Same age cohort, different memories of the Henry J.
It did not impress this five year old. Even then it was a cheap looking car, looked half finished, a step child of a car. Seemed as if there were a lot of cheap cars sporting a light gray paint job in the early fifties...must have been a huge surplus of war time gray paint.
Church member had one of the early ones without a trunk lid and fixed rear windows. A forty minute drive in hot humid summer turned the rear seating into a sweltering oven. Dehydration, heat exhuastion made my mom tear the driver a new one. That was awesome. Looking back I'm amazed that they didn't kill many small children.
One of the other neighbors had a sweet, well kept, Ford Model A roadster with a rumble seat. That was a treat for us younger kids as he allowed us to climb around and take turns in the rumble seat for a spin around the block.
(And was advertised as "America's Most Important New Car").