Car collector has more cars than he can count
Submitted by Auto Restoration 101 Blog
Courtesy of the Idaho Statesman
BY TIM WOODWARD
Edition Date: 12/07/08
His collection includes perhaps the second-oldest Model A still around.
If Mike Gooding decides to go for a drive while he’s home relaxing, it’s a simple matter of stepping from his easy chair to his driver’s seat.
Minimal walking is involved because the car is conveniently parked in his living room.
The 1929 Model A Ford Woody stands, defiantly unconventional, between a couch and a house plant. Gooding admits it’s a bit out of the ordinary to park a car in a living room. But when it comes to Model A Fords, very little about rural Canyon County’s car collector extraordinaire can be considered ordinary.
“I don’t know how many cars I have,” he said with a slightly startled look, as if the question had never occurred to him before. “My Dad and a friend had always talked about getting a Model A, and it just mushroomed from there.”
Gooding, 50, bought his first Model A in 1973. He had to borrow the money from his grandfather and convince the seller he wasn’t going to turn it into a hot rod.
The seller didn’t have to worry. Today, entire buildings at Gooding’s family farm are devoted to housing meticulously restored vintage automobiles. The gleaming classics bear little resemblance to the rusted hulks he’s found in places from Idaho pastures to the Nevada desert.
Boisean Jim Spicka, a friend who has seen the rarely shown collection, says it’s “one thing to simply collect classic old cars and another to salvage rusty old piles of junk and bring them to life with your own hands. That’s real skill and artistry. Mike pays unequalled attention to detail and has uncompromising respect for automotive tradition and history.”
Gooding has a Model A believed to be the second-oldest still in existence (engine number 354 out of nearly 5 million).
He has Model A sedans, sport coupes, roadsters, a sedan delivery, a touring car, and a Model A dump truck.
And a security system to protect them.
He has a paint shop and a Model A parts shop. Parts fill scores of boxes, each neatly labeled and methodically arranged on shelves. He has an entire room devoted to Model A engines, frames and other large parts. Displays show the evolution of smaller Model A parts, chronologically organized in glass cases.
His sources for parts range from other collectors to a dealership that closed. Some have never been used. If you need a “brand-new” fender for a 1929 Model A, Gooding is your man.
Why the Model A, as opposed to, say, a Model T or a classic luxury car like a Duesenberg?
“The Model T was slow and boxy,” he said, “and the Model A was Dad’s favorite. It’s also pretty easy to work on, and parts are plentiful.”
Gooding also has a smattering of Packards, Chevrolets and other vintage cars and parts. Add to those a model-car collection, model railroad trains, antique gas pumps and vintage automobile signs and posters and you get an idea of the scope of what he’s collected. If he didn’t live on a farm with multiple outbuildings, he wouldn’t begin to have room for all of it.
Collecting and restoring old cars has been a 35-year family affair for him. He and his father succumbed to their mutual addiction in 1973 and worked together until his father’s death in May. It was common for them in the early years to spend 1,000 hours each winter, lovingly restoring cars on the farm their family has owned for three generations.
When it’s finished, every car in the collection is driveable. Gooding drove a 1936 Chevy to high school and a 1928 Model A to high school and college. He’s since become a familiar figure on holidays, driving his vintage cars in local parades.
His sentimental favorites include his late parents’ 1955 Thunderbird and a 1954 ocean-green Chevrolet pickup truck.
“It’s just like one that belonged to my grandfather and was wrecked when I was 13,” he said. “I took the hood ornament off of it and saved it.”
Two decades later, he restored the one he has now, put his grandfather’s hood ornament on it and gave it to his father for his 54th birthday.
“He asked me where I got the ornament because they’re not easy to find. When I told him, a tear rolled down his cheek.”
His father’s love of cars and their shared farming background meant that working on cars came naturally.
“You’re always changing sprockets and fixing things on a farm,” he said. “I’m an electrician, a hydraulic engineer, a jack of all trades. Being able to work on old cars was the end result of that. It was also the only way we could afford to have a restored Model A.”
What makes a man collect more cars than he can count, or at least hasn’t counted lately?
“I’m a mechanical, hands-on type of fellow, whether in work or play. It was that, and working with Dad, and the camaraderie of knowing other collectors with a common passion. Some of them have become dear friends.”
That said, he adds that his collecting days may be winding down.
“I’ll probably have to start divesting,” he said. “My kids aren’t that interested, and it will take a few years to get rid of everything.”
Are you a fan of the classics? We want to know your thoughts. Register on Classic Cars Blog now and get published within minutes. Before posting, it is recommended that you review our posting guidelines.
December 20th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Your story on Jim Spicka’s car collection was a great read. I also drove a 1936 Chevrolet in high school during 1950-51 at Mohawk High School, Marcola, Oregon. I don’t have a similar car now, as Jim does, but as a reminder, I have a mounted 2-page Chevrolet magazine advertisement with this motto: “Chevrolet, the only complete low-priced car.” I paid $95 for mine in 1950. Wish I had it today. Best wishes. Wayne Warner, Springfield, Missouri.