No less a luminary than John Fitch cut his teeth in a re-chassised Hot Shot that was promptly dubbed 'The Fitch Bitch.'
No less a luminary than John Fitch cut his teeth in a re-chassised Hot Shot that was promptly dubbed 'The Fitch Bitch.'
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Power To the People!
No less a luminary than John Fitch cut his teeth in a re-chassised Hot Shot that was promptly dubbed 'The Fitch Bitch.'
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TBT Winter 2014 Edition Out Now
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Half and Half
I started planning this trip last year when the West Coast Crosley Club decided to have more than one 'official' event per year. At our club dinner I pitched the idea of having a Crosley Club contingent attend SWULCS, figuring that any Crosley nut would love a chance to be around cars even weirder -and smaller - than a Crosley. Plus, I knew that several members are regulars at SWULCS, so we'd have a built-in starting crew. San Diego member Mike Blackburn ran with the suggestion, and while I was in Europe last year he got the ball rolling, coordinating with the SWULCS officials and even figuring out where the nearest KOA was. By the time I got back stateside we were official - all I had to do was wait for March 28 and show up!
Not long after Mike finalized the details on the meet, I found myself brokering a deal between two Crosley guys who had matching projects. When Arizona Crosley nut John McKnight told me he'd bought a roadster chassis that had no sheet metal, I knew just the guy he needed to talk to. About 10 years ago I'd looked at a big stash of Crosley parts that included some NOS stuff plus various bits, including a Super Sports body that had been chopped in half to facilitate a Spitfire-style tilt front - and then was never finished. I passed on the lot, but Curt Schoellerman, a club member that lives near Sacramento, bought everything -- and has been wanting to get rid of the SS carcass(es) ever since. John and Curt worked out a deal and both seemed pretty happy about it - and I was happy that two sad projects were going to become one much better project.
As the date for the SWULCS approached I realized that I could haul the SS body halves down to Pomona if John wanted to drive out to meet me. That would be a shorter haul for him than coming all the way north, and it would be an excuse for him to hang out with some California Crosley nuts for a couple of days. He liked the idea so I made arrangements to pick up the SS from Curt a few days before leaving Sacto. I hooked up my $50 trailer and headed up to Curt's place in Auburn just after work on the Wednesday before the show. We'd had the heaviest rains of the season that week and I could see black clouds coming over the mountains to meet me as I drove east.
Friday morning I got out of town early and had an uneventful trip down 5. My load of Crosley chunks rode fine and was so light I barely noticed the weight of the trailer and cargo. I'd found a set of old time radio show tapes just before the trip, and listening to episodes of 'Night Beat' made the 400 mile drive go by quickly. I hit traffic in Castaic, so I didn't pull into the meet HQ (the NHRA museum parking) lot until about 4:30 -- the neat stuff was already coming in...
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The Southwest Unique Little Car Show 2014
The only wrinkle in the trip so far was a message from John - he'd thrown his back out and wasn't going to be able to make it to pick up the Crosley halves I'd hauled from Sacramento. But, he assured me that his son-in-law would be there to pick them up on his behalf. I was sorry that John wasn't going to get to hang out, but glad that I wouldn't be hauling the Crosley carcasses back to Sacramento. I parked and hustled over to check out the early arrivals.
Also on hand, sans Crosley, was club member Jack Moore, whose very tidy 1948 station wagon was the cover 'star' of the latest issue of the Tin Block Times. He could only stay for the Friday festivities so he hadn't brought his Crosley. As he and I chatted, the organizers announced that they were ready to start the cruise to dinner. They handed out maps, and two dozen tiny little motors wheezed into life.
Jack and I caught a ride back in Bob King's restomod Crosley wagon. It took a bit of doing to fit both of us, plus Bob and his wife Charlotte all into one Crosley but we did it. To say that Bob's car is impressive is a major understatement; I've ridden in quite a few Crosleys, but Bob's is the one that seemed the most like a 'regular' car. The doors shut solidly, outside sounds are kept outside, and everything worked as it should. The Crosley engine had plenty of power on the hills, even with four full size passengers, and the brakes stopped just like they were supposed to. After driving my beat-to-death convertible for years, this was a revelation.
Back to Part 1...
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The Most Epic Fiat Multipla Trip EVER?
I haven't made a secret of my obsession with Fiat Multiplas. What's not to love: twice the charm of a VW bus stuffed into a package half the size! Some folks dream of hitting the lottery so they can get a Ferrari. Not me. I'd get a Multipla.
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I'm not sure why I fixated on the Multipla, but I've been fascinated since the very first time I saw a picture of one. It took another five years to finally see one in person, and it was even cooler than the photos. I guess part of the reason I love them is that they exemplify a minimalist but utilitarian ideal - what other car can carry six passengers on 633ccs - and be the most stylish car on the road while doing it? For someone who loves the idea of 'Less is More,' the Multipla is sort of the perfect vehicle.
You can imagine, then, exactly how far my eyes bugged out when Dave Smith sent me a link to an Afghanistan Hippie history webpage that included a few photos of two guys driving their Multipla across the Middle East in the late sixties.
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In 1969, two young Australians, Bruce Thomas and Stuart Harper, pooled their plans to drive overland from India to the UK. Harper had already purchased a 1961 Fiat 600 Multipla (for $175!) They had it overhauled and arranged to ship it to Sri Lanka, where they began their overland journey.
The ensuing trip was nothing short of epic - I can't do it justice with a summary, so do yourself a favor and just click over to Bruce Thomas' Flickr page and follow the story -- with more than 250 photos -- direct from him. All I can say is WOW...
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I'm not sure why I fixated on the Multipla, but I've been fascinated since the very first time I saw a picture of one. It took another five years to finally see one in person, and it was even cooler than the photos. I guess part of the reason I love them is that they exemplify a minimalist but utilitarian ideal - what other car can carry six passengers on 633ccs - and be the most stylish car on the road while doing it? For someone who loves the idea of 'Less is More,' the Multipla is sort of the perfect vehicle.
You can imagine, then, exactly how far my eyes bugged out when Dave Smith sent me a link to an Afghanistan Hippie history webpage that included a few photos of two guys driving their Multipla across the Middle East in the late sixties.
The ensuing trip was nothing short of epic - I can't do it justice with a summary, so do yourself a favor and just click over to Bruce Thomas' Flickr page and follow the story -- with more than 250 photos -- direct from him. All I can say is WOW...
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Oops.
