Warbird Information Exchange

Was talking to a guy at work and he was telling me about a P-40 on top of a gas station in NY. He remembers it being painted red??? Anyone of you Kittyhawkers heard of such a thing???

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

That sounds like a Warbirds fan's dream come true! The story of the proverbial back-water, out of the way, mom and pop owned gas station that has somehow survived all these years and remained unchanged. With an advertising gimmick of years gone by, bolted to the roof, imagine just driving along some forgotten stretch of road and coming across a P-40!

I can already imagine the conversation that anyone of us wishes they could have with that gas station owner. (Of course if it actually exists)

"You say you wanna buy that thing?"

"Well I reckon I could part with it, since it’s just been rotting away up there for the past 40 years" "Way back when I first put it up there!"

"To tell you the truth, I was thinking about selling it for scrap, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet"

"What's you asking price? 500, 600 dollars?"



Be still my beating heart....

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Keep Em' Flying,
Christopher Soltis
Dedicated to the preservation and education of The Sikorsky Memorial Airport

CASC Blog Page: http://ctair-space.blogspot.com/
Warbird Wear: https://www.redbubble.com/people/warbirdwear/shop

Chicks Dig Warbirds.......right?

I think I know what you are talking about (thanks to Jeff Ethell and one of his books). There is a picture of the same P-40 (Red/ white) you mention with a caption that it was recovered and restored to airworthy if I remember correctly.

I'll look in the registry and see if I can find the plane...

Other wixers will probably know the one...

Here is one Gas station P-40, but from CA. http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p40regis ... ak899.html

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Share your story: Rutgers Oral History Archive http://oralhistory.rutgers.edu/

This was the one in Washington state.

http://www.warbirdregistry.org/p40regis ... ak899.html

My Dad made a deal with the gas station owner in Everett that allowed him to take everything he could from that P-40 as long as it did not alter the outward appearance of the plane. He took everything from it including the ailerons which he replaced with wood and cotton covered replicas. That was back in the 60's. Those ailerons and much of the internal components of that airplane are what he used in the restoration of his first P-40E N94466. Can you post a picture Jack?

This it restored I believe

Here's a thread I started a while back about the Everett, WA. red and white P-40 on a gas station, and fellow WIXers posted great info about it:

http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/p ... as+station

--Tom

That is indeed the Airplane. It belonged to Dick Hansen.[/code]

That is a great story, I'm a huge fan of "found in a barn/ junkyard/ on top of a roof" stories. I've personally restored cars dug out of junkyards, and hope to some day help with a similiar aircraft recovery.

B