Rolling Ford V-8 museum spends a week in Fort Bragg, here is some car history you won’t get anywhere else and check out these cars!!

(Editors The facts presented in this story will terrify and traumatize those who believe Google search and Wikipedia are reliable ways to understand and “fact check” history).

Come enjoy the world that Edsel Ford made. This man, maligned by his name and the unfortunate car named after him, was also boss over America’s iconic car company during its most classic period. Fords from 1932, 1934, 1937, 1938, 1940, 1947, 1948 and 1951 were driven around Fort Bragg, enjoying our sights all week. Napa’s Early Ford V-8 Club Of America was visiting our town this week. They didn’t come for the car show but they made their own car show as their 10 spiffy Fords were seen all over town. 

I saw the oldsters in their classics having fun and seeing sights. One gray-haired lady struck a pose when we photographed them on Main Street car to car. 

I tracked them down enjoying Cowlicks’ ice cream on Wednesday night.  A couple of the participants joined the impressive convoy from Santa Rosa. There were only seven of them left when I arrived. I asked them if there were any Found on Road Dead.  A guy said “we don’t allow dirty Chevy talk here.”

A woman said, no, not one breakdown.

Mean, horrible fathers have done much of the damage in history. Donald Trump. Kim Jong Un are both a dudes recovering from tyrannical fathers. Some, like Bob Dylan, just changed their name as an FU to what old man dad wanted to force down his throat.

Beethoven could have been the most abused son. No matter what they became, they weren’t enough and suffered terrible physical abuse like Thomas Edison, who went on to be a horrible and brilliant man.

You can see what happens.. One of the meanest fathers in history was Henry Ford. Maybe worse than all the above. He was incredibly mean to Edsel; nothing Sonny ever did was good enough. He insulted him publicly. Said he was weak, hinted he was gay.  Humiliated him in the office. When Edsel got cancer and was dying, Henry said he was just showing what a weakling he was for not coming to work and cut him off.  When Edsel actually died of cancer in 1943, evil Henry realized what a King Lear he was and, with full Shakespearean agony, lost much of his mind screaming for another chance.  Old Henry immediately seized control of the company, mad as a hatter. It took Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the board of directors and the United States Navy to get Hank the Deuce, a 28-year old Naval officer, discharged to do his patriotic duty as critical as the entire Navy- to take over Ford Motor from his deranged grandpa. Ford company HAD to have its shoulder to the war effort and couldn’t be run by a madman. And the nation couldn’t know, and didn’t know this was going on. 

Henry Ford II, known as Hank the Deuce, took over the company  in 1943, although not officially made president until 1945 and CEO in 1947, when Henry died.. The story was never told publicly at the time that Henry had been hospitalized while pretending to be in charge and being so infernal that he would charge in and try to assume the title as president, while he was still President. 

So today we celebrate the incredible cars made during the heart of Edsel’s years. Henry Ford was a horrible, backwards guy after having led the world in innovation.  Edsel faced down Father Terrible on hydraulic brakes, which Henry thought were a new-fangled fad, but the innovation possibly saved thousands of lives and the company by doing just that.

Edsel also founded the Mercury division and was responsible for the Lincoln-Zephyr and Lincoln Continental. He also toughed out father Henry’s tirades and increased Ford’s income and involvement overseas, while Henry thundered America First idiocy.

After Henry virtually browbeat his son to death, the old man really went nuts just in time to do all kinds of crazy stuff during WWII, while his company was busy making machines that saved the world. It was during this time Henry  finally walked away from  Fordlandia the bizarre utopian nation-sized area in South America which he had started, which he hoped to use for growing the rubber for tires for Ford cars , leaving the world’s strangest ghost town behind.

Henry Ford II, privately hated his grandpa for what he did to dad. LIke the greatest song man ever to insist on being called “Bob Dylan” when that wasn’t his birthname, Henry II never wanted to be called Henry Ford.  He wanted to be Hank. That seemed too silly for most people, and somebody nicknamed him Hank the Deuce, which stuck. 

Frank Hartzell the investigative reporter and Hank the Deuce the real estate and creepster wheeler-dealer

I researched Hank the Deuce’s business dealings with Trump and the Epstein gang. 

Hank the Deuce once sweet-talked the Queen of England into approving the questionable acquisition of Sotheby’s by the Epstein gang. The queen had been charmed by grandpa, who changed the world with his cars and his labor practices. If he had treated his son as well as he treated the working man, it would have all been different. 

Hank the Deuce’s high point was the T-Bird. A bright young executive named Lee Iaacoca developed the Mustang was to Hank at the end of his career as Hank had been to Henry.  Hank kicked him out and Lee saved Chrysler. 

Henry openly hated the small-town nostalgia in America while also battling globalism. Henry Ford had so many contradictory ideas in his head, it should have exploded.  To top it all off, the man who said America’s dream of small towns, small businesses, local banking and all the rest that made us great before WWI was sentimental crap but then CREATED A NOSTALGIC small town in Michigan in 1929 celebrating all that. 

Nobody has ever been able to figure that one out. 

Edsel Ford II, 76, grandson of Edsel Ford celebrates all of them, serving on the board for 30 years.. William Clay Ford Jr., grandson of Henry, ran the company and created the great Ford Suvs and best Ford pickups ever. 

Family, you just can never understand family from outside, but few families are as crazy, creative, get ‘er done, authentic Ugly Americans as the Fords.