I've actually been getting rid of stuff. Over the past couple of years I've come to terms with the fact that I have a pretty small garage, not much other storage and very little free time. I got rid of my 'extra' Super Sports and sold my '48 station wagon project back to my pal Dean who had bought it from me years ago, then decided he couldn't take it, and then recently decided that he could. I also sold off the '69 Ford van I used to haul my band around in.
That leaves me with PLENTY of Crosley projects: I still have the '49 convertible, '51 Super Sports and the Fibersport race car. But, what I didn't have was a Crosley station wagon.
I really wanted a wagon when I first got into Crosleys - and given that they were the most common model I thought I'd be able to find one fairly easily. But, as I discovered, most people who wanted a Crosley wanted a station wagon - they were the model that everyone remembered. After a long, fruitless search I ended up buying a Super Sports, and later the convertible - but I never stopped wanting a wagon. Then later I found the above-mentioned project wagon, but it needed everything.
Cut to last month. Someone on a Crosley bulletin board mentioned that there was a Farm-O-Road for sale on the Denver Craigslist. The Farm-O-Road is one of the rarest Crosley models, so I thought I'd contact the seller and offer to list the car in the classified section of the West Coast Crosley Club newsletter. I do that quite a bit when I find interesting Crosley stuff on CL in the western states.
I never did find that Farm-O-Road.
I did, however, see an ad for what appeared to be a very clean 1951 Crosley Super Station Wagon. There weren't a lot of details in the ad, and only a few small photos. Out of curiosity I emailed the seller for more details.
I hadn't been looking for a car at all. I knew I wanted to get a wagon someday, but I wasn't trying to find one now. First, I wanted to sell my Savoy, which I haven't really been driving, and then I wanted to get more done on the Super Sports which I've just started working on again. And, even though I thought that the asking price was very fair, I had zero money set aside to buy a car - a couple of expensive vet bills had just cleared our 'discretionary' fund. I figured that someday down the road I'd get a wagon when I found the right one, but I was in no hurry. I tried to stop thinking about this car.
That didn't work.
It didn't help that it was one of my favorite Crosley colors (sorta industrial blue) , and that it had the side-opening, one-piece rear door - way cooler than the standard 'clamshell.' It also didn't help that this was the rarest - and my favorite - of all Crosley types: a survivor.
As luck would have it, my good friend Suzy happens to live in Denver. How good a friend, you ask? A friend who once let me store a dead 1951 Nash Statesman in her driveway for six months. That's a good friend. I asked her if she'd take a look at the car for me - if it wasn't as nice as described, then it would be easy to stop thinking about it.
Suzy and her fiancé checked out the car. They were pretty impressed with the condition and sent me pictures and video. Everything checked out as the seller had described - except that some of it was nicer than I'd expected. Like the original paint on the floor:
There were some dings on the rear corners and the back valance was wrinkled - looks like someone had backed into something and then the damage was never properly repaired. But, overall, the car was really sound, complete and original. The brakes even worked, which seems almost impossible given how long it had been sitting.
I had myself a station wagon.
to be continued....
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Denver or Bust: Part 1
First order of business was to figure out how I was gonna haul it 1000 miles over two major mountain ranges - my $50 trailer has done all I've asked of it, but that would have been a bit much. I tried to rent a car hauler from U Haul but discovered that they weigh 1700 lbs - about 400 more than the Crosley. I asked a few friends from the West Coast Crosley Club if they had a Crosley-sized trailer I could borrow and Dale Liebherr immediately offered up an open trailer that sounded perfect for the job - and I could pick it up in Minden on the way to Denver.
Tim was a fan of the mid '60s American cars I drove in the early-mid nineties - I think he was a bit jealous of how reliable they were compared to his elegant - but finicky - Spit. And, they held a lot more band equipment. I can't count the number of times I hauled band members and gear to gigs in San Francisco in my '64 Galaxie, but Tim rarely ventured out of the 95814 zip code in his Spitfire. Eventually he reached back to his roots, supplementing the Spitfire with a 4 door '69 Cadillac which he promptly made into a 'convertible' with a Sawzall. THAT held a lot of band equipment.
On Labor Day weekend we loaded up the Transit and headed east to pick up my latest dumb car project. A quick stop in Minden to pick up the trailer also included a visit with Dale, and a sneak peak at the new location for Service Motors, which he had just purchased about six weeks before. He'd brought one truckload back with him in July, but more than half of the Service Motors stock was still in Indiana. I have no idea where he's going to fit it all - his warehouse/shop was jam packed with shelves of new, used and remanufactured parts and his home garage had been converted to a shipping and receiving office. It's already a tight fit.
We hooked up the trailer and got on the road for Denver. Only 1000 miles to go.
to be continued....
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But First, a Little Backstory
But it's important, just the same.
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Though we had been inseparable for years, Tim White and I haven't been all that close for quite a while. No real reason, just changing interests, both of us getting married, work - the normal stuff. He'd gotten deeper into playing music and way deep into exploring the Nevada desert and its innumerable ghost towns. We often went months without talking, and hadn't spent any significant time together in probably 10 years. And then, all that changed, just over a year ago.
It started with a cryptic call from Suzy, asking if I was OK - she'd heard there had been an accident. I was fine, but it soon became clear that she'd misunderstood a message from a mutual friend. It wasn't long before we found out what the message had been about: Tim White had been in an accident. A bad accident.
He'd been in Arkansas visiting a high school buddy who had just bought a farm there. No one seemed to know the exact details, but Tim had gone out of the back of a pickup truck at about 40 miles an hour. He was in a coma with a traumatic brain injury, lucky to be alive at all.
After a week it became clear that Gerri and company were breaking down as they all ran on less and less sleep - because of his condition, they had been staying with him 24 hours a day since the accident. I offered to come out if it would help, and, 16 hours later I was on a flight to Arkansas, not sure at all what I was getting into. To be honest, I was pretty scared of what I'd find.
Tim was making progress each day, although it was clear that he was going to have a long road ahead. I never experienced the anger that he'd exhibited earlier (brought on, it turns out, by a temporary saline imbalance that is apparently common in head injuries). We just talked about old friends, music, projects, and where to get good made-in-the-USA work pants. The doctors hesitated to make firm predictions, but one nurse finally told me that he was likely to make a more or less complete recovery - but that it would take 18 months. Tim had no comprehension of that - he was convinced that he'd be back at work in a few days. The whole goal now was to get him stabilized enough that they'd OK him for a flight back home.
I was there four days - I think. The whole experience is a haze, and my total experience covered about one square mile: the hospital, the hotel and the Panera Bread store in the parking lot between the two. My Crosley buddy Cutworm lives in Arkansas and I'd thought I might get a chance to call him, but there was never any time at all. I was either at the hospital, asleep, or trying to catch up on the work emails that were piling up. It was pretty intense.
