Stories From the Past with Marshall Trimble

THE 1946 FORD CONVERTIBLE

By Marshall Trimble

This article is part of our ongoing series, Stories From the Past with Marshall Trimble, where we share firsthand accounts and historical reflections that help preserve Ash Fork and Arizona’s rich history. We’re grateful to Marshall Trimble — Arizona historian and Ash Fork native — for continuing to share these invaluable stories with us.

The most important Rite of Passage for a young man is when he turns sixteen and can get his driver’s license. Mobility means freedom and I wanted a piece of it. I’d had a similar feeling a few years earlier when I bought my first bicycle. My dad paid me a nickel a night for massaging his shoulders. He was a fireman on those steam locomotives, and he spent his eight-hours shift shoveling coal into that fire box. As soon as I learned seven dollars, I bought a used bike. The tires were flat every morning; the previous owner must have ridden it through a field of goat heads, but I didn’t care. I could push it down to Louise Mena’s Union Station and air ’em up. I was mobile. But a car was real freedom. Hell, I could drive all the way to Williams.

On the first of every month an official from the Yavapai County Motor Vehicle Division drove up from Prescott. My birthday was on the 16th but I couldn’t wait that two weeks till February first so I went down on the first Saturday in January, two weeks before my birthday and pleaded with him to let me take the test early and he could mail my license two weeks later. Much to my surprise he agreed. His birthday must have been in the middle of the month also.

I’d been driving on the back streets of Ash Fork for quite some time, so I had no problem passing the test.

I’d been working at Fred Fegley’s Shell Station on the east end of town for several months and had saved $200 to buy a green 1946 Ford Convertible I’d had my eye on that had been sitting in front of Ray Taylor’s Garage with a For Sale sign on the windshield. The canvas top had seen better days, but I drove it home and waited impatiently for my birthday.

January 16th finally came, and my driver’s license arrived at the post office. A couple of friends piled in and I hit the starter, and nothing happened. It would be the first of many times that car wouldn’t start. Our house was located atop a long slope down so every morning we’d give her a shove, I’d jump in and pop the clutch and we were off to the races. The Blue Book value on that car went up and down depending on how much gas was in the tank.

Sometimes we’d take up a collection to buy enough gas to drive up 66 to Williams and cruise Main Street and check out the girls. It was downhill most of the way back to Ash Fork, so I’d put her in neutral, or what we called “Oklahoma Overdrive” and we’d coast most of the way back to town.

I kept that car until we had to leave Ash Fork in the spring of 1955 and move to Phoenix. Then I sold it for $300 to help pay for moving.

Your first car is like you first real girlfriend. You may lose ’em but you never forget ’em.