Over my decades of motoring along mostly forgotten blue highways, catching sight of an abandoned vehicle long retired to an open field ranked as the visual prize in the back road Cracker Jack box.

Whether huddled next to a weathered outbuilding or a lifeless shell serving as its own gravestone in a windswept field, it fascinated me.

The forsaken and forlorn car or truck rests in a virgin bed of weeds. Witnessing it defending its integrity in an inevitable losing battle against oxidation and time, I would wonder what stories it could tell?

While often no more than a pile of patina with a shape sustained by little beyond a memory, that vehicle, for me, always held out the hope of a fresh and satisfying story waiting to be savored like a new apple from an old tree.

However, while I often stopped, I rarely pursued the story.

Now, as life has afforded me more opportunities to travel blue highways in a more leisurely fashion, I am committed to harvesting the rewards of asking “what’s your story?”

So it was with this 1946 Dodge.

What’s a “Vineyard truck?”

It came into view as the gravel road crested behind the sheep farm on a stony hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Martha’s Vineyard.

Bulbous pontoon front fenders projected a decidedly 1940s look. Though denuded of trim and trappings and literally put out to pasture, the strong and stylish truck cab projected a defiant attitude.

Its Tonka Toy-like early post-war architecture displayed a kaleidoscopic patina with patches of color that indicated a life with many chapters.

Away from the truck a path led to a rustic barn and sounds of a man at work.

“That your truck on the hill,” I asked. “Yes sir,” came the reply. A tall friendly man in his 30s with a red neckerchief exited the barn. He introduced himself as Steve Broderick. I asked “What’s your story?”

Martha’s Vineyard has dual personality disorder. Both coincide on the same spot of verdant land off the coast of Massachusetts. During the summer months the mega-rich, simply wealthy, ex-presidents and self important celebrity types summer in rustic splendor. George Soros thinks it’s swell.

For the rest of the year with summer and glamour gone elsewhere, when snow falls and bitter winds sweep down barren beaches one finds the people who call Martha’s Vineyard home and […]

Elaine Larsson leaves no doubt as to the priceless and joyful life lessons learned in the 1970’s cross country teenage adventures she shared with her parents in their 1970 Volkswagen Westfalia.

Decades later, a serendipitous sequence of events, allowed the woman Elaine has become to again enjoy the driving experience that enriched the life of the young girl she was.

The woman picks up where the girl left off

“1972 Volkswagen Westfalia, pastel white, 58,000 original miles” read the 2014 ad found while I surfed The Samba.com website. “What country is it in?” Elaine asked with conversational interest. While not a “car guy,” Elaine always waxes fondly when recalling teenage cross country family road trips in her family’s 1970 Westfalia.

Over the years Elaine would from time to time try to track down the old van. It had been sold in the late 1970s. Her efforts gave strong indication that it had long ago moved on to the old van burial ground. However, while gone, the memories it inspired remained undiminished.

Memories of her father, a retired Jersey City motorcycle cop, her adventurous mother and BFF brother generate nothing but smiles when Elaine recalls 6-week escapes in the early 1970s where the family visited mountains, prairies, and, yes, oceans white with foam.

I showed her the images accompanying the ad for the van. Same model, same color and solid original condition. Her interest perked like coffee ready to pour.

The Samba.com website provides an extraordinary global marketplace offering vans aplenty from Africa, Europe, Canada and the western US. East coast, not so much. “Where is it?” she asked with a bit more edge to her voice. “New Jersey” came my reply.

Packing a large wad of hundreds, Elaine walked the mile between her home and the van owner’s house.

“Do you want me to show you how to drive it?” the owner asked. Elaine’s knowing laugh betrayed a “you never forget how to ride a bike” level of confidence as she slid behind the same controls on which she learned to drive. Originally purchased in 1971 by an Air Force officer stationed in Germany, this van had a diary with  comments from every past owner. It had spent 20 years in the desert of the southwest.

The […]

Firing up a classic car with over a half century of history always brings with it a high probability of adventure and the unexpected.

When time and other things stand still

Dappled sunlight leaking through the forest canopy dances on the Corvette’s hood. It is a glorious morning on a twisting two lane that snakes through a state park. Elaine, my co-pilot for life, notices that the odometer on my recently restored 1961 Corvette stands poised to roll over to 59000.0 Actually it will be 259000.0, but in 1961 odometers only had 5 places preceding the decimal point.

A coordinated dance of digits that soon will resolve into a chorus line of zeros spin like a slow motion slot machine. Elaine, poised to nail the 59,000.0 money shot never gets the chance. At mid “.9” the odometer, as John Cleese might say, ceases to proceed.

Back home at the garage. The odometer might as well be a decal.

In planning my Corvette’s restoration, I never wanted an overlooked detail to haunt my post-restoration driving experience. With over a quarter of a million miles on my totally disassembled Corvette, I knew this was no time to cheap-out on rebuilding the instruments. The last thing I wanted was a fresh and eager car with tired instruments just waiting to crap out.

After contacting a Corvette instrument specialist on a recommendation from a respected source, I bundled up the speedometer, tachometer and clock for shipment confident that when my resurrected Corvette returned to the road it would do so with a freshly renewed set of instruments.

With a burst of Pollyanna-like optimism, I thought maybe the frozen odometer was just an anomaly, waiting for a second chance to cure itself.

Security guards at the local industrial park must have watched with incredulous awe as this Honduras Maroon and Ermine White jewel circled the empty service road in reverse. Yes, the odometer would go backwards. Having rolled in reverse a good mile, I, like a knight in a joust, briefly paused then kicked the stirrups […]