The Liberty Touring Car

This is my grandfather, Frank Miley, with his 1920 Liberty. He is the man who restored the car. This photo was shot in June of 1991. At the time the car was 71 years old and my grandfather was 88 years old. In the middle 1960s my grandfather purchased two Liberty cars from a farmer in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. He completed the 1920's restoration sometime around 1966. He never restored the other Liberty which happens to be a 1922. His fondness for the 1920 stemmed from the fact that the car is identical to the car he was driving when he was dating my grandmother.

These two images show the 1920 Liberty when my grandfather was in the process of restoring the car. When I was young, I remember him saying that the only two things he didn't restore himself was the top and the leather upholstery. Those were both completed by someone in the Lansing area. When I take the car to shows, an old timer will occasionally tell me stories about how my grandfather restored this part or that part. For example: as legend has it, one of the splash aprons is original and the other my grandfather fabricated in the back yard. Apparently he somehow fashioned a die out of an old tree-trunk and then used that die to create a new splash apron. As a skilled tool and die maker, I don't doubt that my grandfather was capable of sort of thing.

This photo was taken in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a life-long Ann Arbor Townie, I recognize the old Art Deco bus depot in the background that still stands today. Shown in the photo is a man by the name of John Podesta (I'm quite sure he's NOT related to the John Podesta who was Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff) and his 1922 Liberty 10-D that was yellow with red wire wheels. The John Podesta in this photo was my grandfather's buddy who also lived here in Ann Arbor. I say they were buddies but I also recall a bit of a rivalry between the two men. You see my grandfather was fiercely proud of his Liberty, and rightly so; he restored every little part himself. Well, some of my earliest memories of my grandfather and the Liberty were from when we would take the car to the Greenfield Village Old Car festival at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Every first Saturday in September we would get up early and my grandfather would drive the car from Ann Arbor to Dearborn to attend the show. I believe it's one of the longest running old car shows in the nation. Anyway, back then if you attended the show your car was judged; I don't think there was any way of avoiding it the way you can now. There were hundreds of cars that attended the show and throughout the day they would assemble 10 or so cars in a group and each of those cars would receive either a blue ribbon, a red ribbon, or a yellow ribbon. At the end of the day all of the blue ribbon winners would reassemble for the "Best In Show" trophy. At least this is how I remember it from when I was a youngster. For years both my grandfather and John Podesta's cars were more or less assured a blue ribbon and a position in final judging. One year my grandfather got a red ribbon while the Podesta Liberty (in a different group of cars) still got a blue ribbon. That was sad day for sure. My grandfather was furious! Apparently, the wire wheels on John Podesta's Liberty were not original to the car and that fact, which had never bothered my grandfather before, just ignited him. He didn't protest to the judges or anything like that but he sure got mad and all of us knew to keep our distance. As the years passed by, the nearly assured blue ribbons became a steady stream of red ribbons and the year my grandfather was handed a yellow ribbon was the final year he attended the show.

The two images shown above are from a self-made Christmas card that was sent to my grandparents from the Podesta's. The image of the Podesta Liberty was shot behind the University of Michigan Football Stadium. About the time that car was built, Fielding H. Yost was lobbying the U of M Regents to build a football Stadium that would hold between 100,000 and 150,000 fans. Yost eventually got his wish. The stadium behind the car probably held 101,701 when this photo was shot sometime in the middle 1970s.

I remember that during the 1970s, at U of M's homecoming game, they would highlight former U of M All American's by driving them around the field in a car that matched the time period in which the player played. For years, my grandfather chauffeured a guy named Edliff "Butch" Slaughter (great name for a football player) who was an All American in 1924. I still have a cardboard sign in my garage that reads "Slaughter 1924" on it. As I recall, my grandfather's car was one of the last cars in the parade because even at the time, Edliff Slaughter was one of the oldest surviving Michigan All-Americans. My dad and I had season tickets back then and for a 10 year old it was a real thrill to sit in the stands and see my grandfather driving around on Michigan's football field.



As long as I'm on the topic of Michigan Football and the Liberty Motor Car Company, I should mention that the banner photo of this blog, the one of the blue 1920 sitting in front of the red barn, well the barn is made out of old bleachers from the Michigan football stadium. My girlfriend's father used to work as a small engine mechanic at the U of M golf course and would also get involved with a variety of other maintenance activities usually related to the athletic department. One day he was told to dispose of "all that wood over there." It was a bunch of old planks from when they were replacing the football bleachers with newer fiberglass covered planks. Well, my girlfriend's resourceful father disposed of "all that wood over there" by carting it home and building a rather sizable barn in the back of his lot. The outside is red, the inside looks like a bunch of old bleachers.

I found these two images on the internet somewhere. The image that looks more faded was shot at the "Volo Auto Museum" which is 50 miles Northwest of Chicago. I don't know if the car is still at that museum or not. The crisper looking of the two images is from some auto auction in which the car was sold. It might also have been shot at the "Volo Auto Museum."

I would have to assume that these images show the same car that was owned by John Podesta. If you compare these images with the black and white images of the Podesta car shown earlier, you'll notice that the car in the older black and white images lacks the spare tires mounted on each side car. Another difference is that in the black and white images it certainly looks like the radiator and headlights are painted black. The car shown in the color images is how I remember John Podesta's car; the yellow and the red.

As long as I'm comparing images, you might also notice some of the differences between model years. If you look closely, you'll see the cowls are different; the cowl on the 1922 Liberty was more or less flat. If you look at my blue 1920 Liberty and Howard Demick's 1919 Liberty, you'll see that the cowl swooped up to meet the windshield. Another difference is that the radiator on the later model Liberties was shorter and wider than on earlier models.

Not long after I took my Liberty to the 2005 Orphan Car Show in Ypsilanti, MI, the Detroit Free Press ran a little blurb about the car that led two or three people around the country to track me down and send me an email. One of those emails came from a man named Howard Demick. Howard and his family live in upstate New York and his story is very interesting; his 1919 Liberty Touring Car has been in the family since it was first purchased new! Apparently the car was purchased and due to the cost of fuel and the ups and downs of farming in upstate New York, it never really got driven all that much. When 1930 hit and the great depression set in, it got driven even less. In fact, judging by the one image that shows a 1930 license plate on the car, it looks like that was the last time the car was licensed. By the time World War II was over and the nation enjoyed a more prosperous time, the old 1919 Liberty was more or less outdated and forgotten in the corner of a barn; forgotten until recently. The pictures shown above were the first ones that Howard sent me sometime in 2006. As of the the winter 2008-2009, the car is in the process of being fully restored.

Every so often Howard Demick and I exchange emails. In the early part of winter, 2008, he wrote to say that during the summer he had moved his 1919 Liberty out of the barn, loaded it on a truck, and took it to be completely restored. With his email he included the photos above and below this posting. Apparently the car had been in the shop for a while and one of the mechanics called Howard and asked, "Can you guess what that is?" At which point all Howard could hear over the phone was a loud indiscernible noise in the background. Well, what Howard was hearing was the sound of the engine from his 1919 Liberty running for the first time in decades. Apparently, with relatively minor effort, they got the engine running just as it was. Howard says the car should be completed by summer of 2009. I can't wait for the next round of pictures.