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Cut to a year later. Tim is largely recovered, although he obsessively watches himself for signs that he's still not quite there. The saline imbalance has almost disappeared, but he still has to be careful how much water he drinks - too much and his levels can start to drop again. He's playing music just as well as before, painting like usual, and working just like always.
One thing that has changed is that we spend a lot more time together these days - like this trip to Denver. This was our first road trip together in well over a decade, and the first time Tim had spent a night away from Gerri since the accident. Funny how an experience like Arkansas makes you realize how important some people are in your life - and how easy it is to let good friends slip away. Tim and I both had that same realization, and it's been great to rediscover why we became such good friends in the first place.
Anyone that follows this blog with any regularity will notice that my posts about this trip have taken a lot longer to go up than usual. In short, there was a more to this trip than just picking up a Crosley -
quite a bit more freight, if you will.
Now that we've got that out of the way the next post will get back to our regularly scheduled Crosleying...
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Is this Chuck Koehler's Fibersport?
I was poking around on Cliff Reuter's Etceterini site the other day, doing some research on Giaur cars for an upcoming issue of the Tin Block Times (the Crosley club newsletter I edit). The site is a never-ending source of wonders - no matter how many times I visit, it seems like there is always another surprise awaiting...
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As I ogled the photos of sleek Giaur racers I suddenly noticed car #14, positioned directly in front of a Giaur in a photo identified as having been taken at Meadowdale Raceway in 1958. That shape is unmistakeable: the car is a second generation Fibersport. A quick look at the program for the event (also posted at the same site - thanks Cliff) confirms that car #14 was indeed a Fibersport, driven by Paul W. Meters of Mt. Pulaski, Illinois.
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Fibersport, for those not up on their midwest HMod history, was a tiny producer of Crosley-powered specials, based originally in Bloomington, Illinois and later relocated to Florida to be nearer to Sebring. The Fibersport was the brainchild of John Clator Mays who built a special and promptly tore the road tracks of the midwest to pieces with it. Mays turned the family basement into a factory, and he, his sons and one employee, Dutch Burmaster, turned out perhaps as many as five complete cars and another dozen or so fiberglass bodies (in two styles) between 1953 and 1962.
I have a special interest in Fibersports because I have one - or at least a Fibersport body on an unknown chassis. There is so little documented history on the Fibersports that no one knows exactly how many were made, or where they went. My guess is that my car was a homebuilt special completed with a Fibersport body. The car I own has a sturdy tube chassis - very different from the modified swiss cheese Crosley Hot Shot rails the other Mays cars used... but their literature listed a tube frame as an option, so who knows? (By the way, if YOU know, please get hold of me immediately!)
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Fibersports were rare when new, so they are almost impossible to find today. I began tracking them as I researched the history of my car. I knew that a Northern California racer named Terry Matheny had restored and raced one in the '80s, selling it around 1990 or so. Matheny died some years back and no one seemed to know where the car had gone to - I found one photo of it on a track shortly after the sale and then it dropped from sight. I called all over the US looking for it with no luck.
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Then, about five years ago, Chuck Koehler, a vintage racer and Crosley nut located the car not far from his home in Pennsylvania. It turns out that the guy who bought it from Matheny had blown the engine during the very first race he'd run and then tucked the car in storage for the next 20 years. Chuck bought the car, and the chance to see it in person spurred me to attend my first national Crosley Club Meet back in 2011. It's a nice car - likely one of the few genuine 'factory' Fibersports - and Chuck is the perfect caretaker for it.
Given that there were so few Fibersports built, there should be little question which one is which. Unfortunately, that's not true. The Fibersport factory files appear to have been lost, and there is very little documentation with any of the existing cars. The best-known and most successful Fibersport was # 41 - the first car built and the one that John Mays and both his sons raced at various times. Number 41 dropped out of racing in the early sixties, and was mothballed at Mays' house in Florida for the next four decades, so I knew Koehler's car couldn't be that one. But which other one was it?
Call it a gut feeling, but I think the car leading that Giaur at Meadowdale in 1958 may be the same car in Chuck Koehler's garage today. The biggest part of that intuition is the paint scheme - at some point the car was redone, but look at the paint in this photo of Matheny racing the car in 1988:
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The livery design is extremely similar to the 1956 photo. Now it's possible that Matheny could have randomly assigned that scheme to the car, (or had access to photos of another Fibersport with that livery) but I believe it is much more likely that he based the paint on the scheme that already existed on the car.
Also note the funky square hump in the center of the dash - that hump provides streamlining for a rearview mirror that Mays scavenged off a passenger car. Not all Fibersports had that element (mine doesn't, for example), but both the Meadowdale car and Koehler's car do.
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The only other Fibersport that I am aware of that had matching features (the single center stripe paint scheme and the mirror hump over the dash) was #41 - Mays' personal car. I believe that the car in the Meadowdale photo is either A) Chuck Koehler's Fibersport; or B) #41, rebadged for some reason as #14.
Perhaps Mays allowed Meters to race the car, but made him run under a different number? Would Mays have let someone other than himself or his sons drive the car? I don't know - I've never found any examples of a Fibersport registered as #41 in any race with a driver other than a Mays. I do find it interesting that neither John Mays, nor his son Bill (who was actively racing the car in this period), were registered in a race which was practically in their backyard. Their absence lends credence to the idea that #14 may be #41 with the numbers flipped. But, if it's not #41 in the Meadowdale photo, I'll bet it's the car now in Chuck's care.
We may never know. I did some cursory digging around to see if I could turn up anything about Paul W. Meters, but found nothing. Perhaps with some more research Chuck may be able to find out if Meters was connected to his car - or if he was a friend of the Mays family who lucked into a ride in one of the most successful Hmods in history.
I hope so, and I'll keep you posted.
As I ogled the photos of sleek Giaur racers I suddenly noticed car #14, positioned directly in front of a Giaur in a photo identified as having been taken at Meadowdale Raceway in 1958. That shape is unmistakeable: the car is a second generation Fibersport. A quick look at the program for the event (also posted at the same site - thanks Cliff) confirms that car #14 was indeed a Fibersport, driven by Paul W. Meters of Mt. Pulaski, Illinois.
Given that there were so few Fibersports built, there should be little question which one is which. Unfortunately, that's not true. The Fibersport factory files appear to have been lost, and there is very little documentation with any of the existing cars. The best-known and most successful Fibersport was # 41 - the first car built and the one that John Mays and both his sons raced at various times. Number 41 dropped out of racing in the early sixties, and was mothballed at Mays' house in Florida for the next four decades, so I knew Koehler's car couldn't be that one. But which other one was it?
