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1938 Plymouth P-5 Business Coupe

(D.J. Freeman furnished the above photos of his 1938 Plymouth P-5 Business coupe at various points in its life. We were able to find the article from the June, 2005 CPPC Newsletter, where the history of the car was detailed.)

By Vicki Williams

When D.J. Freeman introduced himself at the Troutdale picnic portion of the East/West Tour he said he was the one driving “the ugliest car” on the tour.

At the time his 38 business coupe had various colors of paint and primer in a variety of splatter patterns. Well, he can’t use that description anymore. When asked when he got his car painted his reply was “which part are you talking about?” He said he just took one part off at a time and painted it and put it back on and drove the car until he ran out of body parts.

His final part, the passenger door, was completed the 1st of June this year and on June 4th he and his wife Cynthia drove it from their farm in Philomath to the “Function 4 Junction” in Junction City, Oregon. This is a car show that has had as many as 800 cars in the past. Cars line up four deep and cruise the streets of Junction City. After a day of cruising D.J. decided it was time to head home since he is operating a 6 volt system with the resulting dim headlights and darkness was fast approaching. While heading out of town he was motioned in to the award presentation area. It seems he had been awarded a plaque for the “Best 1930’s Car”. Considering the amount of competition in this category this was quite a complement for the 38 with the barely dry paint.

The 38 business coupe had come a long way since D.J., a retired Philomath police officer, had acquired it in 1998. But the story really begins in 1989 when he first saw the car in many parts in a shop on a farm. D.J. expressed interest in the car then but the owner wanted to make a hot rod out of it and wasn’t interested in selling. It was totally disassembled and stored in many different places around the farm. D.J. told the owner if he ever changed his mind about selling to give him a call. The call came in 1998. By this time D.J. was working on a 48 Plymouth club coupe but he went out to the farm to see what had progressed on the 38 in the nine years since he’d first seen it. The only thing that had changed was that there was nine years of dust on everything.

The 38’s owner agreed to sell everything for $500 and was also willing to give D.J. $200
for his 48 club coupe. D.J. agreed as long as he could keep the engine out of the 48. They
struck a deal with the understanding that D.J. would get all the parts off the guy’s property
as soon as possible. At the time D.J. was working the graveyard shift and got off work at 7:00a.m. He would get off work and drive out to the farm and locate the parts to put the car back together.

He was living in a trailer park and rules expressly prohibited working on a car in the
park. He had only a carport and no garage. So he had to put all the parts together so it
looked like a car and then covertly work on it without raising the suspicion of the trailer park manager. It took D.J. 3 weeks to get it drivable. He drove it home to the trailer park with no windows while sitting on a 5 gallon plastic bucket (thus the term “bucket seat”) with only brakes on the rear wheels. He also had a 5 gallon gas can with a hose to the fuel pump sitting next to him. The good news is he’s alive to tell the story today!

In June of 1999 he began entering car shows. By September he won his first award at the Goldson Grange Car Show – the “Trusty Rusty” award for being the rustiest car in the show.

D.J. figured out a way to win the People’s Choice award, one usually presented to the fanciest car in a show. At the 2000 NAPA Cruise-In in Corvallis, he offered all his friends and family a free dinner if they showed up and voted for his car. They complied and his 38 won the People’s Choice award.

Now this show didn’t just give you a nice trophy for the honor of People’s Choice. This was a show that plastered the winner of the People’s Choice on the next year’s t-shirt and all the advertising for the next year’s show! He says he still has several shirts if anyone wants to buy one.

The engine in the 38 has its own history to tell. In 1990 D.J. bought a 1953 Plymouth and started to rebuild the engine when he found out the parts were going to cost a fortune. While at a local parts house he noticed a block and parts on a rack there that appeared to be the same as his block. He was told that someone had brought it in and had the block bored and it had never been picked up. He could have everything (pistons, rings, bearings, etc.) for $150.00. The only thing missing was the crank but the crank on his engine was good. He checked out the numbers on the engine and found out it was an old Chrysler marine engine (the 217.8 or also known as the 218cid). He installed the engine in the 53 in 1990 but when he started to build the 48 he moved the engine to that car and ultimately moved it to the 38.

The engine is in its third car and may have started out in a boat. The same engine is used in most forklifts at local mills so parts have never been hard to find.

The 38 has proven to be a survivor. Back in the winter of ‘03/’04 the Freeman family, now living on the Freeman farm since May of 2002, went to bed during a heavy rain storm. D.J. awoke about 1:00AM and it was suddenly silent. He awoke again at 3:00AM to a loud crash outside. He discovered the reason for the 1:00AM silence was that the rain had turned to snow and the crash was the canopy over the family’s PT Cruiser collapsing under the weight of the snow.

After working till 5:30AM rescuing the PT Cruiser he went back to bed with only a fleeting thought to his 38 parked under a much sturdier canopy. Once the snow stopped D.J. ventured out to survey the farm. He was correct that the sturdier canopy did not collapse from the weight of the snow but unfortunately is wasn’t sturdy enough to survive the weight of 28 trees falling on it!. Three trees one foot in diameter each had toppled on to the canopy and formed what looked like an asterisk and then 25 smaller trees fell on top of that. D.J. had to wait a few days for the snow to melt so he could get the chainsaw out and salvage the 38.

The car survived with only a few scars but the experience prompted D.J. to build a real shop for the 38. As you can tell, life on the Freeman Farm is always exciting. D.J. says he plans on driving his 38 up to a meeting sometime soon. Maybe he will even wear one of those t-shirts showing off the 2000 Corvallis NAPA Cruise-In People’s Choice winner!