Sort-of Teardrop from English Ford

[groys02]

2nd try at introductory post. [messed up pic load in 1st try]
Gary... 73 y.o. widower in central IA.
Tent-camped with wife for many years, and then a few yrs more in an '85 U-Haul CT13... which I passed on to son & family after wife passed in '24.
Now working on teardrop made from English Ford parts-car... '59 Prefect.
Still unfinished, but functional... may see some camping locally yet this fall.
Now, a pic or 2?.........

It worked! Body is approx 8' long outside, 7' plus inside, with 12" under galley floor for feet.
And approx 4' W x 4' H inside. Currently just shore power... battery & solar yet to come.

[DJ Davis]

Don't forget your towel! IYKYK....

[groys02]

Thanks DJ... I won't. I had a cousin long ago that urged me to read those books, but we were all wrapped up building a house, so put it off. Then saw the reference on a Facebook post to them, and the name Ford Prefect, and dived right in. Good stuff.

[DJ Davis]

I really enjoy tossing out movie lines or references and seeing who catches them. One of my best past moments: I was an Air Force enlisted reservist activated after 9/11. Working a nightshift, I received a call from an officer. He said, "I have a question." I instantly replied, "42." Without missing a beat, he said "I don't need the answer to life and everything. I need..." and asked his real question. I gave the answer he required, and we hung up. What a riot! The odds of two folks with similar senses of humor, and possibly sleep-deprived minds, coming together like that!

[groys02]

Good for you, DJ! I'd have to say, my own sense of humor & mind for trivial facts [a "trivial mind"?] is seldom understood or appreciated. So it goes. "Semper Ubi Sub Ubi" Or, another favorite of mine from the early 70s, which almost no one 'gets' is, "I am a balance freak in a dead football coach's pants."

[DJ Davis]

Good for you, DJ! I'd have to say, my own sense of humor & mind for trivial facts [a "trivial mind"?] is seldom understood or appreciated. So it goes. "Semper Ubi Sub Ubi" Or, another favorite of mine from the early 70s, which almost no one 'gets' is, "I am a balance freak in a dead football coach's pants."

Hmmm...I'm not a fan of sports or sports series/movies, so that one flew over my head about Mach 1 at 30 Angels. I will take a stab and guess a line from "Coach."

[groys02]

They're both on the obscure side. I first heard the Latin one on 'Frasier' many years ago... literal meaning "Always...Where...Under...Where" Which sounds like "Alway wear underwear"... a Latin pun.

The second goes back to my junior-hippie period in the early 70s, when I poured over the Last Whole Earth Catalog. Along the bottom of the pages was a couple-paragraphs-at-a-time story, which was available later in book form as 'Divine Right's Trip', a cross-country road trip with David Ray Davenport & his girlfriend Estelle. In a bathroom stall in a bus stop along the way, DR is reading the graffiti on the walls, and decides to add something... he get's to looking at his Salvation Army outfit, and imagines the pants to have belonged to a high school football coach; donated after his death to the store. And so he chooses to write, "I am a balance freak in a dead football coach's pants."

Nowadays, if I was tossing out weird quotes, they'd more likely be from Monty Python or Firesign Theatre. Something like, "The future fair! A fair for all, and no fair to anybody!"
Obviously, some of my counterculture past still lingers... I don't bother quoting things like that at my church's Bible study, for instance, where no one would understand, and I might get shown the door.

[DJ Davis]

Re: "...shown the door." I know what you mean. I'm infamous for tossing out Monty Python and other obscure movie lines as well as twisting things to sound funny. In my 20's, I decided to work at the tobacco shop in the mall just because I thought it to be interesting. One day, on a lark, I walked in singing "Oh, Yes! We have no Havanas. We have no Havanas today!" The store owner said it was NOT funny. Did he have no sense of humor? Angry at the embargos that prohibited the sale of Cuban cigars? I have no idea. Alas! a witty pun wasted as pearl before swine.

[Dennis L]

That’s pretty cool. I remember my brother’s first car was a 1959 English ford consul. It had a manual convertible top.

[groys02]

Thanks, Dennis.
I've been fond of English Fords for over 50 yrs now. '49 Prefect... 3 late-50s Anglias/Prefects... 3 late-60s Cortinas.
So the teardrop project just came naturally.