Call it a gut feeling, but I think the car leading that Giaur at Meadowdale in 1958 may be the same car in Chuck Koehler's garage today. The biggest part of that intuition is the paint scheme - at some point the car was redone, but look at the paint in this photo of Matheny racing the car in 1988:
Also note the funky square hump in the center of the dash - that hump provides streamlining for a rearview mirror that Mays scavenged off a passenger car. Not all Fibersports had that element (mine doesn't, for example), but both the Meadowdale car and Koehler's car do.
Perhaps Mays allowed Meters to race the car, but made him run under a different number? Would Mays have let someone other than himself or his sons drive the car? I don't know - I've never found any examples of a Fibersport registered as #41 in any race with a driver other than a Mays. I do find it interesting that neither John Mays, nor his son Bill (who was actively racing the car in this period), were registered in a race which was practically in their backyard. Their absence lends credence to the idea that #14 may be #41 with the numbers flipped. But, if it's not #41 in the Meadowdale photo, I'll bet it's the car now in Chuck's care.
We may never know. I did some cursory digging around to see if I could turn up anything about Paul W. Meters, but found nothing. Perhaps with some more research Chuck may be able to find out if Meters was connected to his car - or if he was a friend of the Mays family who lucked into a ride in one of the most successful Hmods in history.
I hope so, and I'll keep you posted.
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Yes, That IS a Nice Farm-O-Road on Ebay
Yes, that is one nice Farm-O-Road. Low miles, clean, straight, and fairly rare. The ad says there are thought to be less than 600 F-O-Rs built - I'd heard 500 or less. Either way, not a common critter, even when new.
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New Tin Block Times Ready to Go!
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2015 Orange Blossom Special - Fillmore Spring Meet
Twenty-five years later (more or less), we decided to try again.
Pat and Carol Askren volunteered to organize the troops and suggested their hometown of Fillmore, California ("quaint" doesn't begin to describe it) as a site. I missed last year's debut of the revived spring get-together, but the reviews were so good I knew I couldn't miss the fun this year.
Liv and I took a couple of days off and headed south, and then over to the coast. We stopped in Pismo Beach for the night (I highly recommend Jocko's in nearby Nipomo for steak fans) and visited the Nipomo Dunes as we continued south the next day. Fillmore is about 25 miles inland of Ventura on Highway 126.
Bob King brought his impressive resto-kustom wagon, and a big pile of parts for sale, including a freshly rebuilt engine. Bob's carb and trans top rebuilds are things of beauty, featuring re-engineering wizardry earned through many, many years of sportscar and motorcycle racing. If Bob rebuilt it, it's better than new, no question about it. I picked up a pile of vintage 1950s hose clamps, a perfect touch for my mostly-original Denver wagon.
Things wrapped up around 2:30, and we said our goodbyes and made plans to meet up again in September. After a quick spin through the numerous antique shops ringing the town square, we headed back toward Ventura, a little sunburnt, full of BBQ and looking forward to the next meet.
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Scott Schultz 1943 - 2015
Back in the mid nineties, before the rise of the internet, finding a Crosley was hard. After reading about them in old sports car magazines, I'd decided I wanted one, but after months of searching, nothing had turned up in the classifieds of the local paper, the Hemmings listings were all too far away, and swap meets - even the mighty Turlock swap - had nothing for me.
Back then there was a local weekly radio show called Cruisin' Talk. Each Sunday morning, host John Sweeney would take calls from people looking to buy or sell cars and parts, and talk about upcoming car events. A typical call would be something like, "This is Jake in Rio Linda. I got a 401 '67 Buick nailhead for sale. Rebuilt the heads about 1000 miles ago, got a Schneider cam, runs real good. Looking to get, uh, $1800. Thanks." Then the caller or Sweeney would give out the guy's number (always a guy, always) and interested parties could follow up. It was a popular show- at least among car geeks.
In desperation, I decided to give it a go. I called up Sweeney one weekend and said I was looking for a Crosley, preferably running, and preferably a station wagon or Hot Shot, gave my number, and hung up.
Less than a minute later, I was talking to a real-live Crosley owner - the only call I got.
Scott (or 'Scotty,' as everyone called him) Shultz had been a Crosley guy for a long time. His dad had at least one Crosley when Scott was growing up, and an uncle had owned a 1940 in Honolulu, where Scott was born. I'm not sure when Scott caught the bug, but by the time he called me in 1997 he was already an old hand.
Scotty offered to sell me a semi-restored station wagon that he had, but at the time it was more than I could pay. He didn't know of any other Crosleys for sale offhand, but he offered to help with parts if I found a car, and gave me the number for Gordon Becher, a friend of his who turned out to be the go-to Crosley guy in the whole Central Valley at the time. I can't remember whether it was Scotty or Gordon that encouraged me to join the West Coast Crosley Club (I was already a member of the national), but both of them were active and enthusiastic members. Getting involved in the West Coast Club was really the turning point for my obsession - suddenly I had access to a whole catalog of nearby people who loved these crazy things.
Scotty lived about five miles away from me in a tiny house in West Sacramento. I'm a borderline hoarder, but Scotty took it to a level that I never touched. His garage was completely filled with tools and hardware, with just enough space to get a car in and out. His backyard was half the size of a basketball court, but he had crammed a parking pad, a metal shop building and a half dozen sheds on the property. Nothing could be done without rearranging the contents of the property first - there was just no room to move.
I hadn't known Scotty long when it became clear that he was a little bit off. There was something about his stories that didn't always make sense, and he didn't have a regular job - he just found abandoned cars and refrigerators and whatnot and took them apart for scrap. He called himself a "professional junky."
It turned out that Scott was on disability. He told me he'd been out joyriding shortly after graduation from high school and had gone off the road - I think one of the other people in the car died. He himself suffered a significant head injury. He recovered, but was never able to read again, and was on disability for the rest of his life.
I'm not sure whether Scotty's near-death experience spurred him on to grab life with gusto or whether he was just wired that way, but for a guy who couldn't read, and lived on the shoe-stringiest of budgets, Scotty had his fun.
Scotty's craziest 4WD adventure was in the seventies, after he'd recovered from his accident. Bored since he couldn't get a job, he decided to drive his jeep around the world. His parents ardently opposed this plan - he couldn't read, so how could he follow a map or read the street signs? His answer: "all the signs are gonna be in another language, so it wouldn't matter if I could read."
