Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Jim Seals celebrates everything automotive

Clara Garcia News-Bulletin Staff Writer; cgarcia@news-bulletin.com

Bosque Farms Since he was a young boy growing up in Virginia, Jim Seals has always had a fascination with everything mechanical — especially automobiles.

And now that he's retired and living in Bosque Farms with his wife, Lorraine, Seals has been able to devote as much time to his hobby as he wants. He said not only is restoring cars a great way to spend his time, but it also can be therapeutic at times.

Seals and his wife set down roots in Bosque Farms in 1999, after seven years of living life on the road in their motor home. They said they didn't want to return to Albuquerque or Taylor Ranch, where they lived before retirement.

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"So we came down here and found this place," Seals said. "We've been really happy here."

Seals, who retired from the Air Force and from his own business in the aviation industry in 1992, said he's always had an interest in Hudsons. In fact, his first car was a Hudson.

The first car that he owned was a 1941 Hudson convertible. He loved it — he was 19 years old, and he'd give anything to get it back now.

"As a kid, I tried to build my own cars, but I couldn't," he said. "And if I could get a set of wheels and a couple of two-by-fours, I tried to put something together. It wound up most often less than anything desirable, but it was fun."

Seals, who is president of the Zia chapter of the national Hudson Essex Terraplane Club, said he thinks that there's just something about cars that inspire people, and while a lot of them never collect or restore classic automobiles, there are many who make it their life's goal.

Today, Seals has two classically restored Hudsons, a 1942 Business Sport Coup and a 1953 Hornet.

"I've owned an awful lot of different cars, but I never considered them as collectables — most of them were just transportation. But I've always been partial to Hudsons," he said.

Seals first started collecting cars in 1978 when he bought a couple of Hudsons, which he says weren't really cars, but pickups. When he went to pick them up, they weren't what he expected. He ended up salvaging one of them and trading the other for the coup.

Seals acquired his 1942 Hudson Business Sport Coup in 2001. He said he saw it advertised in a club journal and decided he'd like to rebuild it.

"The people who had the coup found out I had a pickup, so what we actually did was just trading straight across in Wichita, Kan.," Seals said. "The condition of the coup was terrible — it was a rust bucket.

"If I'd have exercised any common sense, I would have left it there and brought my pickup back," he said chuckling. "I knew it would be a challenge, and I knew I could do it, it's just going to take me a lot longer and cost me a lot more than I anticipated."

It took four and a half years to restore the coup. Seals said he took every nut and bolt and piece off. It was a total disassemble and rebuild.

"There's not a nut or bolt on that car that hasn't been off of it," he said.

Seals isn't sure how much money he spent to restore the coup, but he has a shopping bag full of receipts, which represents maybe 75 percent of what he spent.

"I don't think I'll ever know how much money it took (to restore the car)," he said. "But I enjoyed every minute of it — it was therapeutic. It was something that kept me occupied and challenged. The best part was finally getting to drive it when I got it finished."

Seals bought the '53 Hornet, which has been down all winter while Seals worked on the engine, in 2002. He said he became aware of the car when a past president of the club told him that another member who lived in Edgewood had a vehicle for sale.

He said he had wanted a driver, and because he was working on the coup, he didn't have another Hudson to drive.

"When I went up to look at it, I bought the car and have been driving it ever since," Seals said. "It needed a lot of work, the engine ran good but it leaked oil on both ends, the automatic transmission slipped real bad and the rear end had a heck of a howl in it."

Early on, Seals corrected those problems by overhauling the transmission and the rear end so that he could drive it. He drove it up until late last fall or early winter when he decided to tear it down and work on it and get it all fixed up. He recently set the engine back in it.

"It wasn't in real good shape, but it was usable, and a little doggy in appearance — the chrome needed to be replaced," Seals said. "The '42 doesn't require much (attention) anymore, so I've been concentrating on the Hornet. Occasionally, I have to do something on the coup. Old cars have the tendency to be cranky sometimes."

Seals said he really enjoys driving both cars and tries to swap off between them on the monthly cruises sponsored by the Valencia County Chamber of Commerce. He tries to participate in the cruises when he can, and tries to drive each of his cars at least once a week.

When asked about where he got all the vintage parts to restore his cars, he said many people today are manufacturing after market items, but the best source of parts for these cars is from other vehicles, which he calls donor cars.

"If you need a floor pan, and you have an old car that's wrecked up and it has a good floor pan, you salvage it," he said. "So you salvage parts off of other cars, and there's lots of people in our club that specialize in that sort of thing. So you just have to get on the phone and call and ask if they have what you need. And if they don't, they know who does."

There are more than 3,000 members of the Hudson Essex Terraplane Club. Seal joined in 1993, and now serves as president of the local chapter, while his wife, Lorraine, is secretary. Both were elected to their positions in April.

"We all share a common interest," Seals said of the club. "We meet once a month, and several of us meet for breakfast every Friday morning. We do a lot of socializing and other things.

"I have plenty of things to do, but this is the one that I enjoy the most," Seals said about working on his cars. "It's a lot of work, but it's rewarding in the end."

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