Karen Wadovsky of Christiansburg has always loved to drive and appreciates classic cars. As a teen, she’d drive her dad’s dump trucks and large moving vehicles. But it was “Papa”, her grandfather on her mother’s side, who instilled in her a serious love for cars, specifically Chevrolets, the classic version.
“He only drove Chevys,” she relates. “He cleaned the cars off every day after work, including the engine. We used to joke that you could eat off his engines. My mom told us how much fun she had riding in the rumble seats of Papa’s older cars.”
Though college and work life occupied her for years, Karen never stopped dreaming of having a classic car of her own. “I looked at classic cars for nearly a decade,” she explains, “studying their different body shapes. I like the 1939 Chevrolet shape the best, so my search narrowed to that model.”
According to classicautomall.com: With its wind-swept design and classic good looks, the Chevrolet Coupe series has always been a rare and highly desirable line of cars. Not surprisingly, gear heads, customizers and all but 80 years’ worth of dedicated fans have elevated it to one of hot rodding’s greatest cultural icons. The curved front grille flanked by large fender-mounted, bullet-style headlights and smaller flanking turn signal bullets is very representative of the design. In these pre-war years, fenders were still king with the running board attaching them, but they were beginning to integrate into the body shell.
A little more than a year ago, this classic car buff found her ’39 Chevy coupe in bright red in Georgia. “There are a lot of scams out there, so I asked my friend Donna’s nephew, who lives near where the car was for sale, to look at it for me. His father was visiting, so both of them trekked over to see it. They sent me photos and commented ‘it’s red and sounds powerful.’ So, I knew it started.”
In hindsight, she realizes she should have asked more questions, but she was star-struck with its beauty. Once home, she figured out it needed a new battery, a carburetor, a radio and windshield wipers. Some wiring had to be connected properly from front to back so the lights and horn would work.
The paint looked nice enough, but it felt rough to the touch, perhaps from over-spraying. She took it to Mr. Dow at Dow’s Unlimited Cleaning and Auto Detail in Christiansburg. “He dry sanded and buffed it to perfection. He did the other work as well, all at a fair price,” she adds.
Like many others, Karen moved to the New River Valley for graduate school and never left. “I grew up in Franklin, New Jersey, and came to attend Radford University in the 1980s. I grew to love the beauty of the area, the lifestyle and friendly people.” She has retired from 24 years as a school psychologist, mostly with Montgomery County Public Schools and thinks of this beautiful car as her retirement toy. “It’s a dream come true,” she exudes, adding that her twin sister Sharon named the Chevy coupe Miss Betty in honor of their mother.
Miss Betty has a 350 engine, auto transmission, power steering, power brakes and air conditioning. Karen discovered last fall that it doesn’t have heat, and she’s working on that. It takes premium gas. “I’ve had it up to 70 mph,” she reveals, “but it is harder to handle at that speed.” There is a back seat, but no leg room, which suits Riley just fine. The 68-pound Lab/Pyrenees dog loves going for rides and having the whole backseat to herself.
Karen drives the car whenever she can on errands and to local shows. “It transports me to another time. It is calming and simple with no computers. The windows roll down by hand, and the sound of the engine is like a loud purr. I know my Mom would love it. And Papa would be proud, even if I don’t spit polish the engine every time I return from taking her out.” Her customized floor mats read: “Into the car I go to lose my mind and find my soul”.
Text by Joanne M. Anderson
Photos by Tom and Christy Wallace
