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Rutledge's fully restored 1947 Chevrolet sports a St.
Louis Cardinals red color.
Some say a picture is worth a thousand words,
but Bob Rutledge says his car is worth a thousand
memories. It should be, as he has owned the car for
nearly forty years. "If the backseat could talk, I could
retire," jokes Rutledge, owner of Bob Rutledge and
Associates Promotional Products company. The 1947
Chevrolet has sentimental value, but Rutledge says it
isn't just the stories told about the backseat. "It was
my first car," he explains, "and one I had during my
college days and during my son's [Trent's] early years."
Exactly how many miles the car has traveled is
impossible to count, because it has had four owners -
two of whom owned it twice, three engines and four paint
schemes.
Rutledge, established entrepreneur and long-time
resident of McKenzie, Tenn., knew his plans to restore
his first car would take ambition and patience.
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Rutledge with his two-tone
car while a student at Bethel College in the
1960s.
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The first deadline was August 31 for Rutledge's wedding
anniversary, but he missed the deadline by several
weeks. The second deadline was September 25 for the
Chamber of Commerce Banquet, to chauffer the honoree for
Business Person of the Year for Carroll County, Mrs. Kay
Greenway, but it wasn't finished yet. One of the doors
wasn't even attached, Rutledge says. The restored Chevy
made its debut for the final deadline on Sept. 30 for
the wedding of Andrew Foster and Kimberly Smith in Olive
Branch, Miss. It carried the newlywed bride and groom to
their reception.
"The Chevy still had a few gremlins in it, but it was
complete," Rutledge says proudly.
Following a transmission replacement only a day before
deadline, the Chevy made the two-hour trip to Olive
Branch without a real test drive and only minor problems
the entire weekend. "It is running a 1989 Pontiac 350
V-8 engine," Rutledge details. The weekend of the
wedding two fuel injectors were stuck, making it
difficult to climb hills or start moving from an idling
position. The car burned an enormous amount of gas, four
tanks in 325 miles. The tail and dash lights went out
the night of the wedding because a fuse shorted out, but
Rutledge was beaming with pride the entire weekend
because he was driving his 'new' old car again. "The car
fits his personality. He enjoys driving it and he always
has," Trent Rutledge says smiling, "He knows that car."
After all, the car has made longer journeys than the one
it made to Olive Branch, Mississippi that weekend.
"The car has had four owners to my knowledge," Bob
recalls. The first owner, who probably had the car the
longest, was Luther Hurst from Rutherford, Tenn. He sold
home remedies and hauled the medicine around in the
backseat of the Chevy.
"[Hurst] was a terrible driver because every time he
would pull the car into the garage he would hit the
front fenders against the garage wall," Bob recounts. He
explains how he had to buff out all the dents when
restoring the car. "The fenders looked like a sack of
marbles, there were so many dents."
Hurst sold the car to Ronnie Wright, who owned it for
one year before selling it to Finis Oliver Jr. Like
Wright, Oliver owned the car for a year or two and sold
it. That is when Bob first met the car he would later
decide to restore.
Bob started attending Bethel College in the fall of
1965. He purchased the 1947 Lullwater green Chevrolet in
the summer of 1966, trading $50 and a 1935 John Deere
Mule Head tractor for it. He painted it two-tone gold in
1968. The car served him well throughout his college
days.
"The radio would play without the key in the ignition,"
Bob remembers. Occasionally, his friends borrowed the
car for this feature and he knew he would have to
recharge the battery the next morning.
Later, when Bob met his wife, Cheriadeth, and they
started a family, the car's role changed. It became the
weekend car, limiting its excursions to only errands
around town. When their son, Trent, was old enough, the
car, by then a maroon color, was fitted with a booster
seat and seat belts.
The Chevy was transportation to the tennis courts on
weekends. Tennis was a chance for father and son to bond
and it became a favorite pastime for the two.