Scotty drove across the US and talked his way onto a freighter on the East Coast. He convinced the captain to let him work on the boat for free in exchange for transporting his jeep overseas. I never did get a complete itinerary for his trip, but I do know that he ended up in South America where he described once having to strip the tires off his rims so he could roll his jeep across a chasm on a 'bridge' consisting of two steel cables. His parents drove down to Mexico City to meet him and he was proud of the fact that he could get around the city - without reading the street signs - better than they could.
The station wagon that Scotty had offered to sell me was like many Crosley 'restorations' of those days: cheap paint on a decent body, with a velour interior over polyester carpet. It was his first restoration and he did it on the cheap - by necessity. Scotty drove the car and took it to shows and was pretty proud of it - until Gordon asked him one day if he wanted any help with the '48 convertible he was about to start on. Gordon's cars were one of two ways: barely-touched originals or beautiful, immaculately restored show cars. No corners were cut - ever.
Scott stewed on this in the worst way, and swore that he'd never do a halfway job on a Crosley again. There was a strong implication in the story that I never even think about putting less than 100% into a Crosley restoration.
Scotty's next project was more personal. On a trip back to Hawaii to visit family, Scott had asked about the 1940 Crosley his uncle had owned before the war. His grandmother told him that it was cursed - the car had been strafed by a Japanese plane in the Pearl Harbor attack while his uncle was driving it to the base. He was wounded but recovered, and she had forbidden him ever to drive it again. "Kahuna," she said. They had rolled the car into the basement of the house, and that was it.
It was still there.
With two fantastic Crosleys, Scott's next big project was a giant trailer to haul them on. Seeing Scott navigate his small residential street with a massive trailer full of Crosleys was always a sideshow complete with angry neighbors, backing on to people's lawns and several near-misses with parked cars. That said, Scotty could handle a trailer like a truck driver - I'd never have been able to have gotten in/out of the places he did.
Still, he never ceased to amaze. I got a call one day asking if I could help him go up to Yuba City to pick up a complete pre-war Crosley chassis, including the motor. I have no idea how Scott found this. Pre-wars are so rare that you almost NEVER see this stuff turn up - especially if you're not on the internet. And, the guy wanted something like $150 for everything - only Scott could find these kinds of deals. At this point, Scotty could barely walk, couldn't drive and certainly wasn't going to do anything with the chassis, but, a lifetime of picking junk meant that he couldn't just leave it there. We went and got it.
When Scott wasn't able to work on, or even show, his cars, he decided that it was time for them to go. He sold the '40 and '48 convertibles and trailer as a package to longtime club member Ronnie Bauman. Ironically, Ronnie's strain of perfectionism goes even further than Gordon's - he meticulously re-restored both convertibles, ending up with two cars far nicer than anything that ever left the Crosley factory. Ronnie kept and continues to enjoy the 1948 convertible, but the 1940 (now two-tone brown and tan) was sold to none other than Gordon Becher's son, Keith.
Once the cars were gone he turned to his parts stash. All those sheds in the backyard: all Crosley parts - all used. Like most Crosley guys of his day, Scott rarely threw anything away, because you never knew when you might need a spare. Scott had literally tons of rusty cast iron crankshafts, trans tops, engine blocks, starters, generators, wheels, etc. He called me and said, "come and get it." I loaded up two truckloads full of spares - at least half of which were too far gone to be of any use to anyone other than a folk artist. But, much of the stuff has come in handy - especially with projects that are missing a big chunk of parts.
Scotty and I kept in close touch and when Liv and I got married in 2006 he and Loretta were some of the first people on the guest list. I also asked Scott about the guy who had done the upholstery on his cars - I wanted to get a top for my '49 convertible since we were planning to drive away from the wedding in it, and I knew the guy did nice work. Scotty put us in touch, and a few weeks later I had a beautiful black Haartz-cloth top. When I went to pay, Scotty's friend told me it was already paid for. I can't properly express how much that touched me, but knowing how hard Scotty had worked for every dollar in his life, it meant a lot. My single regret from our wedding is that the photos we took of Scott and Loretta in front of the Crosley were on the only roll of film that the photographer lost.
That was over five years ago. I'd have never believed it.
Sad to say, when Scotty's time did finally come, I didn't find out until too late. He went into the hospital in early April to be treated for pneumonia - he fought for two weeks, but was just too weak. He passed on April 15, 2015, surrounded by family and friends. I got a call from his nephew Chris a couple of weeks later - they hadn't been able to find my phone number until then. Chris showed me some of the materials for Scotty's memorial, and I was honored to note that I had taken several of the photos they used at his service.
Scott was a good friend for a long, long time, and I can honestly say that I have never met anyone like him. He will be missed.
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Car Spotter: Autobianchi Bianchina Special Cabriolet
A friend of mine was watching the 1966 Audrey Hepburn movie How to Steal a Million and sent me a note: "what is this car?"
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Good question.
At first glance, that side trim looks Hillman-esque, and what I could see of the front looked a little bit NSU... but taken as a whole, the car is pretty unmistakably Italian. A little googling and I had the answer: it's an Autobianchi Bianchina Special Cabriolet (so, basically a Fiat.)
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Given my fascination with European movies of the '50s and '60s I was surprised that I had never seen this one- Liv and I remedied that last night. It's a fun caper flick with Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in the main roles. It's no Fellini, but well worth a watch, and full of European carspotting if you're into that sort of thing. And, currently available on Netflix streaming!
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At first glance, that side trim looks Hillman-esque, and what I could see of the front looked a little bit NSU... but taken as a whole, the car is pretty unmistakably Italian. A little googling and I had the answer: it's an Autobianchi Bianchina Special Cabriolet (so, basically a Fiat.)
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Denver or Bust: Part 2, There and back again
Leaving Minden, Tim's Transit cruised across Nevada like it was on rails, and we couldn't even feel the extra weight of the trailer. We'd opted for Highway 50, the Loneliest Highway, since it had more stuff to look at along the way, and we made it to Eureka, Nevada (population 610) that night. As luck would have it, Tim had a friend who owned a house there, and though he wasn't home, he was happy to let us stay - the key was under the mat. We were out the door by 6:30 the next morning, and wonder of wonders, found a tiny coffee hut on the main drag that, A) was open; and, B) served fresh-brewed espresso!
We made great time across Utah and Colorado, although we did start to feel the trailer as we crossed the Rockies. We hoped the addition of a 1300 pound Crosley, plus assorted spares wouldn't slow us down too much on the way back. Even with a stop at a junk shop somewhere in nowheresville, Utah, we still made it to Denver while the sun was up.
