Son secretly restores classic car for parents

BARTONVILLE -- In the early days of their courtship, when gas was about a quarter a gallon, Don Taylor would pick up Joyce Haynes at her Peoria home in his 1956 Chevrolet BelAir. It was a distinctive car -- a bright red, two-door hard top with fender skirts. And it could move.

"It was fast," said Joyce Taylor, laughing. "I shouldn't say that, but it was fast. Everybody knew us by that car."

It was the car friends and family decorated when they married. It was the car they drove on their honeymoon to the Wisconsin Dells.

It was the car parked outside a Peoria church on the couple's 50th wedding anniversary in June. Well … a dead ringer for the original, anyway.

Joyce recognized the car immediately and thought maybe it was a neat coincidence, or someone had rented one for the celebration. Nope.

"My brother-in-law got out and handed me the keys," Don said. "And he told me I had one of the greatest sons ever."

Jerry Taylor, a 1977 Limestone Community High School graduate who now lives in Kansas, had purchased a car like his parents' first one nearly six years ago. About two years ago, he began restoring it in earnest, with help and support from Anne, his wife, and his two brothers and children.

The car's engine had been replaced over the years, and much of the sheet metal was in sad shape. The upholstery was completely trashed as well.

"It wasn't the worst of the worst. On a scale of 1 to 5, it was probably a 4. With 5 being the worst," Jerry said. "But it ran."

And it was the right year and the right make and model.

After he replaced the engine, installed front disc brakes, automatic transmission, rack-and-pinion steering and air conditioning, the car underwent a complete frame-off rotisserie restoration.

That means the frame was taken off and placed on a device that allowed it to be turned as he worked on it -- like roasting a chicken.

Don and Joyce owned Don Taylor & Sons Construction for 26 years. Son Jerry works in construction in Kansas, often rehabilitating older homes.

It was at those homes that he'd hide the car, which sometimes posed a problem when his dad would visit.

"Some of those homes Dad would help me work on and the car was in the garage," Jerry said. "I'd take the light bulbs out of the sockets, just in case."

Now that the secret's out, Jerry and his brothers, Jeff and Rod, who live in Peoria, are having fun sharing the many ways the car was hidden and the close calls their parents knew nothing about.

Many friends and relatives were in on the secret, and lent support and help to get the car finished in time. It was, but only barely. The last fix was made June 29, the day the car was loaded onto a trailer and taken to Peoria.

Almost everyone in on the secret got to be there to see the surprise unveiled at the anniversary party.

"There's probably nothing anybody could have done that meant more to us," Don said. "The Cadillac's outside now."