Unfortunately, while they were enjoying a match, the car
was leaking gas. "The Chevy always managed to run out of
gas by merely sitting in the parking lot," Bob recalls.
As if getting revenge for being demoted to weekend car,
the situation left the two begging Cheriadeth to pick
them up or bring a gas can. The weekends when father and
son once took the old car around town have passed.
As Trent got older and schedules became more hectic, the
car's role in the family diminished. "It eventually
became dispensable," Bob says reminiscently. He sold the
Chevy in 1997 to Wright, the previous owner, who owned
it an additional five years. Wright had planned to
restore the car with his son and drive it in the Great
American Car Race across the country. He died of cancer
before getting the opportunity. His widow sold the car
back to Bob in 2002.
Bob decided to restore his first car and enlisted the
help of Jerry Bush, who taught auto mechanics at the
Tennessee Technology Center at McKenzie for 31 years
before retiring to repair cars at his McKenzie home. "He
is one of the best to restore a car, if you want it done
right," Bob and Trent agree.
"The car has been in the restoration process since 2003,
but the majority of the progress made has been in the
last year or so," Bob admits. Trent adds, "It is in
excellent condition for a car of its age." Trent helped
on weekends to finish the car. Bob continues, "It was a
great bonding experience working on something with my
son that he and his children will enjoy someday."
The Chevy is the first restoration in which Bob and
Trent have ever been involved. "It was labor intensive
and time consuming," Bob remembers, "Finding time was
the biggest problem." There were a few minor bumps in
the road to completion.
Occasionally, a piece was installed forgetting that
another piece should precede it. Such was the case when
installing a vent on the outside of the car, above the
dash. The dash was installed before the vent, making it
difficult to reach behind the dash. Bob scratched his
arm reaching through the narrow opening to install the
vent.
Installation of new chrome hubcaps bearing the Chevrolet
logo was beset with challenges. The spare tire was the
only tire adorned with them the weekend of the wedding.
The original wheels for the 1947 Chevy were 16 inches
high. They had clips in the center of the wheels to
secure the hubcaps. Regrettably, the new 15-inch wheels
were designed to work with many different styles of cars
and didn't come with clips. Bob considered welding a rod
onto the hubcaps to attach them to the wheels, but it
wasn't worth the risk of damaging the chrome. Instead,
after some research, he found new clips and attached
them to the wheels.
When older cars, like the 1947 Chevy, were manufactured,
an air gun was used to drive staples through the
upholstery into the nailer strip. Putting in the
headliner created a few problems. Bob noticed the nailer
strip was rotten and that he didn't have a staple gun.
He bought new nailer strips and borrowed a staple gun
from a friend. "The nailer strips were too thick for the
front windshield," Trent says regretfully. Both pieces
of glass in the divided windshield cracked while
stapling in the headliner. Bob explains, "We broke one
piece trying to put in the windshield and the other
piece taking it out to get new glass."
Bob bought new tacking strips, a hide-em welt to
disguise the staples, a windlace for the doors and other
finishing pieces to complete the car's interior from
Restoration Specialties, Inc. in Pennsylvania. Larry
Elliot of Elliot Design in McLemoresville, Tenn. painted
the faux wood finish that now covers the dash, door and
window trim in the Chevy giving it a
time-period-accurate appearance. At first, choosing a
new color for the car was difficult. However, the
family's love of St. Louis Cardinals baseball led him to
the color fire engine red.
"It is a good car and it is basically a new car now,"
Bob explains, "Every piece has been taken apart,
replaced and rebuilt. And if it is cared for, it can
last a long time."
"I'm not the type to go to car shows and wax my car, but
now I understand why people do it. They are so proud of
their car and the amount of work that goes into it," Bob
concludes.
The memories are captured in time like a photograph with
one look at the car, and that is why it was so important
to preserve it. With the help of family and friends, Bob
has insured that there will be many more memories in the
years ahead. |
