Car Talk
by Wayne Wirtanen

Old receipts tell a story
In a reminiscence article entitled, "I Remember Life on the Farm in Halsey Valley in the 1940s" that appeared in the February 2003 FLF newsletter, I happened to mention that when automobile production restarted after World War II, the eagerly awaited new cars cost about $1100.

Some people save old receipts and other paperwork much longer than necessary. Recently Ray Wirtanen (a previous manager of the Spencer and Trumansburg Co-ops - no relative of mine) was going through his old records and sent me his original new car invoice from A. E. Van Atta in Spencer, dated December 28, 1946.

The sticker price on his new Chevrolet was $1147! However - the extra equipment was as follows: spare tire and tube $21.22, thermostat $1.25, heater $22.60, defroster fan $9.95, seat covers $22.00, chrome wheel rings $7.95, fender guards $33.70, for a total of $118.67. That, plus tax and "shipping and handling," brought the total cash price up to $1390.17. (People often paid cash those days for a car, with apparently no haggling with the dealer on price.)

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L. to r: Jerry Kallio, Alfred Walden, Wayne Wirtanen at the Kallio farm on the Spencer-Van Etten Road, 1947. Notice the box added to the rear to make a utility farm truck from an old Chrysler convertible.

The car as status symbol
In those days it was traditional to drive an increasingly more expensive car as one was moving up in the world - so that everyone would notice. The General Motors buyers usually went up through Chevrolet to Pontiac, Buick, Oldsmobile and ultimately Cadillac.

Cars were definitely a status symbol. I don’t remember seeing any Finn farmers driving Cadillacs or Lincolns even though they probably could have afforded them. Perhaps those models were considered too ostentatious.

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Sophie and Sulo Anderson on their Halsey Valley Farm, with their new 1949 DeSoto.

Waino Salmi’s parents drove a big Chrysler, my grandmother, Sophie Anderson, had a new De Soto in 1950 and Arvid Saik of Halsey Valley became an instant celebrity when he showed up in a new Frazer.

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Arvid Saik's new Frazer, in Halsey Valley ~1947.

Buicks, for a few years, had a number of chrome-plated "portholes" on the sides of the front fenders to differentiate the less expensive models from the more expensive ones. The "Super" had three portholes and the "Roadmaster" had four.

Ray Wirtanen moves up in status
Ray Wirtanen must have been doing well, because three years after his new Chevrolet purchase, he stepped up to a Buick. His 1949 new car invoice from Superior Buick in Elmira was for $2339. He also stepped up to more exotic accessories: radio and antenna $84, heater and defroster $61.50, windshield washer $7.50, back-up lights $10, undercoat $35, and port vent grills $3.00. But the most exotic of all was Dynaflow drive at $212.

Old cars
In the 1940s there was no lack of old (1915 to 1930) model cars abandoned around farm yards and barns. Newer cars were so superior that the older models had little trade-in value. Many farmers sawed the back areas off of old sedans and modified them for use as utility farm trucks usually known as "doodle bugs" or "puddle jumpers."

Abandoned cars could be obtained for a little cash or for free by Finn farm boys and the clunkers were encouraged to run a few more miles before they went to the junk yards. A Model T Ford might cost about $10 or $20 and still be in running condition. Late 1920s Chevrolets and equivalent vehicles were about as valuable. A friend of mine who lived in Long Beach, California in the 1930s, told me that at the waterfront shipping docks

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Ken Smith’s Model T in Halsey Valley

there were multiple fenced-in five acre fields filled with junked Model T Fords stacked three high! They were picked up by giant tongs and dropped into the holds of Japanese cargo ships - they returned to us as bombs and bullets at Pearl Harbor a very few years later.

As recently as the 1950s, older model cars still had little value if they were not in perfect condition. In 1956 when I moved my family from Van Etten to California, we made the trip in a luxury 1952 Chrysler that we had purchased for $100. The low price was because the transmission had a minor problem that the dealer must have thought was not worth repairing. The car took us all the way across the continent with no problems and ran well enough for several years afterward.

Old cars not always a bargain
Steering one of the old 1920/1930 cars with their big wooden steering wheels was about as easy as trying to turn a freight locomotive by the headlight, and the mechanical brakes were very treacherously unreliable. Because tires were scarce, we ran them until the rubber was worn off down to the fiber. Regularly changing a tire meant removing the tire from the rim to get to the inner-tube that needed to be patched. Not only that, but some older car wheels had a "split rim" that required more knuckle bruising disassembly/reassembly. Acccordingly, when we got these "bargains" running, we never dared drive them very far from home.

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At Max Cohen’s junk yard on a muddy day in 1947. In driver’s seat, Jerry Kallio. In back driver’s side, Wayne Wirtanen; passenger side, Alfred Walden.

Max Cohen’s junk-yard
Max Cohen’s junk yard in Sayre was a Disneyland for Finn farm kids from Spencer. It was a great Saturday excursion for the cost of a few gallons of gas. I don't remember that there was even a fence around the many acre establishment. We never went into the front office, just wandered in and explored the ground for a few hours before heading back home.

I don’t remember ever buying anything during the many trips there with Jerry Kallio and Alfred Walden. The attraction was looking at and sitting in the wide variety of vehicles from the 1920s and 30s. In those days car engines wore out fairly early by today’s standards and cars were junked instead of repaired.

Cars were often driven to the junk yards to get them out of the way. Bodies of the cars were still generally in good condition, so we sat in lots of these old junkers and imagined driving around in some of them that had been relatively luxury models.

The luxury urge stayed with me and recently I finally broke down and bought a big Lexus sedan - luxurious, but not ostentatious, I thought.

If you have an old car story to share, please drop me a line - Wayne Wirtanen, at 4341 Shangri-la, Placerville, CA 95667 or e-mail at wayne@innercite.com

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Wayne Wirtanen in Halsey Valley sweatshirt, with his first car, a 1936 Chevrolet Coupe (in 1946).