Pilgrim
US Veteran
My Dad was born in 1925 and lived on a farm. About 1930 my grandfather bought a 1923 Maxwell touring car. My Dad says it was in very good shape and very serviceable, but Maxwell's weren't very popular so they were cheap.
My grandfather chopped off the body but left the cowl and dash board to hold up the steering column. He built a wooden box on the back, strapped a 5 gallon can where the passenger seat would be, for a fuel tank. He used the vehicle as a pickup truck around the farm, and for tending his cranberry bogs and fields. My Dad learned to drive in it.
He used it up until the late 50's when he bought a Silver King tractor.
When I was a kid, back in the late 40's/early 50's, I'd help my grandfather pick cranberries and I'd load boxes (mostly the empties as I was too young to handle full one) into the back of the Maxwell, or I'd shovel sand in/out for the bogs. I'd sit on a very uncomfortable gas can strapped into the car as that was the only place to sit unless you were driving.
The car was placed under the barn in storage about 1960 and sat there until the 90's. My grandfather died in 1980 and my uncle inherited the bogs and the equipment. He did nothing with the Maxwell until he got sick about 2000 and started to clean up his situation for his wife and kids. The Maxwell went away, where I never knew.
A few weeks ago, my son called me and he said he found the Maxwell and the owner wanted it gone or he'd scrap it. My son and I went to get it, but it had been sitting in the woods and was too far gone to be salvageable. The motor/radiator were gone, every moving part was immoveable. The rims rotted and the tires actually fell off and the wooden spokes were rotten off in the ground. Everything was so badly rusted, there was nothing any good for future use.
It did have the SAME strap holding n the gas can. I don't know what is was made of but it lasted longer the the steel of the car.
We decided it wasn't even worth the work to try and load it on a trailer as nothing would turn. It was one solid rusty hunk of steel worth about $35 as scrap.
We found the radiator emblem in the truck and 'rescued' it for posterity.
It looks better in the pic than in reality.
As I said, good memories, but sad.
My grandfather chopped off the body but left the cowl and dash board to hold up the steering column. He built a wooden box on the back, strapped a 5 gallon can where the passenger seat would be, for a fuel tank. He used the vehicle as a pickup truck around the farm, and for tending his cranberry bogs and fields. My Dad learned to drive in it.
He used it up until the late 50's when he bought a Silver King tractor.
When I was a kid, back in the late 40's/early 50's, I'd help my grandfather pick cranberries and I'd load boxes (mostly the empties as I was too young to handle full one) into the back of the Maxwell, or I'd shovel sand in/out for the bogs. I'd sit on a very uncomfortable gas can strapped into the car as that was the only place to sit unless you were driving.
The car was placed under the barn in storage about 1960 and sat there until the 90's. My grandfather died in 1980 and my uncle inherited the bogs and the equipment. He did nothing with the Maxwell until he got sick about 2000 and started to clean up his situation for his wife and kids. The Maxwell went away, where I never knew.
A few weeks ago, my son called me and he said he found the Maxwell and the owner wanted it gone or he'd scrap it. My son and I went to get it, but it had been sitting in the woods and was too far gone to be salvageable. The motor/radiator were gone, every moving part was immoveable. The rims rotted and the tires actually fell off and the wooden spokes were rotten off in the ground. Everything was so badly rusted, there was nothing any good for future use.
It did have the SAME strap holding n the gas can. I don't know what is was made of but it lasted longer the the steel of the car.
We decided it wasn't even worth the work to try and load it on a trailer as nothing would turn. It was one solid rusty hunk of steel worth about $35 as scrap.
We found the radiator emblem in the truck and 'rescued' it for posterity.
It looks better in the pic than in reality.
As I said, good memories, but sad.
