Cape Cod car mystery has Quincy roots

That very situation may be playing out in the woods of North Truro, where an ancient Ford sedan was found under pine trees that appear to have grown up around it.

Adding intrigue to the auto mystery, the words “City of Quincy Engineering Dept.” are visible on the passenger door.

Cape Cod National Seashore historian William Burke said park staff encountered the car in the forest, about a mile southeast of the Pilgrim Heights area, around 2003.

Exactly when the car came to rest in North Truro is unknown, but Burke said the landscape of the area 50 or more years ago was likely much different than today.

“I would say that it was probably pretty open with a lot of little roads,” Burke said.

Further sleuthing, some contributed by capecodonline.com readers, led to an old photo of Henry F. Nilsen, longtime Quincy employee, who worked for the city for more than 40 years before retiring as city engineer in 1970.

The photo shows Nilsen standing next to a similar “City of Quincy” car, though the lettering on the door is slightly different. Could there be a connection?

“We used to go down to North Truro on our vacations in the summer, back in the late ’40s and ’50s,” recalled Nilsen’s daughter Elaine Caliri.

When told where the car was located near Pilgrim Heights, Caliri said, “We used to go blueberry picking out there.”

Caliri had no recollection of traveling to the Cape in a town-owned car and said her father was a “play-by-the-rule guy.” Nilsen died in 1980.

Staff at the Quincy Engineering Department was not immediately able to provide information about old city cars. The town’s historical society is looking to the mystery, but Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch did weigh in.

“Perhaps I’ll have our mechanic look into it to see if we can use it for parts,” joked Koch. Seriously, Koch said finding records of municipal car purchases from so long ago would be difficult.

“I don’t think we’ll be able to figure that out,” Koch said, “but there’s got to be a story behind the story there.”

Paul R. Woudenberg, a car historian from Yarmouthport and author of the book “Ford in the Thirties,” said, “This is likely a 1937 Ford model.”

Woudenberg examined photos and video of the car in the woods. He said the design of the vehicle’s fender and the headlight placement led him to this conclusion.

Woudenberg also thinks the car in the Nilsen photo is likely a 1936 Ford.

Woudenberg said the 1937 Ford’s price at the time and durability would have made it attractive to municipalities, adding that the town could probably have purchased it for around $600.

At this point, the resale value of the decaying car in the North Truro woods is somewhat less.

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