Help us decide what we should call our new baby. We trucked it in, sight unseen and with the exception of a tapping noise in engine, which we can’t decide if it is a lifter, valve guide, or rocker arm, we have enjoyed "OLIVE OIL" (Alice's nickname for the Green Hornet!) After some photo exchanges, phone calls, and lots of questions, we officially bought the car on July 4, 2006. The high bidder had zero feedback on eBay, and we had over 300 transactions with 100% positive feedback on eBay, so the owners of the "GREEN HORNET” (my nickname for our new car) contacted us with a SECOND CHANCE OFFER. However, neither of us had met the reserve, so there was no sale. It was for sale on eBay, and we bid on it, but someone outbid us by $100.00 at the last minute. It was restored by a Volvo Museum in Illinois, was purchased by a pilot and his wife back in the mid-nineties, and then went with them to Tennessee when they moved. Enter our purchase, a 1956 Thunderbird Green (Sage Green interior) built only 11 days after our original Redbird in March of 1956. I was cruising around the Internet one day looking at Thunderbirds for sale and Alice happened to pass behind me, and she commented, "Oh that’s a pretty one, we should get that one!" You could have knocked me over with a feather! My Alice, interested in another Thunderbird? I didn't need to hear it twice. You can read about our exploits in the July-Aug 2003 issue of the EarlyBird when we took our bucket of bolts on a three hour one-way drive to Callao for a parade at the invitation of long time members Lew and Jane Wright, CTCI #7867. But we enjoyed taking her out for long drives. ![]() Alice never warmed up to the Redbird, due to the way it came into the family. A visiting fellow train collector accidentally broke the news to my wife, asking, "How do you like your new Thunderbird?" The cat was out of the bag. I didn't have the courage to tell my wife what I had done for a couple weeks, as I cleared out a spot in garage to bring her home. A red 1956, unrestored, jewel in-the-rough which looked great from 15 feet away, was on the block and after the bidding settled down, I raised my little ol’ hand one time and ended up buying our first T-Bird. That is where I came across my first Tbird. ![]() ![]() Years later, I attended an estate auction held by the widow of a deceased friend and fellow train collector, as we had discussed the possibility of auctioning her husband's train-related items through our company. Being a draftsman for 30 years, I duplicated those graphics, made templates, and recreated them on the plywood side you see in the photo, Built in 1942, retired in 1969, it is somewhat rare as most surviving cabooses are steel, not wood. I removed the plywood siding on the rear of the caboose and discovered original graphics on the original tongue and groove wood siding beneath.
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