The next morning was the big day: time to pick up the Crosley! The owner lived about 30 minutes out in Aurora, a more rural area, a perfect place to pile up weird old vehicles - which he did. We pulled up to the address and the Crosley was parked in front of a big shop building, which was jammed full of projects.
At first glance I was a little disappointed that the body had more dings than I'd been expecting. There were also a few deep scratches that had been sloppily spray-painted - kind of a bummer given that the car had largely original paint. The battery box was rusted out, and one of the cables was nowhere to be seen. But the longer I looked, the more I saw.
We got about a mile when all hell broke loose.
As soon as we hit a big road and got up to about 50 mph, the trailer started to buck. We pulled over to make sure the tiedowns were correct, tightened everything a bit more, and cautiously headed down the road. And again, as soon as we got close to 50, the trailer started acting like it was trying to lose us. It bucked up and down and wobbled side to side - for one second I thought it was going to flip. We couldn't slam on the brakes, so we had to cut speed slowly... the longest 10 seconds of my life.
A further exam of the trailer and load and I thought I had identified the problem: the trailer hitch was too high, and the Crosley was too far back on the trailer, with most of the weight behind the wheels. I'd never given any thought to where to load a Crosley on my own tiny trailer - it only fit on one way - and luckily the cars had always ridden OK. We didn't have a way to secure the trailer while we adjusted the hitch, so we decided to head slowly back to Denver on surface streets and sort out the trouble at Suzy and Sean's. Twenty-five miles of stop signs and bumper to bumper traffic later we pulled up across from their house, sweating from our private remake of Wages of Fear. The good news is that the diagnosis was correct, and once we lowered the hitch and moved the Crosley a foot forward it rode perfectly.
We hit a light rain as we started into the mountains. I had a moment of horror as I realized that this was the first time the car had seen rain in nearly a half century... and then I remembered that it was, after all, a car. We pulled in for a pit stop and I was surprised to see that the rain was bringing out the original basket weave pattern! I made a mental note to see if I could bring it back somehow when I got home.
Finally, five days and 2300 miles after we left, we pulled up in front of my house, Crosley in tow. I unloaded all of my gear and unhooked the trailer from Tim's Transit. If we hadn't been so fried it probably would have been an emotional moment - it had been a great trip, and a chance to revisit old friendships that had gotten a little off track. Tim turned around down the street and honked as he drove past on his way home. I grabbed my sleeping bag and started up the stairs.
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Firing up the Denver Wagon!
This video is from way back in January, but finishes off the trip to Denver posts nicely.
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RIP Chuck Koehler
I just heard that Chuck Koehler has died.
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I didn't know Chuck well, but he was a vigorous and knowledgeable presence on the Crosley Gang Yahoo group, and he also sold his own handbuilt Crosley hop-up gear including dual carb set ups and tube headers. Chuck served as the Crosley Auto Club's treasurer, taking over at a particularly dark period in the club's history, when its finances had gone into the negative. By all accounts, Chuck is a big part of the reason that the club is back in the black and doing well.
I'd only been in touch with Chuck a few times over the years when he offhandedly mentioned that he had once owned the original body molds for the Fibersport Crosley-powered sports cars. I called him immediately, and discovered that Chuck had owned the molds, a Fibersport car, and had been in touch with Bill Mays, part of the family team that had built and campaigned the Fibersports. He was generous with his memories and we bonded over our mutual fascination with the Mays and their racecar company.
Cut to a year or so later and Chuck announced that he had purchased a 'lost' Fibersport - in fact, a car that I'd been actively trying to track down. It had been restored in Northern California in the late '80s, sold to someone on the East Coast, and was then out of sight for 20 years. Chuck found it not far from his home in Pennsylvania - intact, well stored, but with a blown motor that had kept it out of sight all those years. When Chuck said he was bringing the car to the national Crosley Meet in Wauseon, Ohio, that made up my mind: I booked a ticket that week.
That trip to Wauseon was the only time I met Chuck in person, but we exchanged emails a bit and phoned once in a while, generally exchanging Fibersport info that probably most people wouldn't have cared about. I even tracked down a vintage photo of what I think may well have been Chuck's Fibersport on the track back in the day.
Dave Anspach, president of the Crosley Club, posted a notice of Chuck's passing on the Crosley Gang site today. The Crosley extended family has lost another member.
Rest in Peace, my friend.
I didn't know Chuck well, but he was a vigorous and knowledgeable presence on the Crosley Gang Yahoo group, and he also sold his own handbuilt Crosley hop-up gear including dual carb set ups and tube headers. Chuck served as the Crosley Auto Club's treasurer, taking over at a particularly dark period in the club's history, when its finances had gone into the negative. By all accounts, Chuck is a big part of the reason that the club is back in the black and doing well.
I'd only been in touch with Chuck a few times over the years when he offhandedly mentioned that he had once owned the original body molds for the Fibersport Crosley-powered sports cars. I called him immediately, and discovered that Chuck had owned the molds, a Fibersport car, and had been in touch with Bill Mays, part of the family team that had built and campaigned the Fibersports. He was generous with his memories and we bonded over our mutual fascination with the Mays and their racecar company.
Cut to a year or so later and Chuck announced that he had purchased a 'lost' Fibersport - in fact, a car that I'd been actively trying to track down. It had been restored in Northern California in the late '80s, sold to someone on the East Coast, and was then out of sight for 20 years. Chuck found it not far from his home in Pennsylvania - intact, well stored, but with a blown motor that had kept it out of sight all those years. When Chuck said he was bringing the car to the national Crosley Meet in Wauseon, Ohio, that made up my mind: I booked a ticket that week.
That trip to Wauseon was the only time I met Chuck in person, but we exchanged emails a bit and phoned once in a while, generally exchanging Fibersport info that probably most people wouldn't have cared about. I even tracked down a vintage photo of what I think may well have been Chuck's Fibersport on the track back in the day.
Dave Anspach, president of the Crosley Club, posted a notice of Chuck's passing on the Crosley Gang site today. The Crosley extended family has lost another member.
Rest in Peace, my friend.
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Bummer.
I was worried that the residents wouldn't be very happy to have us partying it up right after a disaster down the street, but the folks I talked to had the exact opposite take: they want to get back to normal and are glad not to lose the business.
So, there we have it: October 24-25. Hope to see you there!
