The old 1949 Plymouth was a rust-covered squirrel nest.
But Donna Neal and her husband Dennis Neal knew they had to restore it. Sixty-five years ago, it had been her mom’s introduction to freedom.
“It was just unheard of,” Donna said. “Girls at that time, at that age, just didn’t buy cars.”
But in 1957, Donna’s mother Imogene McCulloch did.
“She had been bumming rides with friends and family to get to work, and she told her daddy, my papa, that she needed her own car,” Donna said.
McCulloch worked as an insurance clerk at a hospital, earning $100 a month.
A family friend owned a car dealership, and offered her a great deal on a used 1949 Plymouth he was willing to sell for $225.
“The friend car dealer actually backed it up underneath an overpass so that nobody else could see it or buy it before my [grandfather] could get mom to look at it and buy it,” Donna said.
To buy the car, McCulloch paid $25 each month from her wages.
After that, McCulloch was the proud owner of her own transportation.
The parking brake never worked, and McCulloch often found the Plymouth had rolled down her family’s sloped driveway and across the street. But it never hit anything.
Despite its flaws, “she obviously loved the car,” Donna said.
The Plymouth was far more than just a way to get to work for McCulloch, Donna said.
When she met her future husband Don Teffeteller, they went on dates with it.
“I don’t think I’m ready for those stories, even at this age,” Donna said.
The Plymouth took them into marriage, home from the hospital after two births, out on vacations, back and forth from church, to the store for grocieries, and many other places, Donna said.
In 1970 after 13 years of service, Imogene Teffeteller parked the Plymouth for the last time in a garage on her property. She couldn’t bear to sell it.
Donna remembers playing in the car as a child, pretending to drive along with her cousins.
“I don’t remember riding in the car because I was only three,” she said.
In 2022, Imogene told the Neals she wanted to give them the Plymouth.
“She decided that she would trust me with it,” said Donna.
She had one condition. Donna had to promise never to sell the car or part it out.
The car Donna and Dennis received was a far cry from the one Imogene got in 1957.
In the 50 years since Imogene had parked the car, squirrels had turned it into their “condo,” Donna said.
They filled the roof with pecan shells.
The upholstery was a ruin of black mold.
The engine had rusted and decayed.
To get the car out of the garage, Donna borrowed a cousin’s tractor and hooked it up to chains. She was terrified the whole time.
“I hope the building doesn’t fall when they pull it out. I hope the rear end of the car doesn’t come off,” she recalled thinking.
Although Dennis had some experience with cars, a look at the engine gave him doubts.
“Honey, I don’t know if we can do this,” he recalled saying.
But when he saw tears in Donna’s eyes, he realized he would do it.
“It’s very special to her,” Dennis said. “That means it means a lot to me.”
So began a long crusade to reclaim the car from entropy.
Restoring the Plymouth was much more difficult than both the Neals originally imagined, Donna said.
To do it, they both had to learn enormous amounts about car repair and restoration, upholstery experts, and more, she said.
She learned how to clean and stain the metal interior so it looked like wood, replace the carpet and much more.
The project brought surprises.
When she started restoring the car, Donna found a teething ring between the doors.
“Sweetheart, that was yours,” she recalled Don telling her. “You stuck it down between the window when you were young. I wasn’t about to take the door apart to get it out.”
Dennis handled the engine.
“It went a lot smoother than I thought,” he said. “We’re not through with it yet.”
Dennis hopes to have the original engine fully restored sometime this summer.
As of now, the Neals have spent roughly $17,000 restoring the Plymouth.
“We’ll get there. We don’t have a timeline,” Dennis said. “So we’re just working through the process.”
They made an effort to replace only the parts that absolutely needed replacement, Donna said.
In 2023, the Neals surprised Imogene and Don with a ride in the restored car.
“The most joy I had was when we were able to take her mom and dad for a ride in it,” Dennis said. “Just to see their faces.
In November of 2024, Imogene died.
Today, Donna feels close to her mom when she’s around the Plymouth.
“I’m not gonna paint the steering wheel,” Donna said. “I’m gonna leave it as it was, where she would have gripped it.”