale told me the man was ready to sell. Dale set up the meeting and he and I went to look at the car. The car was located in a shop near Haleyville, Alabama. What I found was a 1955 Crown Vic that had a frame off rebuild started a very nice solid body with the mo-tor, transmission and rear end rebuilt and installed. The frame had been cleaned and painted and the body set back down on the frame. The mane that owned the car had been collecting parts since 1988. He told me he had the parts to build this car to fac-tory specs for any option available on these cars. I listened to the engine run and looked at all his parts which included bout three sets of stainless for this car all polished and wrapped in about three layers of newspaper. I asked the man what his best price was on the car and he told me and then said before he would take less he would dig a hole and bury the car and parts in his back yard. After thinking about it overnite and talking with a couple of people about the car I agreed to purchase the car and parts.

 

philmeek nov2017

Submited by: Philip Meek

Back in my high school days in Dallas, there were only three things that interested the guys- - football, girlfriends and cars, and not necessarily in that order.  Concerning cars, one of the rich kids came to school in a gorgeous deep triple black Crown Victoria with red and white interior, sparkling chrome and shimmering stainless steel that festooned the chariot, dual rear antennas, fender skirts, “flipper caps” and a continental kit.  The sound of the rumbling V8 with dual glass packs was pure music!  It was love at first sight!  However, it would be many moons until September 2013 before I fulfilled my high school dream and bought my 1955 Crown Victoria.

After negotiating on the phone for weeks and receiving lots of photos from the seller, we closed the deal.  My brother, Gary, and I drove up to the Texas Panhandl e to bring the car back to Austin. I thought this would be a quick, relatively inexpensive restoration (wrong!) since it had a “new” paint job that was seven years old, but the car had never been reassembled or driven after painting.  The car also had a new, correct ABC Interiors upholstery kit that was partially installed.  Importantly, the body was in good shape with no rust.

We quickly determined that only a few parts to the mostly disassembled Crown Vic had been segregated, bagged and tagged.  Almost all of the stainless trim, the bumpers and grille were off.  Significantly, a large number of parts, fasteners of all types, etc., could not be located.  After hours of searching, we found some of the missing parts interspersed unmarked in the garage among parts of several other cars that were being restored.  

When it came time to load the car onto the trailer the real fun began.  The engine was difficult to start and stopped repeatedly.  The brakes and parking brake were stuck as a result of the car sitting idle for years.  It was very difficult to move the car and drive it onto the trailer.  But we finally finished the task and headed for Austin. Once home, I gave the car a thorough going-over.  It became apparent that I had overestimated the condition of the car, and that it was going to take a lot more time and treasure to restore it to the level that I wanted.  But I knew this car had good “bones” and would be beautiful when finished.  

tom orban

In 2009 five-years away from retirement I bought a 1956 Customline Victoria from one of my street rodder friends.

I figured this car would be a nice retirement project, plus I still had five years to gather parts and get everything else I needed bought and paid for.

Now for some of the car’s history . . . a many in a near by town started fixing it up, the engine and brakes were rebuilt but sadly he passed away before he got any further, after that the car sat outside for a while.

The mans widow gave the car to one of his friends, there to it sat outside. My friend bought it from him with thoughts of building it into a street machine with a blown small block Chevy, but he was too busy with other car projects, so he sold it to me, now its sitting in my show where it is nice and dry.

I started a frame off restoration in 2010, replacing quarter panels, inner and outer rocker panels, floors, rear trunk floor, tail pan and door bottoms.

By 2013 the body was solid again so I started the finish work, smoothing and black sanding the body.

March 2014 rolled around, I retired and the body was ready for paint. I painted the car in July 2015. I wanted to have a numbers matching car.

Nagel Cover August 2017

The Fifties were famous for automobiles with outrageous styling, extravagant use of chrome and all manner of fins evoking jet planes and rockets. Competition for customers in the explosive post WW II car market was fierce. An extensive array of fantastic style and power combinations were used to lure buyers into the showroom. But, in the competition for the carefree sports minded buyer none stood out like the 1956 Ford “Sunliner”. The “understated” Thunderbird inspired styling was “subdued” compared to the competition. Nevertheless, Ford was the hands down winner in the glitz and glitter department, leading the way with a bewitching assortment of color choices and combinations. Ford put buyers in a tropical mood offering 19 exotic pastel colored paints like Peacock Blue, Mandarin Orange, Golden Glow Yellow and Sunset Coral along with 14 tutone combinations coordinated with upholstery ensembles featuring new all vinyl tutone interiors.

Ken’s “southern” car was built at the Ford assembly plant in Dallas Texas and eventually found its way to Glencoe OK where it came into the possession of Robert Kuehn of Stanton NE. In February 2010 Ken purchased the car from Mr. Kuehn in relatively rust-free condition. He immediately commissioned Mr. Kuehn to undertake a complete bolt by bolt restoration to his exacting standards. After 15 months of painstaking work, minute attention to detail and using NOS (new old stock) parts installed with expert craftsmanship the car was brought back to showroom condition.

