When I bought her from George Riehl, he was able to give me some of her recent history. A solid body with no front clip or engine, the roof and interior in tatters, she was fished out of a Pennsylvania wrecking yard by Curtis Thompson. It seems that Curtis had two very rusty Ks, a coupe and a convertible and he wanted to marry the three of them into one good car. That was sometime in the late ‘70s. Later on, a guy from Ypsilanti, Michigan bought the whole project. He commissioned Curtis to haul the body to a Syracuse, New York body shop for the basic bondo and pop-rivet job. Meanwhile, George was hired to restore the engine and transmission and later store the painted body. At this point, the owner dropped out of sight, owing George money for mechanical work and storage. Later, George was awarded legal ownership of the car through a mechanic’s lien. He finished the car in time to debut it at the 1984 Toronto meet.

So much for the recent history, but I kept wondering about an original owner and how did she end up in a Pennsylvania junkyard? At the Mena, Arkansas meet, I learned that our club had copies of the microfilm on our cars. I eagerly fired off a request to Gil Cunningham and he promptly returned me a copy of the car’s dealer order card. Accompanying this was a neatly written interpretation of all those numbers and little black boxes. Right at the top of the page was written, “selling dealer – Nissely Motors, 361 E. Main St., Middletown, Pennsylvania”. I had the Atlas open to Pennsylvania in a flash and was searching for Middletown. There it was, a tiny little dot, just south of Harrisburg. The next day, I called a friend in Chrysler’s sales division and asked him if he could get me Nissely Motor’s phone number. An hour later, he called to tell me that Nissely had gone out of business in 1982. However, he told me that there was a Dodge dealer who had been in operation since 1962 and was still in business. That evening, I called the Dodge dealer and had a nice conversation with Tom Baine of Baine Dodge. Although he was interested, he could not help me out. He had tried to buy up the Nissely franchise when it folded, and he still had a record of every car that he ever sold. So close but yet so far! Well, I still had one more rock to throw. My brother-in-law, a Windsor policeman, ran the vin number through the Pennsylvania license department. Their records only go back ten years – another stone wall.

Ever since then, I had determined to go to Middletown the first chance I got. This summer, as Louise and I started to plan for the Boston meet, she reminded me that we had an obligation to visit friends who had been job transferred to Philadelphia. Oh boy, right down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, with Middletown less than ten miles out of our way. We got out of Windsor at 4 AM on the Saturday before the meet. It was a beautiful sunny day, with the temperature just poking eighty degrees. The K ate up mile after mile of Ohio and then Pennsylvania Turnpike. By 1 PM we were taking the off ramp for Middletown. It was a beautiful day for a homecoming. We were so close now. Questions kept running through my mind. When was the last time the K had run this road? Would we be able to find 361 E. Main St.? Would the building still be standing? Would wonder of wonders, someone recognize the car? We answered the middle two questions within seconds of hitting town. After passing the obligatory “WELCOME TO MIDDLETOWN” sign, we descended a hill to a red light. E. Main St. passed in front of us and on our right stood a large older building, decked out in Chrysler blue and white. The sign said “Acme Auto Parts”; but the address, 361, said the K was home. After pulling into the neat asphalt parking lot, I got out to take a look around. Acme was closed; but right next door was a used car lot and garage. The sign for this establishment, read “Bob Nissely Used cars” and it was open. I headed next door with high hopes. I approached a young man, working on a car in the garage. I quickly learned that Bob was out of town on business and that he was the son of the former owner of Nissely Motors. The young man only rented space from Bob and he could not help me any further.

Well, that was it. I guess I was a little disappointed. I hadn’t learned very much. I never met any original owner or seller but maybe I had expected too much. In the end, I just stood there for a few minutes, leaning against the K, letting the history of the place sweep over me, with my imagination in high gear. Oh, if those walls could talk. Would they remember a transport chugging up in front, dropping off a golden 300K convert, all shiny and powerful? Would they remember a first owner, eagerly negotiating for that new car? Would they remember all that glorious excitement, all those years ago? Finally, with a shake of my head, I exorcised all the imagined memories and we once again turned east for Philly.

---

Thanks to Bill Elder (Wild Man of the North) for preparing this article