Jim Broyles, Retired Service Mechanic and Service Station Owner;
Bristol, Tennessee:
“I’ve been a mechanic all of my life. Been collecting cars since back in the ‘60s. I have a 1927 Chevrolet, a 1939 Ford Convertible, and this ’51 Ford Convertible. This is all stock except I have dual exhaust. It’s got a Mercury Crank in it so I can get a bit more horsepower. Other than that, it’s stock. I had the upholstery and stuff done, but I did all the mechanical. It took about three years. This one is the first thing I ever restored. I’ve restored ten cars since I retired. I kept this one and the ’39 Ford. It’s something I decided to do in retirement. I can’t just sit around.”
“My dad had a service station and when I got out of the service I went into business with him. Then he retired, and I kept going with it. For about forty years. I was in WW II; I’m 89 years old.“
“The gas station started out over on Garland, he was there for years, but there are no streets there now. Urban renewal took it all. It was in the corner of what is now Edgemont and Garland which is gone now. It’s not even there. Those were the good old days. Worked myself to death.”
“I was in the Army in World War II, engineering division. We did everything, took care of airports and stuff like that. When Japan surrendered we were on, Okinawa in the pacific. We went into Japan and filled up all those bomb craters in Atsugi airfield that Doolittle had bombed. We got together on Sundays and toured around to see things on a truck. Like idiots, we went over there to Nagasaki where we dropped that bomb, where all that radiation was…that was the damn mistake. Well, I’ve had problems since then.”
“Born in 1926. I served for two years then I got out at the end of the war. I had to register again, but they never called me up.”