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2015 West Coast Crosley Club Meet - Part 1
Of course it didn't help that I'd been humping pretty hard to get everything ready in time. Some readers may not be aware that our original September date for the meet had to be postponed because of the massive Butte Fire, which tore through the Gold Country, and came within a few miles of our meet site last month. My friend Marty and his wife (who did lots of legwork on the meet) actually had to evacuate their house in Jackson and there was a very real question whether we might have to cancel the meet altogether. Luckily, the wind took the fire away from the cluster of Gold Rush era towns that we had chosen for the meet, and the region escaped with relatively few losses compared to neighboring Calveras County. We pushed the date back to October 24-25 and hoped that most members could reschedule.
Aside from rushing to redo planning for the meet, I was hustling in order to have a running Crosley ready to drive to the event.
Last year, after a week in which I drove to Colorado, trailered a deep storage Crosley home, then trailered it to the annual meet in Buellton, and then home again, I had a revelation: I'm done with trailers. I didn't get into old cars so I could haul them around behind an appliance car - I got into old cars because I love driving them. After last year's meet I swore I'd drive a Crosley to the next one.
On Friday afternoon I loaded the car up with tools, spares, oil, water, gas and luggage and headed out on Highway 16 for Jackson. I'd done a 50 mile road test through the Delta, but hadn't been on any highways or grades yet, so I wasn't sure how happy the car would be on commuter roads that climbed over 1200 feet in elevation. My worries were unfounded. The Crosley buzzed along at 45, 50, 55, running smoothly aside from a loud rattle that came from a loose washer in the custom shift set up.
My biggest worry was varying my speeds. A set of used pistons and a receipt for new rings and pistons had come with the car, so I figured I should drive as if I was seating the rings. That means varying speeds/rpm during the break-in period, and since I didn't know if the car had been driven at all since the parts were installed, I figured I should err on the side of caution. Not the easiest thing to do on a two lane highway with a 55-65mph speed limit, but I managed to do it while staying out of people's way.
Liv showed up soon with the dogs and the extended Moe family - Jen and Mike, Liv's sister and brother in law, had offered to provide roadside assistance for Sunday's Crosley Cruise, and had come up with a truck and trailer. Since they were bringing an empty trailer, I 'volunteered' them to haul the Denver wagon for my friend Dean - he'd managed to awaken it from its 46 year sleep earlier that week, but had only driven it two miles so far. All involved thought it would be prudent not to drive it the 45 miles to the meet under the circumstances!
Longtime readers of this blog know (after at least a half dozen previous meet reports) what happens next: I provide a rundown of cars on hand, the stuff that traded hands at the swap meet, what got donated to the raffle, and then wrap up with the goings on at the club dinner. I'll have the full details in the write-up in the next Tin Block Times, but for now i'm going to save us all a little time and just let the photos tell the story.
Next up: The Crosley Cruise.
The show field - that's a lotta Crosleys
First time out for Martha Straube's wagon - she picked up an award for a nice car
Gary Cochrane's Nissan-powered Super Sports heads a row of open cars
Club founder Dave Brodsky brought some rare and choice parts for the swap - I picked up a steel crank + strapped main crankcase and original JaBro paperwork. Note Service Motors' 70 FOOT trailer full of Crosley parts in back!
Russell Martin brought this amazing custom Crosley/Indian/BMW build. You can't see his awesome "Crosley Motorcycles" t shirt
Swap meet goodies
I 'borrowed' this photo of the '50 Farm-O-Road Firetruck from owner Bob Chase
Winner of the "Bob Carson" Award for Best Travel Adventure
Orv Madden has a buncha Packards and one Crosley - exactly like the one his folks had when he was a kid
Wagon row. The green Woodie up front picked up "Best of Show" - and earned it! Exterior was beautiful and the interior was even better
That headliner!
Mike Chicconi and Bob King tinker with a new motor
Nick Shelley and Bob Baxter with Bob's amazing Tin Block lamp - a total work of art!
Nick brought his freshly-finished electric conversion Farm-O-Road. Amazing project! The Stoner's super clean coupe and Mike Blackburn's '51 delivery in back
Club prez Rick Alexander auctions off Sherri Stein's mind-bending project: hundreds of vintage club photos arranged to form a Crosley wagon. In a word: wow!
Don Rauch relaxes behind his shiny Braje-equipped Hot Shot
One of the coolest cars in the club: Glen Brynsvold started building his Skorpion in the fifties and still has - and drives - it!
Pride of the show: Kip Fjeld's Miller, Marty Stein's Siata and Lee Osborne's Shannon Special. Probably more horsepower here than in the rest of the show combined!
Ronnie Bauman with his newest toy - hard to believe this was a plain-jane stocker 15 months ago
Something for everybody
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Prelude to the Crosley Cruise
Since 2015 was the 30th Anniversary Meet for the club, I had suggested that we do something we'd never tried before: a two-day meet, with a Crosley-friendly driving event scheduled for Sunday. While my proposal was overwhelmingly approved at our 2014 meeting, I came to find that my idea was going to be more of a struggle than expected.
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I've been scheming on the idea of a "Crosley Cruise" ever since I went to the Great Pacific Northwest MicroCar Extravaganza in 2013. The GPNW is a CRAZY two-day event with more oddball tiny cars gathered in one spot than can be believed. On the first day of the meet, a fleet of about 25 underhorsed micro-machines took off into the hills and backroads outside of Portland, all chasing a Messerschmitt that led the way. Since I'd come in an appliance car I was invited to ride along as a passenger, and spent the day trading between a Berkeley, a Fiat Multipla, a Lloyd, a Subaru 360, a Citroen 2CV and the aforementioned Messerschmitt.
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To back up a bit: When I first got the idea of owning a Crosley, 20 or so years ago, it never occurred to me that people owned cars that they hardly ever drove. I didn't know anyone in that category, and I didn't think there was any term more derogatory than "trailer queen." I had decided I wanted a small car because I knew it would be more fun to drive than the big '60s boats I was used to, and because I felt guilty driving a car that got 11 miles a gallon. I started looking at Fiats and British cars, but kept coming back to the weird little cars I was reading about in the old sports car magazines that my pal Dean kept loaning me. Whatever I got, it would have to be my only car - I didn't have the space or resources to have more than one vehicle.
When I finally got to my first Crosley Meet, in 1997, I was floored that nearly every car arrived on a trailer! Of the 15 or so Crosleys at that show, only two had arrived under their own power: wagons piloted by Road and Track star Frank Bell and bonafide Crosley legend Bob Carson. When I told the guys at the meet that I wanted to buy a Crosley and use it as a daily driver they all thought I was crazy. After several years living that experiment I discovered that they were right.
