A Promise Kept

By David Cornish

Photography by Jim Knight

Yes, as many young boys dream of owning a classic car, I too can remember gazing through car magazines and being fascinated by the tri 5’s and dreaming of owning one some day…but also thinking, how could this ever be possible? Thirty years later I realized my dream could become reality, so I began my search. I had seen and test-driven several, but none of them seemed to be the one. They all had been customized in one way or another, and although some looked good, they weren’t what I was looking for. That is until one Saturday morning in 1997.

I was up about 5:30 am having coffee, and saw yet another ad in the paper. Only this one read 1956 Chevy “See to Believe.” As luck would have it, I was already headed in that direction to watch my daughter Deanna in a basketball game. So I thought I could make a quick detour and meet her there later. I pulled into the driveway about 6:30 am, hoping I wasn’t too early. I spotted the Chevy sitting out in the yard. It was beautiful, but being skeptical of the many I had seen before, that look good from a distance but really weren’t, I tried not to get excited. I was greeted by Lloyd and Della Curtis and as I began to look the car over, I understood why the ad said; “See to Believe.” I was looking at a car that had 28,000 miles on the odometer. Still being cautious, I looked at the brake pedal, clutch pedal, under the mats, the trunk area, etc, and was asked if I wanted to test-drive it. As I started the 235ci six-cylinder and looked over the 3- speed on the column, it purred like a kitten. As I started out over their beautiful country lawn I knew immediately it was truly an original. With no power steering, it steered and drove better than any I had test driven before. It felt brand new! As I visited with Lloyd and Della, I asked if they would take any less than what they were asking. She agreed, however, there was one condition and this is the story…. She began to tell me about her grandmother Mary, whom at the age of 61 had purchased this car brand new in Minnesota. The miles that were on it were all within a six-mile radius. In fact, the farthest she traveled was from her farm to her daughter’s, which was a ten mile round trip. Mary passed away in 1975 and the ‘56 sat in a machine shed covered with feed sacks until 1985. At that time Evelyn Miller moved to town and she took the car with her.

She didn’t tag it until 1989, when she used it to pull a float in the VFW parades. Other than that it was not driven. Many people wanted to buy it from her, but their intentions were to not keep it original, so it didn’t get sold. In fact, after seven and a half years, Evelyn decided to ship it to her daughter Della in Kansas, hoping she could find someone to buy it that had the same passion for originality that she did. That takes us back to that Saturday morning. “Yes,” Della replied to my question,” I will give you $500.00 off if you promise to keep it original.” Having the same passion for originality and respect for the history of the car, I said, “I promise”.

So, on July 5th 1997, my dream did become reality. I was now the owner a 1956 150 two-door sedan. Although I would drive it on occasion to the nearby Sonic or take it on a Sunday drive, I had my own business so it was difficult to find the time to enjoy it. After a few years passed, I met my girlfriend Tara King, who also shared the same love for the car. As time went on, we started noticing the hairline cracks in the old lacquer paint adding up and we talked about giving it a good paint job but thought we would “clean a few things up first”. One thing led to another and that’s when a full frame-off restoration began. It’s very hard for Tara and I to start something and not finish it, so, after many phone calls to David Fletcher with Eckler’s, (thank you so much for all your knowledge) our assembly manual that is almost in shreds, and a beautiful paint job by Brian Hollis of El Dorado, Kansas, we completed the restoration in about 18 months.

Although it had been ten years since I had purchased the car, we found Lloyd and Della Curtis and told them we had restored the car and we were taking it to its first show. Guess who showed up! Needless to say, they were very excited to see the car especially in its original form. In fact Della leaned in to smell the car and said, “This is what it had to smell like when Grandma bought it." A few tears and many smiling faces later, we did very well at this event. We have won six awards and took it to The Western National in Albuquerque, NM in 2008 and scored a 993. Wow were we pleased!

To us the awards are wonderful but what means the most to us is what this car stands for - simplicity. It was the most basic car you could get. No radio to distract you from its purr, no bells and whistles. To us it’s our roots. The days when morals meant more than money and promises were kept. It’s where we all started, in the beginning all we had were basics and that was enough. There is something else it stands for: “I kept my promise.”