People who love old cars also have a good appreciation for history. I’m one of the lucky collector car owners who knows the history of my car. In fact, I bought the car from it’s original owner, which is a rare thing.
My 1958 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham was purchased in the summer of 1958 by Thomas J. Jones of Duncan, Oklahoma. It was a direct order from Cadillac. And what’s unusual about that? The buyer was a 25-year-old guy, the son of an oil tycoon. Thomas J. Jones says he ordered the Brougham for his dad (without telling pappy), although I suspect that maybe he ordered the car for himself and got busted. It’s just a theory and Thomas only grins when asked about it.
Thomas’ dad was called “Heavy Jones,” because he was a big guy: 280 pounds and maybe 5’ 10”. Heavy owned Jones Oil Company in Duncan, Oklahoma, which accounted for phenomenal service the car received. It also explains why the car had such wear on the engine: Heavy liked his air conditioning, and let the car run outside his office in the summer, sending others to go fill the 20-gallon tank so he’d be cool on the way to lunch or the club. The engine had done a lot of idling under the load of the AC.
Heavy was a man who lived loved Cadillacs, and particularly, this Brougham. He also loved O.U. football and never missed a game. But Heavy didn’t fly, which meant the Brougham was driven to every O.U. game. Every bowl game, too. So if O.U. went to California, so did Heavy and the Brougham. If O.U. went to Florida, so did Heavy and the Brougham. Many times, the sight of the spectacular Cadillac prompted a police escort (like the one I received up 8th Avenue in New York) straight into the stadium. While plenty of Broughams were taken off the road after just 30 or 40 thousand miles of service, Heavy drove his Cadillac 69,000 miles until his death in 1965. The cigars and ice cream had finally caught up to the oilman.
Heavy’s widow kept the car from 1965 until her death in 1974. She passed the grand old Cadillac on to her son, Jeff Jones, the son of Thomas. Jeff was a good steward to the car and maintained all the service records, spent many thousands of dollars on the braking system, the wiring, and other needs. He drove it Duncan’s Centennial Celebration parade in 1994. Afterwards, the pressing needs of a growing family and business meant the Brougham was parked for a decade until I showed up in August of 2006.
I could tell that selling the car really weighed on Jeff. The hot day I bought it, Jeff was torn and finally asked his dad for advice. “Son, your grandfather was going to sell that car himself–he’d bought another 1965 Fleetwood to replace it–and the only reason he didn’t is because he died four days before he was supposed to take delivery. So go ahead and sell it.” So Jeff did sell the car to me, I’m sure with some pang of both guilt and relief. (These suckers are as temperamental as they come.) At the time, I promised Jeff I’d show him the car when it was drivable again.
That was three years ago.
And though it took longer than I expected, I finally did get to show the car to the Jones once more. As we tooled into Duncan, I thought the car felt like it was running a little better. Maybe it thought it was headed towards the barn. Or maybe it was my imagination.
We arrived at dusk and the whole Jones family had come out to see the Brougham. Jeff and his dad both admired the engine, looked past the Motorpool.com stickers, and watched the air ride come to life. I asked Thomas if he wanted to drive. “Oh yeah,” he said, and slid behind the wheel.
“Now don’t be shy,” I said, “you can get after her if you want.” With that, Mr. Jones planted his foot and the Brougham sprang to life. Soon we were doing 40 down some residential streets in Duncan. “You know, this still runs pretty good,” Dad said. “I really wanted a Brougham that summer and called the Cadillac factory to see what they had left. They said they had three, so I picked the blue one.”
I had a question. Broughams didn’t come with options–everything was standard–but you could have a lot of choices. Hundreds, if not thousands, of color combinations were possible. And there was one more choice to be made by discerning Brougham buyers: you could pick mouton carpet (made from real fur) or Karacule carpet (made from Nylon). Cars with the code “1” on the data plate had Karacule. Code “2” meant mouton. My car says “1” right on the plate, but has mouton. I wanted to know why.
“Well, when [Cadillac] told me they had a blue one,” Mr. Jones said, “I said I wanted the mouton. I said I wouldn’t take the car without the mouton. I mean, what’s the point of the rugs? You could get any damn car with rugs. I wanted the fur. They wouldn’t change out the upholstery to blue leather, but they did change the carpet to mouton before delivery.”
Mystery solved.
Another mystery was the names that had been scribbled by children into the vanity book in the backseat. The Brougham came with its own writing pad and sterling silver pencil (of course), and mind had a few names written proudly in its pages. Of course I kept that page. Jefferson Jones, the great-grandson of Heavy, had written “JEFFERSON” on the pages of the notepad. When he sat in the backseat again, he immediately said, “Oh, it still smells the same” and then checked the notepad. There was his name and that of his friends (one of whom is about to get married).
I hope the family was glad to see the car on the road again and being driven all over the country just like Heavy Jones used to roll. I’m planning on a lighting up a cigar or two in the car in memory of the oilman. Maybe I’ll even name the car “Heavy.” It seems to fit.
On the way out of town, Jeff insisted that I drop by one of his many service stations and fill up on a tank of Jones Oil. And when I say it ran better on Jones gasoline, it’s true: Jeff uses no ethanol in his gasoline, so gas is gas in Duncan.