Solving a classic car mystery

I'm SO not into cars. Not even a little bit. So, it's kind of strange that I felt the need to delve into the world of classic cars to solve a little mystery.

There's this little island that Hubby and I like to visit called North Manitou Island. It was populated long ago by loggers but is now a part of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. There are many signs of past life there, but wilderness is reclaiming the island more and more each year. Every time we visit, it seems, things are a little harder to find, a little more dilapidated, a little more obscured.

One of our favorite camping areas on the island is marked by this old car. In searching for North Manitou Island hiking stories online, I have seen photos of this car in many a backpacker's memories of the island, but no one ever mentioned what kind of car it might be.

On a whim yesterday, I Googled "Identify an old car" and came across this website. I emailed the site owner a photo of the old car in question and he came back with some sort of 1940s V8 Ford.

I searched for that and found this website full of old Ford photos, and after it uploaded, which took a million years on my super slow computer, I decided the car looked like a 1940 Ford Deluxe Tudor.

So, I Googled THAT and found these photos on www.carpictures.com, compared them to the car I was wondering about and...

ding ding ding!!! I think I solved my little mystery!

These photos are credited to someone named Wayne of Kerrville, Texas. I borrowed them from the carpictures.com website with no malicious intent. I saw no way to contact Wayne, so hopefully he doesn't have any issues with me sharing his photos here. They simply helped me determine what my mystery car is... or used to be, anyway.

So, here's a comparison of the old car with the new car. I don't see anything that would point to it not being the same type of car.




















I'm thrilled to know just a little bit more about this car that sits rusting away on a wilderness island I love. Now I just wish I could know whose car it had been, and more about that person. I'll probably never know that, though.