However, that doesn't mean that Crosleys can't be driven - and driven hard.
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Crosley's first real claim to fame was when a showroom-stock Hot Shot won the Index of Performance at the first Sebring race, powering through a six-hour race for the trophy. Back in the forties and fifties, Crosleys were driven across the United States, all the way to Alaska, and competed in an uncountable number of road races. A few years before I joined the club, two of the members met up with Bob Carson for a three-Crosley caravan from San Francisco to Wauseon, Ohio - and back. Dale and Rob Liebherr of Service Motors think nothing of driving their cars over the Sierras, and a guy named Greg Hall drove his Hot Shot on a round trip from Seattle to Sacramento in 2005.
But just because they can be driven doesn't mean they will be, and I can remember one meet where as many cars were pushed on and off their trailers as could move under their own power. (Sad to say that I was one of the ones with a 'pusher' that year.) So the question is: would Crosley owners actually want to drive their cars a reasonable distance?
It turned out that getting a thumbs up from the club was the easy part: finding a suitable route through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada was the challenge. The goal was to find a 60-70 mile round-trip route that avoided major highways and steep hills but featured interesting scenery with plenty of stopping points, and had a spot for lunch somewhere in the middle. After spending most of a year on this, let me assure you: not easy.
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Siata-owner and Jackson resident Marty Stein and I spent months trading proposed route plans and test-driving two lane roads, with him providing the local expertise and me confirming whether or not a road was Crosley-friendly. Given that the region is almost entirely hills, canyons and rivers, we had our work cut out for us, but by mid-Summer we had a working plan. And then, the fire.
The Butte Fire started just outside Jackson on September 9, hit 14,000 acres by the next day and then doubled in size in the next 24 hours. Many Jackson residents, including Marty and his wife Sheri, were evacuated as the fire jumped roads and roared through the hills. A week later, the fire had burned over 60,000 acres and was only 10% controlled. The smoke reached me in Sacramento, 50 miles away. The Italian Friendship Society Park - our meet site - was the staging area for the out of town fire departments and PG&E. We started making calls to postpone the meet for a month.
Thankfully, the weather changed, the winds died down, and by the next week the fire was largely under control - although it wasn't fully out until the beginning of October. Marty and Sheri were back in their home (no damage, thank goodness), but they, like everyone in the area, were emotionally exhausted. And, the Crosley Cruise route we'd worked on for months was toast.
I had some suggestions, but basically handed the chore of revising the whole tour to Marty since he knew the area, including what had burned and what was OK. We abandoned most of the original drive, added other bits, and reversed one long stretch to make things connect. After a lot of back and forth we put a plan together - I think we finally had the details worked out about a week before the meet.
As noted earlier, the Saturday event went great - now the big question was: how many cars would actually make it on the cruise? We'd lost a few drivers because of the date change, including a few non-Crosley microcar owners who had planned to join us for the run. I really hoped I wasn't going to be making the tour by myself...
to be continued
I've been scheming on the idea of a "Crosley Cruise" ever since I went to the Great Pacific Northwest MicroCar Extravaganza in 2013. The GPNW is a CRAZY two-day event with more oddball tiny cars gathered in one spot than can be believed. On the first day of the meet, a fleet of about 25 underhorsed micro-machines took off into the hills and backroads outside of Portland, all chasing a Messerschmitt that led the way. Since I'd come in an appliance car I was invited to ride along as a passenger, and spent the day trading between a Berkeley, a Fiat Multipla, a Lloyd, a Subaru 360, a Citroen 2CV and the aforementioned Messerschmitt.
On the road at the 2013 GPNW
We covered probably 60 miles in a leisurely drive with plenty of stops to take pictures, eat, and check out the local color. It was the most fun I'd ever had at a car event (except for Bonneville, which is in a class by itself.) My gears were turning before I even started heading home from Oregon: the only thing more fun than being part of a traveling fleet of assorted microcars would be traveling in a fleet of Crosleys. It's obvious that I would think this was a great idea, but would anyone else?When I finally got to my first Crosley Meet, in 1997, I was floored that nearly every car arrived on a trailer! Of the 15 or so Crosleys at that show, only two had arrived under their own power: wagons piloted by Road and Track star Frank Bell and bonafide Crosley legend Bob Carson. When I told the guys at the meet that I wanted to buy a Crosley and use it as a daily driver they all thought I was crazy. After several years living that experiment I discovered that they were right.
Buellton, '97: the wagons on the far right both drove from LA area. My '64 Mercury Marauder in foreground.However, that doesn't mean that Crosleys can't be driven - and driven hard.
Stan Smith drove his wagon from Michigan to Alaska in May 1948But just because they can be driven doesn't mean they will be, and I can remember one meet where as many cars were pushed on and off their trailers as could move under their own power. (Sad to say that I was one of the ones with a 'pusher' that year.) So the question is: would Crosley owners actually want to drive their cars a reasonable distance?
It turned out that getting a thumbs up from the club was the easy part: finding a suitable route through the foothills of the Sierra Nevada was the challenge. The goal was to find a 60-70 mile round-trip route that avoided major highways and steep hills but featured interesting scenery with plenty of stopping points, and had a spot for lunch somewhere in the middle. After spending most of a year on this, let me assure you: not easy.
The Butte Fire started just outside Jackson on September 9, hit 14,000 acres by the next day and then doubled in size in the next 24 hours. Many Jackson residents, including Marty and his wife Sheri, were evacuated as the fire jumped roads and roared through the hills. A week later, the fire had burned over 60,000 acres and was only 10% controlled. The smoke reached me in Sacramento, 50 miles away. The Italian Friendship Society Park - our meet site - was the staging area for the out of town fire departments and PG&E. We started making calls to postpone the meet for a month.
Thankfully, the weather changed, the winds died down, and by the next week the fire was largely under control - although it wasn't fully out until the beginning of October. Marty and Sheri were back in their home (no damage, thank goodness), but they, like everyone in the area, were emotionally exhausted. And, the Crosley Cruise route we'd worked on for months was toast.
I had some suggestions, but basically handed the chore of revising the whole tour to Marty since he knew the area, including what had burned and what was OK. We abandoned most of the original drive, added other bits, and reversed one long stretch to make things connect. After a lot of back and forth we put a plan together - I think we finally had the details worked out about a week before the meet.
As noted earlier, the Saturday event went great - now the big question was: how many cars would actually make it on the cruise? We'd lost a few drivers because of the date change, including a few non-Crosley microcar owners who had planned to join us for the run. I really hoped I wasn't going to be making the tour by myself...
to be continued
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