The 'car man'
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on September 18, 2016 12:19 AM
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Dixon checks under the hood of his 1924 Ford Model T restoration project at his company, Wayne Upholstery in Dudley. The car was originally made the same year Dixon was born.
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Vintage car enthusiast Elbert Dixon with his 1941 Ford Coupe. Dixon has no less than three restorations taking place at his company, Wayne Upholstery, including a Ford Thunderbird from 1957.
DUDLEY -- Walk through the doors of Elbert Dixon's makeshift garage on U.S. 117 and at first glance, it appears to be a haven for lost parts and unfinished projects.
Like the 1928 Model A he started working on about three years ago.
"I always wanted one that old," he said, explaining that 1928 was the first year the car was manufactured.
Advertised in a magazine, he said it cost more to have it shipped from Ohio than the purchase price of the car would have been back in the day.
"The original price in 1928 probably would've been $700 or $800," he said. "It was $1,900 for the (recent purchase of) the car but it cost that much to get it shipped."
Call him sentimental, but there was just something about that particular model.
Perhaps because that was also the year Dixon was born.
"I'm two months older than the car," the 88-year-old chuckled.
The Model A isn't finished, and is currently in line to be painted. Once that's done, though, Dixon has a plan in place.
"I will put it all together," he said. "I've got the fenders in one room, seats in another room, glass in another place.
"I've got the parts all over everywhere, but I know where everything is."
At Goldsboro Auto Restoring, he has filing cabinets filled with parts, various paint colors and cans, walls lined with wrenches and upholstery projects, both completed and waiting to be done.
"I like old cars. I like old stuff," he said.
His interest was forged early, growing up in Chocowinity in Beaufort County.
"I started working with my brother on cars in 1939," he said.
After spending 22 years in the Air Force, he retired in June 1973 as a master sergeant. He moved to Wayne County to be closer to the military base.
In the shop he built beyond his back yard, he formerly operated an upholstery business for years. In 1984, he turned that business over to his daughter.
Then he returned to school, attending then-Mount Olive College, earning an associate degree in art.
Over the years, he "always has something going," he said, typically involving cars.
"I usually come over here about 8 o'clock and I work until 5, depends on what I have to do and what I'm working on," he said. "I have to work outside. I have to cut the grass, work on my buildings.
"It's one thing after another."
Luckily, he knows what he's doing. From upholstery to painting to auto restoration, he is resourceful and knowledgeable.
"You get everything out of this book that you need except the basic body," he said, pulling out a thick catalog that contains virtually every part, make and model imaginable.
"You can get transmission parts and motor parts and everything else."
Dixon is hardly at a standstill. While the Model A is at the paint shop, he has plenty of other projects to keep him occupied.
A gutted red Thunderbird on a lift in one area.
A black 1924 Model T awaits in another, complete with the original license plate.
"I hadn't done anything to it because I've got too much going on other places," he said of the Model T, the oldest vehicle in his stable.
"That one I'm going to keep original. I won't change any parts on it."
He tries to stay true to the original form, he said, except for switching out the occasional running part.
"The '41 here, the only thing I've changed on it, is from six volts to 12 volts. Six volts doesn't work too good," he said of the 1941 burgundy Coupe.
"The T-bird, it's red but it's going to end up being blue.
"I'm fixing to put power steering on it. It doesn't have power steering. The motor has to go back in it. I'm waiting for a guy to rebuild the transmission. It had a little three-speed in it. I'm going to put automatic in it."
He currently has three projects he wants to complete first -- the Coupe, the Model A and the 1957 T-bird. Finished, he explains, means derivable.
Like the vintage red 1942 fire truck he often pulls out for Veterans Day parades, which has a history of its own.
"This is Seymour Johnson's first fire truck in 1942," he said.
"They were made in Tennessee, and I used to know the guy that went down and drove one of them back. There were two of them -- this is a tanker, and there was a hose truck, the two of them that came. I don't know where the other one is.
"He drove one of them back, I used to know him. He's passed on now. He was a World War II veteran."
It required some engine work and a paint job, but Dixon is proud of the acquisition.
"The story on that, when Seymour (fire department) closed, Goldsboro got it. They used it for a few years and then they sold it to a farmer down in Dudley," he said.
"People knew I liked old stuff and they mentioned the guy had an old fire truck and I went and talked to him.
"He bought it with the idea of spraying his field and it didn't work. So I got with him and bought it, got it running right and then I got some help and we sanded it down and I got a guy in Mount Olive to paint it."
He even managed to locate wooden ladders, to replicate the original ones on the fire truck.
"It's got a pump into it, you can hook a hose to it and you can use the tank," he explained.
"I think it's about 1,000 gallons of water you can put in it. It's pretty much original.
"It's got the old Ford flathead V-8 (engine) and it's got the original motors in it, motors, transmission, everything. Everything works on it. All the lights work, sirens work, everything."
The layout of his workshop may not make sense to anyone but Dixon, but he is comfortable with it.
"I try to find a space and put everything associated with it in it, and then we know where it is," he said, pointing to the running boards that will be added to the Model A, fenders and bumpers in another room, and the reupholstered arm rests for the T-bird on a bench.
"I've got all kinds of junk," he said with a laugh.
He also gets creative from time to time.
Like on the Model A, he points out -- it has a 1994 Volvo sunroof.
"I went to the salvage yard and cut the whole top out of a Volvo, brought it back here, trimmed it and put it on the roof of the Model A," he said.
"You won't know it unless you look closely."
That vehicle also has an automatic Pinto transmission, he said.
Whatever can be used to restore the vintage vehicles.
Dixon has more projects than he knows what to do with, some spilling over into his back yard, waiting their turn -- a 1949 bright yellow taxicab that came from Washington, D.C., and a 1958 Studebaker among them.
And a 1959 Ambassador.
"It's going to be way down the road," he said of the mounting to-do list of potential efforts.
"I don't know when I'll ever get to it."
All in a day's work.
"If she (wife, Mattie) needs something, she gives me a call," he said.
"I go over there and help her. Sometimes I eat at night, and then come back and put in an hour if I feel like something needs to be finished. But other than that, I come over here and work.
"Sometimes I feel like I accomplished something. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes I get tired out, and I have to quit. My back and leg get to hurting and I have to quit."
The restoration projects are his passion.
As far as personal vehicles they drive, though, the couple has six -- he has four and she has two.
Fortunately, he doesn't have to take paperwork for each and every one of the other cars to the DMV to get registered.
"I don't have to pay for the license plates, but I've got to pay tax on them," he said.
About the only thing he does not bother with is a radio.
"I don't mess with radios," he said.
"As far as I'm concerned, I don't even want a radio. Even in the cars I drive, I don't turn it on."