Smiling U.S. Army veteran, and Ford Galaxie 500 owner, Brad Herron during a visit late last year to Pottstown High School, where his car is being restored as a community tribute.

POTTSTOWN PA – Only 52 days remain until U.S. Army veteran Brad Herron gets his car back.

Fifty-two days distant on anyone’s calendar is May 7 (Saturday), the first day in 2011 that the Pottstown Classics Car Club – whose membership includes several Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township residents – returns to High Street in the borough’s downtown for its series of summer Nostalgia Night car shows. It’s also when keys to Herron’s own 1967 Ford Galaxie 500 will be handed over to him.

But, club members happily admit, it won’t quite be the car Herron grudgingly gave up back in October 2010.

The club, several Pottstown High School students, many local businesses and some private donors are diligently working to restore and soup up (the preferred term is “overhaulin’”) the vehicle to honor Herron. He’s a disabled Blue Bell PA resident who served the nation for six years of duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere as part of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division.

Herron looks over his car with Pottstown Classics Car Club members shortly after it arrived in in the borough.

Besides his wife, Dina, there are few things Herron loves as much as his Ford. So when she contacted the club last fall, and asked if it knew of someone who might help her surprise her husband by overhaulin’ the car, its members responded enthusiastically. They also recruited sponsors – the list seems to be as long as the car itself – to contribute parts, services, manpower, and cash for the effort.

• Watch a video, posted late last month (Feb. 23) on the club’s Facebook page, that updates the car’s status and the work to complete it before the May deadline.

Ford enthusiasts claim that 44 years ago, when 1967 new model cars rolled into dealer showrooms, the full-sized Galaxie 500 was well admired. It sported “all new molding and ornamentation,” several safety features and “a large list of improvements,” 15 different colors and 25 two-tone combinations, and “many performance offerings,” according to the Dearborn Classics website.

It was a “muscle car” before that term became popular, some folks boast.

That kind of glory is envisioned for Herron’s vehicle, which currently sits in the high school’s automotive technology shop. Students and instructors there are installing parts as they arrive and doing body work.

Getting the car there months ago wasn’t easy, though. A ruse used by club members who visited the Herron home to sneak it off the premises first made the veteran hesitant, then suspicious, and then, when he finally tumbled to what was going on, relieved. A November 2010 story by (Pottstown PA) Mercury newspaper reporter Brandie Kessler chronicles those events.

Now club members are anxiously counting down the days until May, when the key presentation to Herron and the car’s unveiling will be part of their tribute to all area veterans. They’ll also use the opportunity to educate the public about post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by veterans returning from war zones.

In addition to May 7, Nostalgia Nights – which attracts thousands of visitors to Pottstown’s business district – are scheduled this year for June 4, July 2, Aug. 6 and Sept. 3.

Photos from the Pottstown Classics Car Club