cars – Ramblings by Gene

Your Basic Truck

Along a twisting ribbon of asphalt, an old Dodge pickup rambles on; its 64 year old engine chugging dutifully. As mix of patina and rust, the old Dodge isn’t doddering along a dusty country road, no sir. It’s running hard and heavy against much newer iron on a full-fledged race track!

This is the Twenty Four Hours of LeMons; a race where cars of questionable reliability and near the end of perceived life expectancy are given a last chance for fame and glory. The old Dodge is here running its first race.

Four months ago, the Dodge wouldn’t have imagined it. The truck was lying derelict behind a garage in Denver. The owner bought the truck through sweat equity in December2013 and started wrenching on it in January. There he found it had been in an accident and that the springs were literally held on with bailing wire!
The owner, under the handle of wizard0ne0, tuned up the engine, replaced the radiator, replaced both front and rear axles, gutted the interior, replaced the floor pan, installed a roll cage, and put in a proper fuel cell (gas tank).
With six drivers pulling four hour stints behind the wheel, the truck that could did the impossible and became the first new to racing vehicle to not break down and complete the entire race with 149 laps. (Very slow laps.) Team Grumpy Cat racing might not have won the race with their old Dodge, but they did win the Index of Effluency award.

What amazes me about this truck wasn’t just the feat it had accomplishes, but that the exact same make and year of truck is the focal point for a man named John Jerome in his autobiographical book, “Truck”.
Through his writings, John describes in vivid detail the trials and tribulations of buying a 1950 Dodge pickup and rebuilding it from the ground up. Not restoring it, mind you, but rebuilding it in order to make it better than when it left the factory. “Supertruck” he called it. From precariously hoisting the engine on a creaking barn beam, to finding out that the wheel bolts on the right side of the truck are reverse threaded for safety, John spends a year on his project before succumbing to reality and slapping the thing back together pretty much the way it was when he bought it.

The book is hilarious and full of zen-like moments. It’s also his most popular writing.

It’s ironic that over thirty years later someone decides to take the same type of truck he had and make it work in a way he never imagined with less work and angst that he endured.
If John was alive today, I’m sure he’d bristle at this young upstart so quickly building his project and accomplishing his goals. John would then, just as quickly admire the man’s feat before heading out to the barn to admire the honest beauty of your basic truck.

Turning the Flywheel of inspiration and hope.

If there’s one thing a writer or blogger will talk about is the persistent problem of writers block. It can come numerous sources. Boredom, stress, family, work, obligations, distractions; the list is endless.

But there is a book that puts all these problems to shame.

Flywheel: Memories of the open road.
It’s a collection of an automotive monthly magazine put into book form but it is unlike any automotive magazine you’ve ever heard of. This magazine was created by and for Allied prisoners of war during World War Two.

Soldiers imprisoned in Stalag IVB formed a small “car club” called The Muhlberg Motor Club (MMC). A membership of six soon grew to over 200 with most never even owning a car. (Most learned to drive while in the military.) Not only did they have the challenge of creating stories to write about, but they had to work hard just to get ink and paper! To create colored ink, they stole quinine tablets from the infirmary. The glue binding the pages together was created from their daily millet soup.
Under the stress of imprisonment, these soldiers created storylines, thought of new technologies, wrote and illustrated not only the vehicles of the times but of what the future would bring as featured in a report of an auto show.

Flywheel: Memories of the open road shows that inspiration and creativity can happen in even the worst conditions imagined.

Dreams under the tree

Two cars sit unwanted. One in the garage, one on the driveway.

Memories of times gone by shone through the wear. Jaunty stripes, dual pipes, and a wooden wheel recall the carefree days of the sixties while the awkward bumpers, overly large side markers, and plastic wheel are scars born from the imposed commands of the late seventies.

Through the age, past the wear, both peer out on the road as an elderly dog in the kennel; silently yearning for someone to take them home and give them a chance to run just one more time.

The roads are full of younger pups now. Fashion and culture dictate a new king and the Miata is it. His reign has lasted decades and seemingly will last forever.

The old cars can’t compete. There times, even when new, were more than double those of the Miata. Even a Honda Fit would leave them in the dust. The braking isn’t that much better. Drums against disks. Pedal modulation vs. Antilock Systems. Dark ages against modern times.
But the gems still shine from underneath. There are rewards to be had. Two cars from a time when owning meant more than just driving. It was a time of familiarity, of courtships and relations.

Understanding the car, knowing what it can do, what it needs, how to take care of it. A perfect primer for getting married and raising children. Patience, loyalty, and sometimes, even hardships, would be rewarded with joy, thrills, accomplishment, contentment, and even serenity. They’ll never be as fast as the newer cars, but no new car will ever be as intimate as these two.

There is soul buried deep within these sheets of metal.
Will someone try to find it?