Model A finds a home in Pamlico museum

GRANTSBORO - The late Walter Gaskill's prize Model A has found a home.

In 1930, he drove 25 miles on dirt roads from Bayboro to the W.C. Hagen dealership on Craven Street in New Bern, and got a shiny new model for $480 cash and his old Model T.

It was the Gaskill family car for the next 27 years before he retired it to the barn behind his house on Old Bay River Road.

He didn't abandon it, periodically rubbing it down with a mixture of kerosene and motor oil to prevent rust; and he kept the four-cylinder motor full of oil.

Saturday, the Model A - refurbished with new paint, tires, upholstery and mechanical parts - took center stage at the open house for the Pamlico County Heritage Center, scheduled to open later this year.

Gaskill, a carpenter, died in 1993 and left the car to his son Robert. The son looked upon the old car, with its bug-eye headlights, fold-up hood and running board, as a member of the family.

"I got my driver's license behind the wheel of that car," he said. "That car is older than I am. I'm 72 and it's 78."

Like his father, Gaskill knew that such a prized vehicle had value - sentimental and monetary.

"He kept it for the good it had been," Gaskill said. "He could have sold it a hundred times."

So, like his father, he rejected the notion to sell it. Instead, he donated it to a fledgling museum group seeking artifacts to document Pamlico County history.

"He used to drive 35," he said of his father's road routine.

"Can you imagine driving 35-miles-an-hour from here to Durham and back?" he laughed. "We would get up real, real early and get home real, real late."

Gaskill conceded, "It would go a lot faster than that."

The car wasn't driven fast and was never in a wreck. But, government concerns about auto collisions eventually led to the Model A taking up residence in the barn.

Walter Gaskill had added a 1953 Ford to the family fleet and when mandatory liability insurance came along, the elder Gaskill stood by his frugal ways.

He parked the Model A.

Originally, it was painted black.

"You could get a car any color you wanted, as long as it was black," Robert Gaskill said of Henry Ford's vintage vehicles. "During the war (World War II), daddy painted it green."

Now, the green Model A has a permanent parking space at the Pamlico County Heritage Center.

Robert Gaskill nods.

"Daddy would be happy. It's better where it is now."