Eugene Matthews and The Last of the Really Good $28.00 Cars

“Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.” One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” “What this country needs is a really good $28.00 car.” Wait a minute, who said anything about a $28.00 car? Just ask Eugene Matthews of Oakley. This is his incredible story.
One fine day in 1971, Eugene took a joyride in his regular high school ride, a beat-up white Datsun farm truck. Somewhere west of Farmer’s Corner in Burley, he suddenly braked to an abrupt stop. Somebody’s yard was littered with an assortment of housewares, clothing and who knows what else. But something amid the clutter had caught his eye. Over yonder sat a well-worn, dilapidated car shell. Well, not really a car- it was the earthly remains of some antique, panel truck among several other rusting car bodies. Not knowing exactly what he had found, he took a long, hard look, before sauntering over to the gentleman who was obviously running this marginally-legal fire sale.
“Whaddya want for that old piece of __?” Eugene asked innocently. Eugene always had a colorful manner of speech. “Whaddya got in your pocket?” he snorted back. Searching through both front pockets of his well-worn Levi 501s, he finally pulled a wallet from his back pocket. “I got a total of $28,” Eugene barked, “that’s all I got.” “Well, get it outa my yard now!” barked the seller. “Here’s yer money,” Eugene drawled, pulling out his wad of hard-earned cash. “Where’s the title?” “Title? Whaddya mean title? His here thing’s a hunka junk- you don’t get a title for a hunka junk!” the man sneered, jamming the cash into his own dirty jeans. “Get it outta here, now!”
And that settled it. Within the next few minutes, Eugene was towing home his new-found love- a 1934 Chevy panel truck. But not just any truck- this was an honest-to-goodness woody. What was left of the doors were hung in what was once, highly-polished oak. But after all these years, all the wood that was left from its glory days, were chunks of rotting wood that anchored the doors. Its factory-installed top observation window had long-since deteriorated, allowing years of rainwater and snow to seep inside, ruining its interior. The floor boards on each side had rusted away, and nothing at all looked salvageable. The vehicle was an absolute, total wreck. But, it was love at first sight for Eugene.
“That was the most expensive $28.00 I ever spent,” he lamented over 52 years later. “If I’d had any idea what that sunuvasomething would cost me, I’d nevera done it. I hauled the piece to the high school metal shop, where me, Mike Sandman, Les Harper and Craig Thaxton worked on it for two years. Then after we graduated they’d come out to the house and put in hours and hours into making that thing run.”
Eugene stood proudly in front of his Viper-red immaculately restored panel wagon in Gary’s Hot Rods & Harleys garage, located east of Burley, which is owned by Gary Warner. “Gary’s the genius,” Eugene drawled, “he’s the man that turned my pipe-dream into a prize-winner.” Not a fleck of dust showed on the glittering, highly-polished show-car exterior. The prior weekend, his project for over fifty-two years, had been unveiled in Salt Lake’s City’s 2023 Salt Lake Auto-Rama. Eugene’s life-long project had brought home three awards from the more than 300 cars on display at the show, including “Best Interior in Class,” and “Best Customization.” The next weekend in Boise’s Roadster Show, it won “Best Interior,” and “Best in Class.” He may even have been awarded “Most Colorful Language in the Entire Western U.S. by a Woody Panel Truck Owner,” had there been such a category.
“We considered a lot of colors- jet black, white, yellow, but finally Gary Warner told me about Jack Anderson’s “Viper-red custom ‘55 Ford pickup. You could see that thing jump out at ya from two blocks away. That’s it- it had to be Viper-red. Not cherry-red, not fire-red, it hadta be Viper-red. How many coats did you apply, Gary? Three base and five clear- eight total?” “That’s right.”
When asked what was left of the original car, Eugene replied, “The shell. We tried to keep the body as original as possible,” then he quickly corrected himself. “That is except for the height. We shaved two inches out of the middle of the windows around the chassis, then installed custom windows, and worked on the interior.” When asked about how many hours the restoration had taken, Eugene just shook his head, “No one will ever know. It took Gary more than five years to finish it- a total of 4,743 man hours, but that was after untold hours by a lot of other people.”
Let’s do the math. There are 8,768.4 hours in a calendar year (365.25 days x 24 hours in a day.) If one man worked 24 hours a day, he would finish the job in 54.05% of the year (197.5 days), so he would be done sometime in the first week in May. But, if he worked 8 hours/day, 5 days/week, it would take 2.25 years (2080 working hours/year, or 592 days.) And that’s just for the billable time, not always including the research and other work the task took. That is in itself a staggering figure.
When asked if that was a record for a restoration, Gary nodded vigorously, explaining “Most big jobs take 2,000 to 2,400 hours. But Eugene’s car took much, much longer. Since it was a woodie, the old rotting woodwork had to be removed, then every piece of frame that replaced it had to be custom made. It was an unbelievable job.”
Though Eugene is justifiably proud of his ‘project’ he anxiously spreads the praise for the many who have turned the ugly duckling into a “Best-of-Show” darling. “Casey Anderson did a lot of work on it, and Gary, (Warner) here, finished the job, but I got a lot of help from my high school buddies and lots of others through the years. Kirk Priest, here in Burley, did the woodwork, and Les Harper, Mike Sandman and Craig Thaxton all did their share, too. It’s been a long time coming, but I just turned down a serious offer for a potful of cash for my $28.00 car.”
When Eugene was asked if he plans on entering more car shows? he replied, “Not on your life,” he replied, “it’s time to drive this thing and have a little fun. My car shows are over.”
If you want to see a mile-wide smile, ask Eugene about his truck- it’s his baby. And after all these years, he deserves to be proud when he shows it off. Then get out of the way. It’s one ‘hot’ ride. Would it hold a bale of hay or a sick calf? Not a chance!