VCCA Home Forums TECHNICAL - 1945 AND EARLIER 1917-1923 - Models D, F, FA, and FB Only. Ardie Overby's D-4 Chummy

Hello Everyone!

For some time now one of my best friends Ardie Overby has been working on 1 of the 4 remaining V8 D-4 Chummy Roadsters. For at least the last year he had wanted me to show him how to post a picture in the V8 forum. Well as is it always go we never got together to do that as something else was always more important on our list like going to the next swap meet or going to pick up that new part we found some place. Well as many of you know by now, Ardie passed on to the big junk yard about a week ago. I thought it was only fitting to fill one last wish of his and show you his progress of his D-4 chummy. I will try to find some picture of how it started.


For all your information, this coming Saturday will be the services for his life. Later this summer I will be bringing home the chummy so start completing Ardie's hard work. The 2 of us had shared in the project all a long, helping with finding parts and I even made drawings for the top sockets to have them reproduced.

I will very much miss our friendship Ardie!

I know there are some parts which Ardie is missing for the car and would really hope some of you guys could help me find some of these items so I can complete this project just as Ardie would have!

Rest in peace Ardie.

Beautiful car! Really too bad he couldn't see it through, but he's left it in good hands with you, Bruce. What are the chances of this and your '32 being done for 2016?

My condolences to all who knew this man, the car is a type I have never seen before, thanks for posting photo.

Hi Bruce

As you know I had the honor of being able to call Ardie one of my MATES. He was a wonderful guy and did just amazing restorations that were perfection which inspired others to achieve high standards in their restorations. I remember talking to Ardie about why he should purchase the V8 Chummy to restore and how Ardie and I would be the ones to restore the last 2 unrestored 1917 - 1919 V8 Model D's. We were able to spur each other on as we went about restoration work on my D5 and Ardie on his D4. I had bits he was missing and he had bits that I was missing and we were able to reproduce parts to make each car as originally correct as possible even down to exhaust pipe clamps etc. I am really saddned by Ardies passing and will miss him . My thoughts are to Linda and the family. Dave Perry. Australia

Hi Dave,

I'm looking forward to us continuing Ardie's project, and I know I'm going to need all the help I can get!

The really funny part of this story, I was telling Ardie years before he bought his D4 that I would like to find a V8 someday. And told him all about the ones which I have seen and known about. About 2 or 3 years later, I found out Ardie had bought one. The next spring after Ardie bought the car I had setup a trip for us to go see Wayne McKinley who has the best original D4 that I know of. We also got to see Pinky's D4 which is in the Heritage Center. We tried for years to see the 4th chummy with no luck. We have heard that the person that had the 4th chummy has sold the car, but we have no confirmation on that.

That is one beautiful car...Good luck with the project and please keep us all informed of the progress...Thanks, Kevin

Thank you Kevin, I sure will. Still waiting to find out when I will be able to pick up the car.

Got a call last week that I can come and get the V8 when I'm ready....need to finish my sheet rock in the basement and empty my trailer and off to get the V8.

So.....when are ya going to build another garage??

I'm going to need one to store everything Ardie has for the V8.

So....why is it that you guys with lots of cars never have enough garages to put them in?

This 4th chummy per chance in Ohio????

32confederate's Chummy is in the State of Washington.

I am not sure they know where the fourth Chummy is currently. Three are known: Heritage Center, Mich.;McKinley, Ill.; DeFord, Wash.; ??? Ohio???

Brucie (he now owns Ardies Model D-V8 Chummy that is in Washington) is currently in China so he wanted me to post the following for him:

"There are 4 V8 chummy's....the one which was referred to in Ohio, the last I knew was owned by a Chevrolet dealership. Before Ardie passed we had rumor at Hershey that, that chummy had been sold. The other two chummy's are in Illinois and Michigan. Please let me know if you have any more questions about my car or V8's."

Bruce

Going back looking at all these comments I am happy to post i have found the 4th chummy that had been "lost" for all these years. I have been in talks with Bruce about it and have gotten him a lot of information about it.

Hi Andy,

Is the 4th Chevy V8 Chummy Roadster the one that was painted white and red? Some where I have photos of that car which I thought was the 4th car.
Twin4

Yes it is the one that is White and Red. I have gotten numbers off of it for Bruce to put on the spreadsheet and a few more pictures. Yes it is owned by the same people that have owned if for years (a Dealership) Right now I am working on their 54 Corvette to get it running for them so they can have it sitting on their show room floor and then they have asked me about working on the D4 to get it running.

Your information is a bit confusing. I talked to the Chevy dealer several months ago and he appeared confused whether they still had the car or not. He said he conferred with his son and they decided to keep it and the Baby Grand. Then a conversation with Bruce convinced me that it had been sold. Guess your info is the most accurate. Glad it is being cleared up.

Chipper
It was exciting when they reached out to me about working on getting the cars running so they can put them on the show room floor. My best friend runs their body shop and when they Asked him about who their best mechanic would be to work on them he gave them my number.

Andy,
It is great that they are interested in getting them running. Not sure why they need to run to put them on the showroom floor? Hopefully when they tire of them a VCCA member will get to own them.

Wonder if they could be convinced to display one in Bowling Green? If anyone can convince them I am betting on you.

They want them running so they can use them in the local parades as well. I thought the corvette was going to be the easier one to get running, but now I'm having to put a flywheel in it as someone put a different starter on it and chewed the teeth up. Thinking I should of started on the D4, but I was trying to hide my excitement about finding the car. I plan on talking to them about getting it displayed at a vcca meet they have been very big donors for the Glass Capital region just as recent as this year for the central meet.

The D4 has been sitting for a long time so it is going to need a lot to get running. It was done up as a promotional piece for show. The biggest thing that is not correct is obviously the white body, red undercarriage (even inside the fenders are red) the entire interior is red the engine is red which then someone made custom motor mounts out of polished stainless steel or aluminum so we do not have the engine number right now. The cool piece of information i got off of it is the dash number and the door numbers are the same

So cool Andy thanks for replying to my question. That car has always seemed like the missing link even way back when Ken Kaufmann , Tom Meleo and I started the V8 Model D list to keep a record of the cars and owners. Since Ken's passing and with Bruce now being the owner of Ardie's Chummy , he has been able to put some pictures to the list which will be an asset as we move forward to be able keep track of the car the owners and the history of each vehicle and where it fits in the Model D V8 production.

What would be neat is if we could achieve the same thing for the F, FA, FB Series cars. There is the H Chapter and the Model D V8 list so we just need some one to embrass keeping a F Series Chapter. I know here in Australia how many FA and FB cars there are but its a bit hard to do the USA part from here.

Thanks again.
Twin4

Yes I am in the H model chapter as I own 2 a 1915 & 1916 I sold my 17 490 roadster last year