Bucket List Complete

When I interviewed Marco Island resident and Vietnam veteran John Reichenberg three years ago this summer, he told me he had one last thing on his bucket list: restoring the 1933 Ford five-window coupe he bought in his teens in 1963. 

“That’s the end of my bucket list,” he said then. 

At the time, the car was still on blocks in the three-bay mechanic shop attached to his home. It was far from street ready. 

Fast forward to last week when Reichenberg, a neighbor of ours, thundered up to our house in the car to take me for a spin around the island. Reichenberg’s grin said it all as he gunned the beast onto Landmark Dr. with a little fishtail. 

Bucket list complete. 

Reichenberg bought the car, or rather, its parts, for $170 in 1963, $150 of that borrowed from his dad. 

“It had nothing,” he said. “The fenders were lying on the floor. The doors were stuffed inside it. The grill was just lying there, and I had the hood. So, I packed it all into the bed of a pickup truck and brought it home.” 

After two years of work on the car, he drove it to the University of Baltimore, where he graduated in 1967. He received his draft notice just after graduation and spent two years as a helicopter crew chief in the U.S. Army’s famed First Cavalry Division, logging more than 1,500 hours flying low-altitude combat assaults and transporting troops and supplies in and out of combat. 

The car stayed in the family, and in 2017, after rebuilding a 1968 Corvette, he set his sights on re-restoring the Ford with help from friend and Marco Island resident Fred Steiner. 

The two began the rebuild in earnest in 2023, often logging 40-hour weeks bringing the car back to life. 

The car’s grill, its original, was a particularly challenging task for the two. 

After getting a quote from a guy in Texas for close to $4,000 to restore the grill, Reichenberg and Steiner decided to do it themselves. 

“I told Fred we’re going to clean it up and I’m going to paint it,” he said.  “Fred went through three one-hundred-pound bags of sand sandblasting that grill. All the pit marks and little spots were all gone.” 

Reichenberg said the grill alone took more than a month to refurbish. 

A distinct decorative flair on the rebuild is the floral etchings on the engine’s valve covers, courtesy of Reichenberg’s son John, whom he says is an “unbelievable” artist. 

“It took me a while to teach him,” Reichenberg said. “He said, ' What if I make a mistake?’ And I said just make another flower out of it. No one will ever know there was a mistake in that.” 

And of course, there’s the car’s color. 

Asked why he picked it, he said, “Because I like purple.” 

Reichenberg said it’s a custom purple he created, using a “special” purple paint he had, mixed with another paint called Sparkle Pearl. 

“I shot umpteen coats on it and did the flames in Red Pearl, then coated the whole car with six coats of clear.” 

Reichenberg, a professional-level mechanic and machinist, estimates he hand-fabricated 25% of the refurbished vehicle’s parts. And he added some features that wouldn’t have been offered in the original 1933 model, including a sunroof and electric windows.   

Now that his bucket list is complete, the 81-year-old Reichenberg says he intends to focus on his favorite hobbies: metal detecting on the beach and fishing.   

“Agent Orange is probably going to get me sooner or later,” he said.  “But hopefully not. I’m just going to do what I want to do.”