The Star Car

In the fall of 1925, my Dad, Charley James Watson had ‘cleared’ sufficient money from the cotton crop to buy a new automobile. He really wanted a Model T as most people around Rome, Mississippi bought and drove. The price on the Ford was considerable below 500 dollars. Dad went to the Ford dealers around the area and could not find one for sale. The car was enormously popular and there was a shortage in the Mississippi Delta that fall. The Star dealers had been going from town to town demonstrating the Star’s ability to travel on three wheels. Yes, it was so good that the car would go with either of its front wheels removed! Dad found the less popular Star available and paid 545 dollars for it. He bought a touring model with four doors, cloth top, and slightly larger tires than the Model T. The car had a four cylinder Continental engine, a clutch, and a floor shift lever. It was ahead of the Model T in design, and had features that would become standard on many cars for many years. Roy’s first memory of the car was after the family moved to the hills.

One day Dad asked me if I wanted to ride to Kilmichael. I told him that I did. We got into the Star and drove over to Mr. Jamie Wilson’s Hardware Store in Kilmichael. He had gotten in a new heavy duty mule drawn wagon that Dad had ordered for use on the farm and around the sawmill. They tied the wagon’s stake (tongue) chains to the rear of the Star. Dad cautioned the driver, L. E., to be very careful in starting off and accelerating. Dad knew that the Star’s weakness was in the rear end drive. The car would strip a pinion and ring gear with one slight jerk of the drive line. (Later when I began teaching, I told my students in Auto Mechanics that they did not know what a weak rear end was.) We clanged down the gravel road home with the wagon in tow. It really made a lot of noise as it went through the gravel with its iron tires moving several times faster than any pair of mules would ever move it.

My next memory of the Star is when Dad, L. E., William, and I got into the car and went over to Kemp’s Goat Farm to get me a pet goat. Dad let me choose a young male kid. I held it in my lap in the back seat all the way home. The goat became a real play mate.

The depression came and Dad parked the Star in the garage and put it up on blocks. The idea was to put it back into service when he could afford to buy oil, fuel, and tires to run it. The car had only 10,000 miles on the odometer. Yes it had an odometer and a cyclops speedometer.

When Dad could again afford a car, he bought a used 1935 two-door Chevrolet Sedan with just over 10,000 miles on it. It was like new. The old Star was sold at the beginning of World War II as scrap iron to aid in the war effort.

I remember well the day it was loaded on the junk truck. I was a little sad that Dad never fixed it and drove it again. Even then I understood that the economics did not favor rebuilding an outdated car. But that didn’t change the fact that the car and I were both 1925 models. My earliest baby picture is one of me sitting on its running board.

These days whenever someone tells me of going through a noted Automobile Museum or even of having been to an antique car show in a mall, I ask, “Did they have a Star?” One of these days when and if I finally see one my heart will leap. And if you should happen to look me face to face you most likely will see tears in the corners of my eyes.

This was written by Roy C. Watson on August 15, 1988 while visiting with Roy H. Watson in Collierville, Tennessee.