Lake County >> Fixing up classic cars is one of Bill Hern’s biggest passions — he has upwards of 20 projects sitting in his yard just waiting to shine — but it didn’t start out that way.
“When I was a kid we were poor, so if you didn’t fix it you didn’t drive it,” he said. “It started out as a necessity and now that I’m retired I just want to mess with them.”
At the age of 18, Hern bought his first car: an old Corvair. The clutch immediately went out. Instead of taking it to the shop, he purchased a toolbox, a manual and the parts. Though he didn’t have much experience working on cars, he took the Corvair apart and set to fixing it. It was his first major project. But it wouldn’t be his last.
What followed was a lifetime of playing Mr. Fix It. He worked in building maintenance for 20 years, and also spent 27 years as a maintenance noncommissioned officer (NCO) in the military, keeping UH-1 helicopters flying in Vietnam.
Now that Hern is retired, he’s turned his attention to classic cars. Some he wants to work on and others he plans to sell. He’s opening his own auto shop in La Rosa Plaza in Clearlake, which he’s calling Bill’s Customs. Of the 20-odd projects in his yard, he’ll keep about half, and find others who want to fix up the rest.
“What we’re saving here is history,” Hern said. “That’s the big thing for me.”
His pride and joy is a 1935 Ford Cabriolet, which he recently bought off a friend. It’s a rare car, especially compared to the popular 1936 model. The ‘36 is almost identical to the ‘35, save for the grill. 1935 Ford features a front end unique to that year, and that year alone. That’s why Hern is so fond of the car — there aren’t many like it.
At a recent classic car show, Hern had four or five interested parties inquire about purchasing his car, because the vehicle is so hard to find. His car is also almost entirely original, with a Ford engine inside (a lot of people put Chevy engines in Fords, but that’s close to sacrilegious in Hern’s opinion). But he’s not interested in selling his Ford, at least not yet.
Hern isn’t entirely sure why it’s such a rare vehicle, when there are so many Fords from 1932, 1933, 1934 and 1936. Many cars were crushed during the war effort, and maybe the 1935 wasn’t spared because people didn’t care for the grill design, he ventured.
When he first bought the car, Hern had a few issues to fix. There was a water leak, and the vehicle was in the shop for a bit because of that. He also had to deal with gas tank problems. When he first put gas in the Ford, it had been so long since someone had last driven it that the liquid loosened up all the rust, which then went on to clog the filter.
Now that everything is taken care of, the 1935 Ford Cabriolet is worth about $50,000, Hern said, but that doesn’t stop him from driving it around the lake. The navy blue paint isn’t perfect, there are a few dents and scratches. It’s a driver, a car meant to be taken out on the road, like all of his classic vehicles. Hern isn’t too interested in trailer queens, cars that sit in garages and are towed to shows, with their wheels rarely touching pavement.
With his Ford is running smoothly, Hern is turning his attention to his next project: a 1929 Highboy Roadster, which traditionally consists of a 1932 frame with a 1929 body on top. He has all the parts to build the car.
And Hern clearly likes to keep busy, because he’s also getting into the boat restoration business, in addition to opening his custom car shop and working on his own vehicles. Currently he’s fixing up a 1956 boat.
As he moves forward with his new projects, Hern needs to make some room in his crowded yard. In an effort to get rid of his cars, he sold a 1959 Ford truck to another Vietnam veteran, though he wasn’t aware of that fact until the met the man. When he pulled up at Hern’s house, Hern noticed a sticker on the back of his truck which said, Army Aviation. That was when Hern found out that the man had been stationed in Vietnam in 1968, the same year he was there working on helicopters.
If that wasn’t a big enough coincidence, it turned out that the two men’s companies were quite literally stationed right next to each other. “So I sold the car to him cheap,” Hern said. “What’s cool is that, three years from now I’ll probably see the car here [at a car show].”
It just goes to show that classic cars really do bring people together, sometimes in the most unexpected of ways.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
