1949 CADILLAC CLUB COUPE

Steve Christensen grew up in a small town in Nebraska and saw very few Cadillacs growing up.

“The town had a lawyer, and he drove a Chevy, and then another lawyer came in and (later) they both drove Cadillacs,” Christensen said.

A Cadillac seed was planted for Christensen on the Nebraska plains in the late 1950s. It just took three decades for it to grow into to the blue 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe that Christensen bought in 1990. It took him another decade to actually get it on the road again.

The journey to his vintage 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe that now resides at his home in Overland Park started a few years before 1990.

Christensen said he was always interested in older cars. He regularly read The Kansas City Star looking in the want ads for older cars that he might buy.

One day at work on a Saturday, Christensen finally found an old car that interested him. It was advertised as a ’49 Cadillac Fastback.

“It bugged me so much that when I went home, I dug out one of my car books to see what it looked like,” Christensen said.

Once he saw the style of the car, he knew he had to have it.

“I called the guy. Unfortunately, it had been sold,” Christensen said. “I called him back to see who he had sold it to and he wouldn’t tell me.”

But Christensen was determined to find a 1949 Cadillac to own. He continued looking in the newspaper. He even placed an ad in the paper that said he was looking to buy a 1949 Cadillac.

Christensen received a few responses. All the ones he looked at were green, and they were in good enough shape for him to make the purchase.

During his pursuit of a 1949 Cadillac, Christensen bought a 1940 Buick. Not long after he bought the Buick, Christensen saw an ad in the newspaper for a 1949 Cadillac Fastback.

“I called the guy,” Christensen said. “I could tell it was the same type of car. I rushed out to his place. He lived in Independence. I looked at it and bought it on the spot.

“I started working on it. It was not in great shape. The engine was in pieces. It was originally green.”

Christensen, 66, knew it was going to take time.

“I did some of the mechanical stuff,” Christensen said. “I pieced it out to various people. My college roommate, who lives in Ashland, Neb., painted it. I trailered the car up there. There was a woman right down the street from him who did upholstery, and I had her do it.”

Still, the car sat in his garage for years, unable to move. Christensen needed to find a place to rebuild the engine.

“I was always going to put it together,” Christensen said. “I did some of it, but it sat and sat. I said, ‘If I am ever going to put it together, I need somebody else do it and get it running.’”

Christensen took it to Macek’s Auto Services in Shawnee.

“They assembled the engine,” he said. “Since it was all in pieces, they would call me and say, ‘We are short some bolts. Do you have any?’ I’d go out and find some bolts and take them there. Finally, they got it put together around 1995.”

Christensen’s 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe was still about 5 years away from being put on the road.

During the winter and summer it was hard for him to work on the car in his garage at his home because the garage didn’t have heat or air conditioning. Christensen, though, slowly plugged away.

“You have to keep at it, see progress or it is really easy to get disillusioned,” he said. “There are a lot of old cars you see for sale that are halfway completed. People go to work on it and they get tired of working on it, and the wife says get that out of here.”

Christensen is happy that he has a wife who didn’t mind his car hobby.

Finally, around 2000, the car was ready for the road. And that was the time he sold his 1940 Buick.

“I hardly have time to work on one of them, let alone two of them,” Christensen said. “It was overwhelming. I wanted to get a pickup truck for hunting, so I sold it.

Christensen has been driving it for the last 15 years, but he is still working on the car, saying you are never completely finished. He takes the 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe to car cruises around Kansas City.

“Part of the fun is being the center of attraction,” Christensen said.

This story was originally published October 30, 2015 at 7:10 PM with the headline "1949 CADILLAC CLUB COUPE."