The purchaser was apparently an almond and english walnut farmer, who apparently drove the car daily until about 1951.  He parked it next to his barn with 66,900 miles on the odometer and there it remained.  For the entire 56 years since, the car sat in one place, covered in tarps, tires flat, engine stilled.

When I was five years old,  the car had already been sitting for ten years, covered by tarps, tires flat and home to lots of field mice. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon all came and went. Yuri Gagarin, followed by Mercury astronauts, went into space. The Beatles came to America. We landed on the Moon. 

Through all the years, a lifetime for some people, the holidays, the summers, the new school years, the car sat wrapped in tarps, trapping moisture inside, and the owner adding another tarp when the previous one deteriorated.   Presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton all came and went as the car still sat there.

By the time I graduated from college, the car had long sunk up to its rear axle in mud, and covered by yet another tarp.  No way to tell what the owner had in mind for it, whether it was forgotten, or if he planned to do something with it someday. The car sat there for the fifteen years I worked at the Cape in Florida.  In the fall of 2005, I purchased the car and it was moved to Santa Maria, California in December.   It came with some documentation from the original sale, along with unused service coupons for Maintenance. It's like a Museum Piece.  

Problem is, the tarps wrapping it for all those decades kept moisture trapped inside and there had been significant condensation rust and deterioration of some parts.

The car was entirely complete, but there was condensation rust in the roof panel, the trunk floor and the back seat area.   There was one piece of external trim missing, otherwise everything that had been on that car  when produced in 1936 was still there. 

As of Oct 2006, the original owner was 91 years old, and apparently still lives in the Woodlands area.

Target restoration time had been one year, but that got blown away years ago.  My original goal was to have a nice modernized Airflow daily driver, but once I realized how scarce these models are now, I changed gears in midstream and decided to do it up right.  Four years on now, its moving on the streets. There were two extended periods when it sat in my garage, with no progress, because I got tired of spending on it. But I never lost interest, and kept up, bit by bit, part by part, gathering what I'd need. 

  Progress Status.