Ronald along with his son Ronald and his brothers John and Leslie spent many hours working at their favorite hobby restoring antique cars.  Ronald was also largly responsible for the establishing of the Long Beach Model T Club.  Ronald was the first Clubs president.  At first every club has to have movers and shakers and Ronald was certainly one of them.  He wrote a number of articule for the Club news letters including the following publish on the 40th anniversary in March of 1994.  

This is Rons Story.    In 1954 the city of Redonda Beach was sponsoring a parade which included old cars.  I had just restored, and painted  my 1914 Model T Pie Wagon, and being proud of it I decided to participate in the parade.  I took my young son with me and crusised down to Redondo Beach.  While we were waiting in the shade of a tree for the parade to start, I noticed two fellows on the other side of the street who seemed very interested in all the old cars.  One of them pointed to my pie wagon and in a loud voice said,  "Boy, look at that one!" 

They swiftly approached me and one put his hand on the roof, the other on the windshield, and his big foot on my brand new running board and says, "This is great! What year is it?" My surprise was so great that all I could think of was my paint and I said, "Get your big foot off my running board." It was swiftly withdrawn, but then I realized how big this guy was. He introduced himself as Paul McGinnis and his friends name was Lyle Cochran.

 

With Paul's magnetic personality, it wasn't long before we were great friends.  He told me he was working on a Model T and needed a starter which I had.  It turned out he only lived a mile from me.  After visiting back and forth a few times, we thought it would be nice to form a little club and get the fellows we both knew to meet once a month at my place in Lakewood.  I had just built a large building in back of my home to house my gun collection, a shop, and also a place for my two model T's.  So, this was the first meeting place for the first few years.

 

I must say that without the help of Paul McGinnis and Charles Ashbourne, the club would never have gotten off the ground.  Chuck had many great ideas and went great effort to get many dealers to donate prizes for our early club games.  I don't think the club really understood how important Chuck was to the club.

 

Sometimes the three of us would sit around the coffee pot until 2 o'clock in the morning in the den planning tours such as the hill climb, May Company car show, and many other activities.  It sure was good then !!!!!

 

And, of course the Club kept growing over the years. Now as we look back to forty years ago us old timers can be proud of the part we played.

I, Robert McWillie web-master of this site found it interesting that now in year  2007 while holding discussion with Leslie MacWillie of San Fornado for material for this articule, he mentioned that the year 2007 would quite possibly be the last antique car show put on from the club.  The securing and the cost of finding a suitable park or place to hold such an event was getting very hard.   I am also sure there are many car buffs who will miss the show, but however remember those great days put on by Ronald, his brothers, sons and others.