1934 Ford Phaeton is a beloved piece of family history
Dr. Alan Brauer is a board certified physician in Adult and Geriatric Psychiatry. He serves as Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor in Psychiatry at Stanford University. He founded the Biofeedback Clinic at Stanford in 1977, and he opened one of the earliest integrated medicine clinics in the U.S. Brauer currently practices psycho-pharmacology in Palo Alto and enjoys spending time with his wife, Donna, at their vacation homes in Puerto Vallarta and Lake Tahoe.
In 1949 my father spotted a dark green, windowless old car for sale at a filling station in Woodstock, N.Y. The car was a 1934 Ford Phaeton, and it was love at first sight for my father. The gas station owner was asking $150.
Fueled by his sudden need to have the car, he drove away in it without negotiation or discussion. He instantly christened her “Penelope,” and little did we know it at the time, but my father had just adopted a fifth member of our family.
Badly in need of paint, Penelope’s original drab green soon became a cheerful light cream color. The non-synchro mesh transmission, manual steering and propensity to boil over were all challenging for driving on the mountain roads of the Catskills.
The Phaeton was also strictly open air, requiring rain gear to drive in wet weather. Having to rely on Penelope when my father was at work, my mother sometimes yearned for a plain old automatic sedan. However, my father had become enamored of His Fair Lady and replacing her was never an option.
Penelope settled into her new home in 1959, when we moved our summer residence to Westport, Conn. The transformation of the aging lady to elegant splendor proceeded in earnest.
Penelope received new upholstery, a new convertible top, hydraulic brakes, 12-volt electrical, sealed beam headlights, an authentic original greyhound radiator cap, spiffy whitewall tires, a luggage carrier and a myriad of other improvements.
Local townsfolk regarded her as their beautiful new neighbor and would wave as we drove by. All the children in our family and legions of local kids begged to ride on her wide running boards.
One day while loading groceries outside of the fancy local farmers’ market, a man approached my father. Pointing to a red Ferrari Testarossa he queried, “Want to trade?” My father looked at the man with the Ferrari and replied, “Mr. (Paul) Newman, I am flattered by your offer, but I must respectfully decline.”
After my father’s death in 1997, Penelope was carefully shipped to our home in Portola Valley. Like proud new parents, we featured her on our holiday card that year.
Dressed as Gangster and Mol, my wife Donna and I posed on Penelope’s curvaceous fender as though we were in “Bonnie and Clyde.” The 1934 Ford, with the first ever production V8, could out run police cars and was the notorious couple’s favorite getaway car. The caption on our card was an appreciative 1934 note to Henry Ford from Clyde Barrow, “For sustained speed and freedom from trouble, the Ford has got every other car skinned.”
In the 2010 New York Times Classic Car Contest, Penelope was a national finalist among 4,000 entries. She was also awarded third in her class at the 2012 Palo Alto Concours d’Elegance. Today, Penelope runs perfectly and always turns heads wherever she goes. Whenever I drive her, I feel like I’m motoring not just a beloved piece of Brauer family history, but a piece of American automotive history as well.