Bill Stephenson's Awesome Fun Car!

[Xplantdad]

I kindly asked Bill to send me pics of his wife's pride and joy...so without further ado...here it is!



-------Bruce,,, As the Jolly is all tucked away for the winter I hope these pics will work. Since its kind of tongue-in-cheek anyway I say go with it!!!


-------Back late in the last century I took Jan to an auction in Novi Mi. While there she started wandering around and spotted her first Fiat "Jolly" in a huge side room all by itself. She found me and said one thing; "I want it". A short looky and I discovered a stop sign scabbed into the floor along with many other problems. Thats not the Jolly in the enclosed pictures.


--------Jan liked the little car/golf-cart so much she undertook a year long search to find a good one. Eventually, a wanted add that had been in Hemmings for about six months turned up this Jolly looking much different than you see it here but at least in a complete and rust free state. It took me a while to wrap my mind around the purchase as I couldnt see how it could be worth more than $2000. Finally, I stepped up and paid about three times as much after being almost physically threatened by my lovely wife a couple of times.


-------What we got for our money was a red metal-flake, orange and red shag carpeted, rust free Jolly that hadnt been run or even looked at in about a dozen years. We also got the owner history back to day one and found the car to have had a rather illustrious first owner, Dr. Sam Shepard (of "the fugitive" fame). The story went that his second wife, the one from Austria that married him in jail, bought it for him around 1959 as a getting out of jail present when he finally was found not guilty. Being six-four Sam didnt drive it much and after half a dozen years traded it in to a Jaguar dealer with almost no miles. Today it only has around 5000 original miles, but Jollys generally dont get driven much so the low mileage isnt all that odd.


--------I proceeded to the restoration stage after getting our new jewel running and most of that was pretty straight forward. The only hitch seemed to be a paint job as the first restoration shop I had quote the job gave me a price of $8000 after I had stripped the metal-flake body down to bare metal and found it near perfect. That guy must have been trying to give me a heart attack as he nearly did. I finally found a local guy that I still use to paint it for $700 including materials. He did such a nice job I gave him a $200 tip. Arent I a wonderful guy?


--------Since being finished we have had a ball with our munchkin-mobile. Despite the fact that we need a tail-wind to go 50, we have driven it all over the local area to shows, dinners etc. As well, we have towed to many shows as far away as Toronto and Indianapolis. I cant remember a show we have been entered in where we havent won something. Kids love it and Jan has probably let a couple of hundred sit in the drivers seat to see what its like. Never fails to get a smile on their faces. Another upside to all this foolishness is that our little Jolly has had almost supercar type of value growth. One sold for $84,000 at B-J last year. That doesnt seem to faze Jan in the least as she says the car will remain in her name until she is planted which Im hoping will be many, many years from now.


Hope you guys enjoy our 17 throbbing horsepower little monster.........


Bill S