A 3 Generation Falcon and a Survivor Belvedere
Story: Tony Colombini, Photos: Supplied by Erica, Mitzi Valenzuela, Shiver 2 See U
For most of us and especially the younger set, a love of classic cars and hot rods are passed down to us from an older brother, father, uncle or such. Recently I met a young lady; Erica Landmann, who is a car-nut pretty much on her own. Not that she wasn’t inspired by her father who still pines away for his old ’56 Pontiac or her mother who passed down her ’64 Falcon Futura to her. But she credits the spark of car-nuttiness to her Grandfather: Amos Henry Hendricks, who bought the Falcon new from Folgers Ford in LA. Did Amos have the foresight that this one purchase would inspire a girl two generations later with a love of all things automotive? Erica never had a chance to ask as Amos had passed away to the boulevard in the sky before she was born.
But the car lives on. Amos drove the sedan for a couple of years, and gave it to his daughter Mary Louise who drove it into the early ’70’s. Erica tells me her dad drove the little blue car into the ‘80’s he named it Falc. She got the car in High School and has driven it since.
And driving it she did.
When most young ladies would give up on an over-heating 25-year-old car, she kept messing with the cooling system to get him to stop over heating. Erica refers to Falc as a dude. All her friends have a story about Falc overheating when they were out and are amazed that her parents used to drive it to Arizona each weekend in the 1970’s. A collapsed piston revealed a previous engine build with .060 over pistons, possible reason for the overheating.
So what’s in store for Falc. Erica wants to bring it to a full restoration to make it look just like how Poppy Amos bought it in the showroom. Recently she had the chrome re-dipped and the bright-work polished. A friend’s dad knows a guy who collects paint in Michigan [people do that I guess] and he found the original Sky Blue paint for the car. She plans on replacing the 289 back to a new stock 260. Falc has many memories for Erica. It’s been in the family since before she was born, her brother was brought home from the hospital in Falc, dad hot rodding Falc in exaltation that he finally had a son, road trips to Arizona to visit grandma, learning how to drive in it, driving it to high-school and college and now toting her twins.
But wait, there’s more…
Erica is a lover of all classic cars, no real affinity to a certain brand. She digs the old car smell. [I haven’t seen that fragrance hangar in Pep Boys] She has friends who have different types of cars that she meets up with at cruises and car shows. But this next car has quite a story too.
Meet Belv. Belv is a 1957 Plymouth Sports Belvedere Coupe. It features the Fury chrome trim option above the windows. It features 3-on-the-tree with overdrive. Belv was purchased in Portland Oregon by Allan Lord in February of 1957. He drove it for a couple of years and parked it in a barn in 1959. It laid in state, in the barn for 53 years. It had company though. Apparently Allan liked to drive a car for a while then park it in the barn to drive the next new car. In 2012 many years after he passed, the old wooden barn gave way and collapsed on all the American iron it protected. In the way Stephen King writes about Christine, all the cars perished except for Belv. Erica, a fan of the story by King, had to have that car and purchased it in July of 2012. It was trailered down to So Cal and she has been working on it in her off-time from teaching, raising twins and cruisin’ around in Falc or her old Volvo. She has been thrashing Belv taking out parts that need to get rebuilt like the carburetor, and the starter. The guy at the shop asked if the starter was from a boat. She replied; “Kind of”. She had the clutch and radiator rebuilt and put in new shocks. Johnson’s Machine rebuilt the 301cid mill. She removed the seats and had them re-upholstered with the original brocade fabric. She shoveled 3 trashcans of “poo” and dirt from the floor and discovered some inherent rust to be repaired. It may take awhile, but Belv will be the Belle of the boulevard someday again.
This is Erica and her cars. I am certain that Amos is looking down lending a hand when needed.
Thank you Erica for sharing your story with us.