Also please don’t go to the Wikipedia or Google search and read official versions of everything (all that most people know in 2025) and then tell me that I’m wrong and try to correct the facts about any or all of this. Source yourself to some of the great books written about all this and those just don’t come up on Google. Some of it is in my 100,000 pages in my file cabinets out back.

Hank the Deuce, nostalgically named the Edsel, supposed to be one of the greatest cars in history, instead became its biggest flop and laughingstock, the Edsel after a journalist said the grill looked like a toilet seat. Poor old dad Edsel.  He suffered for well intentioned disasters that happened long after he was dead.

https://www.earlyfordv8.org

Enjoy the cars. They speak louder than the tirade about the artistic greatness that made America.

The 1932 Ford– This was the first Ford V-8, so this is the oldest car you can own and be in the Napa club. Edsel also prevailed over Henry in kicking out the marvelous smaller engines of Henry’s baby, the Model T and Model A. This was the company’s turning point. But the 1932 Ford turned out to be one of the most famous cars in history for an entirely different reason- hot rods. It is NOW and has always been the ultimate Hot Rod.  Car guys in the 1950s all had to have a 32 Ford, to chop, lower, black out, chrome up. The original V-8 might have been OK for the 50s jazzed up with all kinds of blowers coming through the hood, but as time went on, that changed. I was talking to John Schnaubelt, one of Fort Bragg’s premier classic car men and owner of the local distillery named after him. John agreed. He looked into it at one point and found there are now more 1932 Fords on the road than there were in 1932 when the last new one sold. So many recreations, kit cars and conversions are registered as 1932. And let me tell you, they wrecked a LOT of these over the years, unlike other more staid classics.  A ‘32 had to GO!  Nobody I have ever heard of desires an “all original” 1932 Ford.  However, I found a Facebook group devoted to just that!

1934 Ford– By contrast, nothing is cooler than an all original 1934 like this one. It must have the original V-8 under the hood as the club has the BEST models, like this two door or coupe.  To the car lover, the relaxed lean of this 1934 screams Ford louder than that Ford blue in the grille logo.  

1937 Ford- the 1937 was the most drastically redesigned Grille in history and unique among peers like Chevy, Packard and Dodge.

1940 Ford pickup– I am NOT a pickup man, but I think I’d have this one over all the rest, any of which would be amazing for me

1947 Ford- The stately 1947 Ford looks like it looked just like it did on the dealership lot. Post World War II style was clunky all around compared to the 1930s

1948 Ford – But there is nothing clunky about this convertible, probably the most valuable of the seven I was able to see. I wonder what year the other 3 cars we missed were?

1951 Ford Crown Victoria– This was one of the most innovative Fords ever made. We had a glass top one of these, cool at the time, but this hardtop is much better for the ages.

The Napa group is affiliated with the Early Ford V-8 club. As you can see there were a lot of great models and these are only a few. The club formed in San Leandro, a great car town in 1963 to celebrate the beloved flathead V-8. The flathead has valves next to the cylinder, not on top of them as in the much more common overhead valve engines. There is no cylinder head on the flathead and when you look you see those cool bolt heads where are part of the design needed to keep the pistons protected.

From Wikipedia: “Before the flathead used inline-four and inline-six cylinder engines. Following French engineer Léon Levavasseur‘s invention of the V8 in 1902, V8s, V12s, and even V16s, were produced for use in luxury models. The Cadillac V8 engine is credited as the first mass-produced V8, and when Ford Motor Company acquired rival luxury marque Lincoln in 1922, the maker was already producing a flathead V8 with fork and blade connecting rods, which remained in production after Ford took over until 1932. “
Henry Ford had actually come up with many of the ideas for the flathead, but he dragged his feet on replacing his beloved Model A. Edsel prevailed.

Like every American lodge, church, club and rock band there had to some sort of big controversy and there was and it split the club. The purists who started it only accepted flathead until 1940, when the design changed radically enough to say that was the end of the “true” flathead.

Cooling improvements were made, and the water pumps were relocated to the front of the block. The main bearings were enlarged, and the babbitt was replaced with modern inserts. Additionally, the cylinder head bolt pattern changed to the 24-bolt design, and a one-piece distributor cap replaced the two-piece design.  The new bolt design was the kicker. Plus Mercury made an OHV V-8 in 1941, the heretics! But the impurists won, and the last year your car could belong was 1952. This left dour-faced 1953 Ford owners, as that was the actual last year of the flathead.

But then somebody said, what about all the true flathead engines made between 1932 and 1952 that were put in airplanes, and tanks and farm tractors. How can leave them out? Another fight ensured and then they were included too.

Then somebody who had a really nice 1940 six cylinder car (probably) said: Why can’t my Ford come and play too? Soon, all cars made by Ford between 1932 and 1952 were accepted. I have no idea why they dumped the 53s!! Canadian Ford made models kept the flathead through 1954 guys. Shut up!

Geez! Enough with the objections!

The Napa 7 were all the best of the best of those years. No four doors even. No dinged and bents. No 6-cylinder crybabies. I’m sure they would accept a 4 door, but those are terrible investments as they are so common, relatively, and you put all that money in and can’t ever get half of it back.

Linda and I had a blast looking at these cars, doing the research for this story and presenting the odd, warped, and often downright crazy series of events in the Ford family story.  All-in-all one of our most enjoyable stories of the year. Hope you saw the Ford Club driving around while they were here in our town.