How Did That Get There? An Anglia In East Alabama

J.Emerson
by J.Emerson

As much of America redevelops in the direction of increased urbanization and strip-mall suburbia, small downtowns have either dried up or re-purposed themselves as purveyors of quaint fashion and entertainment. Such is the case with Opelika, the sister town to Auburn. Boutiques, restaurants, and antiques places have mostly replaced the hardware stores and other obsolete staples of small-town commerce. I come from a family of enthusiastic collectors of rare junk, but even I can see the occasionally sad irony of a town selling pieces of itself just to get by. A few weeks ago, however, I spotted a prominently displayed chunk of the past that defied my expectations. Instead of distressed Americana on sale, one shop had a very English relic I didn’t expect to see in this part of the country. I returned later to take a closer look.

This Ford Anglia was pulled from a field somewhere in East Alabama. The proprietress of the shop knew of the car’s British origins, but didn’t know how it came to rest in a Southeastern cow patch. She received it “from a friend” and converted it into a display piece for her downtown antiques emporium. Lodged in the front window of the shop with a couple of artfully-positioned suitcases, it’s not for sale. Its value as a conversation piece and an attention-getter clearly outweighs whatever sum someone might be tempted to pay for it. Rest assured, Anglia diehards: this isn’t one that you’d want to save. It’s pretty rotten in the floors and the sills, there’s plenty of bullet holes, and a number of hard-to-find bits are missing. Still, I’m glad that it wound up here rather than in a China-bound scrap steel container. It took me a while, but I managed to get some decent shots of the car despite it being surrounded with stuff.


Who in Alabama would have bought this car new? I’m guessing it was sold here as a new or nearly-new car because of the chrome trunk tag. Brewbaker Motors is a large multi-franchise family dealership in Montgomery that still operates today. They aren’t a Ford store, though, so they must have acquired it secondhand. I like to think that some expat British professor brought the car with him when he came to teach at Auburn in the 1950’s. He might have traded it in after discovering that English Fords didn’t have much repair or parts support in the Deep South. Or maybe some hardworking Dixie resident snapped the Anglia up as an alternative to the big Fords of the era. In any case, it went the way of all discarded cars in Alabama and became somebody else’s target. Now it serves as a reminder that not everyone wanted a Detroit land yacht in the 50’s.

Thanks to the owner of Resurrect Antiques for her permission to photograph the vehicle.

J.Emerson
J.Emerson

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  • MRF 95 T-Bird MRF 95 T-Bird on Aug 16, 2013

    Over the years I have seen a few of these here in the states. I always thought the rear window needed a breezeway edition like Mercury offered. I think some Ford dealers imported them with LHD spec before the term 'captive import' was used in later years for Capri's, Pantera's etc. It seems like a fair number of Cortina's were sold in the states as well.

  • -Nate -Nate on Aug 17, 2013

    Nice display . In New England in the early 1960's many Anglias were sold , I remember them both running and in the local junkyard near Newton , Ma. -Nate

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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