Auto insurance on my 1951 Henry J

[DylanFan]

I called my insurance agent today to find out what it would cost to insure my 1951 Henry J.  I have insurance thru AARP for 3 cars plus the Henry J.  I was given a quote of $51 per year.  It would be insured as an antique and as such I could drive it up to 4,000 miles per year.  I estimated the value of my car as $10,000.  I looked up the value in a book of old car prices and it said in the condition my car is in the value would be between $8,000 and $12,000 so I took the middle figure.  The annual rate was only $5.00 more for a value of $12,000 over a value of $10,000.

Steve Moll
Owensboro KY
2009 Mustang GT
2010 Toyota Corolla
2000 Dodge Durango
1951 Henry J Deluxe

[Fid]

It looks like your car has the same door panel material that my '52 Vagabond has

[DylanFan]

It sure does look the same!

[DylanFan]

It looks like your car has the same door panel material that my '52 Vagabond has

The seats in my car have been redone by the previous owner.  Do they look like yours?  I don't know if they were redone to original specs or not.

[Fid]

The seats in your car are definitely not done to original spec. The 1951 Henry  Js had some bizarre (by today's standards) color combinations! The ones with the green dragon/dinosaur vinyl on the door panels usually had orange/green plaid seats - the six cylinder models (deluxe) would have the green vinyl around the cushion edges and on the seat tops with orange/green plaid inserts whereas the four cylinder models would just have green plaid on everything, including the door panels and rear seat side panels - dragon vinyl only on the sides exposed when the door is opened. My car started its life as a four cylinder but the fellow I got it from installed the green dragon vinyl door and rear seat panels from a deluxe in it (you see this type of thing a lot with the Js). The seats however, are original which means they are orange/green plaid but no vinyl on the tops or cushions, just on the outside edging -

I have since upgraded the car with a 6 cylinder and overdrive and I also added all the other deluxe features but it's still had K523 on the tags/title.
The way to know which your's originally had is to look at the data tag on the cowl about the firewall. There will be a number under "Trim" and it will likely begin with a 4. Post that number on here and we should be able to determine what it had originally. Of course what you  have looks pretty nice and probably worth keeping but in any case we can tell what it would've had originally.

[DylanFan]

I picked up the car today and drove it home.  The tag on the cowl says interior 4453 and paint 325.  From searching the forum I figured that the paint was Cape Verde Green.  I had no luck searching for theinterior of 4453.

[PK5321]

According to "Last Onslaught on Detroit", trim 4453 is Caribbean Plaid & Cape Verde Green Vinyl, used in model 5244 ( 1952 6 cyl deluxe model Henry J, 2 door sedan) with a folding rear seat.

[kaiserfrazerlibrary]

The trim code was used on late production 1951 model year Henry J's as well as 1952 HJ Vagabonds.  The serial numbers are needed to see if this is a K514 or 524 prefixed car.