After nearly 80 years since it rolled out of its US factory, a 1924 Dodgehas taken to the roads of Westmeath. Hugh Oram went to have a look at this marvel of the restoration business
All I was missing was a Gatsby style cap and the goggles, but otherwise this was authentic motoring, 1920s-style.With Gerry Oakman at the wheel of his restored 1924 Dodge, we went for a spin recently along the country roads high above along the eastern fringes of Lough Ree, near his home.
All the springs in the seats did a remarkable stand-in job for suspension. The car itself felt as it were six feet off the road, a little like a tank, although in reality, it was pretty high off the tarmac. You could really hear the engine working, firing easily but noisily on all cylinders.
But the old lady zipped along, like a stately galleon , getting up to 40 mph, even pushing towards a daring 50. When cars came the other way on the narrow roads, the braking was efficient and stopped the car in short order.
It was so easy to imagine what the early days of motoring were like - elegant,patrician and not a clamper to be seen.
The day that Gerry Oakman of Glasson, just outside Athlone in Co Westmeath, turned the starting handle on his restored 1924 Dodge and it started again, after three turns, for the first time in nearly 70 years, was one of the proudest days of his life. This car had been made in Detroit in the heyday of the Dodge corporation.
The two Dodge brothers, John and Horace, were component suppliers to Ford and their factory became the biggest auto components plant in the world. In 1915, they started to build their own marque.
The car that Gerry Oakman owns was one of the luxury Special series that cost $1,055 when new. It was also one of the last four-cylinder cars that Dodge built: from 1924 onwards, they built only six-cylinder models. Gerry Oakman's car happily does 35 to 40 mph and isn't too bad on petrol, with 20 mpg.
It chugs along nicely, if noisily, high off the road. Originally the car was bought by Patrick Doris, from Thomas McGeeney, a Longford engineer, as he styled himself.
The car ran well for 10 years but in the middle of Patrick Doris's canvassing as a Fine Gael candidate in local elections in Longford in 1934, a front tyre was punctured. A replacement tyre was needed but couldn't be found, so the car was put up in a shed and never moved again, until 1986.
That year, the car was sold by John E Doris, son of Patrick Doris, to a Wicklow man, Gay Brennan, who intended to restore it but was prevented from doing so by ill health. John E Doris, son of the original owner, is still alive, 100 years of age and living in a Dublin nursing home.
Eventually Gay Brennan's brother, Pascal, sold the car four years ago to Gerry Oakman, for £3,000. At that stage, the car wasn't in a good state. The roof of the shed in the Co Wicklow hills where it was being stored had collapsed, destroying the roof and much of the interior. Amazingly, all the window glass was intact. The tyres were stuffed with straw. Restoration was a massive task and for the next two years, Gerry Oakman did little else in his spare time.
The bodywork was restored by a friend of his who specialises in car body restoration, Gerry Sketh in Ballygawley, Co Tyrone. He bead-blasted the bodywork to clean it, then restored the metal. The wings of the car were in a particularly bad condition, covered in cow dung. Someone else in Ballygawley repainted the car, then after three or four months, it was returned home to Gerry Oakman in Glasson.
He repaired the mechanical defects himself, including two cracks in the engine, and had the magneto replaced by a firm in Northern Ireland for £200. The "very strange" gear change was fully restored; it has three forward gears and reverse, but top is forward.
Gerry Oakman says that ideally, he should have had the engine reconditioned, but the clock was running on restoration costs, so he had to draw a line. "I did all the restoration as cheaply as I could," he says.
Gerry Oakman worked on the car every Saturday and Sunday for two years, as well as three nights a week. Fortunately, his day job, driving his own bus, which he's done for years, gives him a reasonable amount of free time. One skill he had to learn was how to operate a sewing machine, so that he could replace the black leather upholstery, which he did. In the style of the time, the back seat is very capacious and roomy, since the car was designed for the owner to sit in the back, with the chauffeur in the driving seat. The car doesn't have shock absorbers, but plenty of springs in the seats.
The original spoke wheels, with the spokes made from hickory, which is as strong as steel, are still in place, gleaming with new paint, maroon to match the bodywork. One thing that isn't original is the luggage box on the back, which bears the slogan "Gran ol' Opry", which Gerry bought in. "It's a local car and I did all the work for the love of it," he declares. He adds that it's the only Dodge of its era that he has ever seen fully restored.
In the panels of the car, he found two driving licences belonging to Patrick Doris, one issued in 1929, the other in 1934. The motor tax office in Mullingar gave him an old-style tax book for the car. After he had bought the Dodge from the Brennan family, he spotted an Austin heavy 12, made in 1929, that they also owned.
It was also the next car that Patrick Doris in Longford had bought after the Dodge. Gay Brennan had stipulated in his will that the car was to be restored by his family for the Gordon Bennett race, but little progress had been made on it, so Gerry eventually bought that car as well.
It's in the garage at Gerry's home, alongside the Dodge, but even though it's in reasonable condition, he hasn't had much chance to do work on it. He adds: "I've always had a love for old cars. I still have the baby Ford, which was my first car, bought for £100, as well as a 1914 Model T Ford, and a 1925 boat." He also enjoys going to the auto jumble sale at Beaulieu in Hampshire several times a year, not just to pick up interesting items, but to enjoy the car craic.
One of the things he discovered at Beaulieu was an original manual for the Dodge, incredibly detailed and finely illustrated. When he bought the Dodge, he found it still had its original tool kit. His children, John (eight) and Leila (six) are quite impressed by the car and love trips in it, even if John wasn't too enamoured of the glamorous female mascot that Gerry found for the Dodge's radiator cap. Gerry's wife Anne is totally involved in horses, but he adds "she lets me do what I want to do with the old cars".