RON & JEAN COURNIA

1928 Dodge

The Elegant Sleeper






About four years ago we sold our last boat and I decided to start looking
for my lifelong dream, a hot rod. I told Jean we were going to buy a hot
rod. I finally got Jean off the ceiling, she said she did not care what kind
of a car it was but it must be a four door sedan so we could have
grandkids and friends ride with us on occasion and have air
conditioning, I could live with that. I started to look and it took about two
years to find exactly what I wanted. The car had to be a total frame off
restoration, stock looking form the running boards up and all modern
high-tech running gear and suspension. I looked at thousands of cars
on the internet and car magazines. I had looked at a few cars in the
flesh, but none had hit my switch. I had narrowed it down to 2 cars, a
1926 Chevrolet 4dr sedan in Texas and a 1931 Essex in Missouri that
met our criteria. One day I was cursing the internet and saw
advertisement for a car museum in Minnesota, Jean and I had driven by
the museum many times over the years traveling from Minneapolis and
our home town of Crookston.








I went to Ellingson Car Museum web site and started to check out their
car inventory and “BAM” there was, this 1928 Dodge 4 door sedan, my
heart just jumped. My second response was “WOW”. As I read all about
the car, it met all of our criteria, now how much was it……Things started
going mind like the price some of these car museum places pay for a
car at auctions, I started to get discouraged. I made the phone call, they
told that the car had been restored/built in 1990 in Florida and that the
owner of the museum bought the car in 1995 as his personal hot rod.
They drove the car to cruises and enjoyed the car for 10 years, in 2005
the owner died and his son put the car in their car museum where it was
shown for 2 years. They told me the price of the car, I counter offered
and we met in the middle.

This all happened mid October. Jean and I went to Minnesota for
Thanksgiving. We stopped in Rogers Minnesota at the museum to look
at the car and pay for it if it met our expectations and test drive. It far
surpassed our expectations and I couldn’t write the check fast enough.
The car was finally delivered December 29, 2007 after a number of bad
weather delays.

We are proud to be a member of Stafford Classics Car Club and a very
active cruiser.