Although Ford made 58,147 Sunliners in 1956, over the years the harsh elements took their toll on these beautiful convertibles making them very hard to find. But, rare and beautiful don’t begin to describe this car. Resplendently finished in glowing Sunset Coral** over shimmering Raven Black paint the tutone scheme is beautifully separated by chrome side trim that starts at the taillight and curves up and over the front fender ending at the headlight bezel. The new for ’56 tutone vinyl interior matches the exterior theme.

Crown Victoria Association member #3068, Dean Held, from Oregon City, Oregon has just retired from Hyster-Yale Group on March 31, 2017 after an impressive combined 30 years of outstanding service with the company. Dean has been active in the club for many years.

Dean Held Caricature

Dean began his career with Hyster Company in 1962 immediately after graduating from the University of Idaho with his BS degree in Agricultural Engineering. Dean started out as a Test Engineer at the Hyster Proving Grounds in Portland, Oregon, where he spent the next 5 years. He next ran the Hyster Engineering Lab at Hyster’s original Portland, Oregon factory for 2 years. Then in 1968 he transitioned to the newly completed Hyster Technical Center as a Supervising Test Engineer. During the next decade he was responsible for the test and development programs for a vast range of Hyster product including: Hyster Big Trucks, Winches, Cranes and Compactors. During 1977 and 1978 he transferred to the then company-owned Hyster Sales dealership in Tigard, Oregon as the Product Service Manager.

In 1978 Dean took an opportunity outside the company with Lumber Systems, and then went on to run his own company constructing sawmills throughout the United States while based out of Idaho.

In 2003, Dean returned to Hyster Company to assist us with the development of a brand new 1 to 8 Ton product series just getting underway. He became the Prototype Truck Assembly Leader for the entire 1 to 8 Ton engine powered forklift truck program, organizing and fully stocking the facility to build 40 complete prototype forklift trucks.

 vanLeeuwen cover

Having an intense interest in Canadian cars owing to being raised in Buffalo, New York with a Canadian-born mother with family in Toronto, it was no coincidence that I saw many cars offered on both sides of the Canadian-US border as uniquely different from each other. I collected Meteor and Monarch brochures since I was young and never thought I would be owning one of these cars. The evening of February 5, 2006 made me a 1956 Meteor owner when I won the car in an on-line auction. After one calendar month of waiting, the transport rig pulled up in front of my house in Lawrenceville, New Jersey and the beauty was delivered.

I had never owned such a antique car before so was a greenhorn about getting its various issues resolved but while on my cardio walk a by chance meeting in a local park of a fellow Ford fanatic who was a member of a local car club, was almost immediately on the right track. Ted Valis owned 3 Shelby Mustangs and knew his way around such vehicles as well as getting me into the club with all its automotive-pertinent resources. At that point, I knew I was on the right track and a happy ending would materialize.

dale moreau

In the summer of ’09, I was between hot rods and keeping a daily watch on HotRodHotLine.com, when I saw this really beautiful ’55 Ford Crown Victoria for sale in the Dallas, Texas area.  A quick look at my mileage plus put me in the SW of the U.S. in a matter of days.  Arriving at the owner’s home, I saw the car under a carport, and knew I had to use my poker face on this one, because it was going to a new home.  Owner/builder James Moore in Arlington, Texas had done a very nice job of not only building a stout car mechanically, but had done just the right amount of do-dad removal to make a nice mild custom.  He had started with a local unrestored original ’55 Ford Crown, and totally took it apart for a rotisserie build.  The chassis was upgraded with 5.0 fuel injected Mustang power backed by a Ford AOD transmission and 8” Ford rear axle with tall gears.

Granada dropped spindles and power disc brakes round out the front with KYB shocks.  After I purchased the car, it went to Rich Hoak, just outside of Portland, for a power rack and pinion steering unit consisting of a ’89-’93 Chevy rack utilizing a FATMAN cross member.  Rich also made one off sway bars for the front and rear.  The car now tracks like a Mustang, changing the attitude a ton from the stock ride. I also spent a day with Mitch Kim of Portland. He is a master pin striper, and a winner of the VonDutch award given at the Grand National Roadster Show. With the body stripped, and the holes filled left by the ornament removal, James sprayed it with Competition Orange and Alabaster White base coat/clear coat paint.  The trunk is opened with an electric switch backed by a mechanical pull inside, and two speed electric wipers rounding out the upgrades from stock. Besides restoring all the stainless, and adding new pieces where needed, James placed extra gauges in the dash for oil pressure and water temp. He also added the original NOS ’65 Mustang air conditioning under the dash and installed ’56 Ford taillights.   Rolling on original steel wheels and white wall tires from Diamond Back, the Vicki headed for Fort Worth, Texas to Fuller’s Auto Upholstery for a matching custom interior. When I bought the car back in 2016, it returned with 15” Murac ll wheels and P205/60 R-15 and P215/65 R15 Pirelli tires. 

My plan is to return it to that look. I am really glad I had the opportunity to have this car back in my 1940 garage. It just barely fits, but it is home again.  Having started in ’61 with a custom ’55 Ford Tudor in Massachusetts as my first car, it is only fitting that I do a little time travel and have another ’55 Ford.

Dale Moreau

Portland, OR