09 August 2010
Hoosiers
(2010 Bill Socotra Rally in Shipshewana, Indiana. Note Amish buggy behind the AMC Pacers and Javelins. All photos Socotra)
So, today is the anniversary of the Nagasaki Bomb, Major Sweeney and Bock’s Car high over the city with the other weapon that was available to ensure that the message was received by the militarists in Tokyo.
I mention it only in passing, though I will talk to Mac about it tomorrow at Willow as we continue our tour through the middle part of the War Years. It was when what we consider dry history was an unread book with no certain ending.
That is exactly where we are in up in the little City by The Bay, where Dad is hanging on, barely, and Mom's mission to care for her Sweetie still burns bright even though she can't remember anything else.
It is the week of the monumental decision we have already made but have not conveyed to Mom. We will see how that works. I hope it is gentle, but I fear that we may have to go through an anger phase first. We will see how it plays out.
I am still feeling the effects of the road- ten hours out on Friday to the cornfields of Indiana. I have never thought much about the state, per se, and only passed through on the way to somewhere else. I did go there intentionally twice, both times years ago and both related to automobiles.
Dad and the boys took me along to the Brickyard at Indianapolis in 1962, the year Roger Ward won it in an Offenhauser front-engine machine. It was the year before the European invasion and the introduction of the grand prix-style cars. We sat in the stands behind the pits, and the roar of the engines and the ballet of the pit crews before us was something quite amazing.
I would not see that unique and efficient dance of man and machine again until I arrived on an aircraft carrier flight deck.
That sunny day, when the checkered flag had waved over a field of thirty-three all-American cars that included A.J. Foyt, Eddie Sachs and Parnelli Jones, Dad took me down to the tracks and I collected the poster-sized paper signs that had signaled from pit to driver when to come in for gas and tires.
(Roger Ward at the wheel of his Offenhauser-powered roadster)
A decade later, a pal at the McGraw-Hill Book Company had the territory out there that included South Bend, and I ventured out there, I think by air, to spend a twenties-something weekend of mild beer-fueled debauchery.
What I recall was the amazing concentration of muscle cars in the little towns around South Bend. They were not quite vintage then, just well-cared for late models, but they were really hot and after-market beefed up. More GTO's than I had seen even in suburban Detroit back in the day, when they were new.
If I had known, I would have recalled that northern Indiana was one of the birthplaces of the American idea of the motor-car, and my new association with the Hoosier American Motors Owners club reflects it.
The AMO is an acquired taste in car fanciers. Growing up as the son of a Rambler executive in Detroit carried a certain emotional burden that is difficult to describe. I so envied the sons of MoPar and GMC, or even the Ford kids with their Shelby Mustangs.
Everyone knew that Chrysler might have had bad styling, but they had SPEED.
I recall with embarrassment the reaction I felt when the folks came back from The Car Show gala (do you recall the excitement of the first display of the new model year?) with the souvenir ad-crap give-aways that read: "Rambler! The Sensible Spectacular!"
I can only imagine it took a lot of Scotch for the Mad-men to put that one together.
(1970 AMX in Cherry Red)
AMC products, in my mind, come in three versions. The Hoosiers prefer the Javelin and AMC vintage muscle cars, which salvaged a little of my teen-age pride. They were pretty cars, maybe not world class, but along with the Scrambler (developed by some loons at the Kenosha factory to go against the Dodge Dart with the six-part carburator and giant engine), displayed some racing spunk.
(Ron’s cherry 1959 Rambler American Station Wagon)
The earlier era of George Romney was about quirky little fuel efficient cars, the prototypes of today's Minis and electric cars.
At the end, as the company was dying, were the real oddities, embarrassing, really. The Marlin, the Pacer and Matador are the exemplars of science-fiction design that just make me queasy. We had two or three of the Gremlins at one time, when Dad must have picked them up at a buy-one get one free deal.
(The bizarre Gremlin that we loved so much)
Jim Alexander was the boss of the interior styling shop back in those days. His specialty was low-cost 1970s interior fashion, with chrome-colored plastic and upholstery colors not found in nature. He could laugh about it all in later years, and was a real car guy who managed to connect a passion for high-performance race cars with a career tricking out the Sensible Spectaculars. In his later years, he and his wife would bring the camper up to Petoskey and camp in the plaza of the little estate there and grill with Mom and Dad in the evening, and enjoy the million dollar sunsets.
He is gone now, and I have no idea if she is still living.
Anyway, the Hoosiers mostly like the muscle, and the values of the cars are more approachable than the really cool Goats and 442's and Super Bees for the collecting crowd.
The former president of the National AMO organization was there. He has a 1970 AMX with 13,000 original miles, and a 390 engine with every conceivable option, including the heated rear window, a novelty at the time. That the seats folded down to make improvised sleeping couches made the Ramblers the make-out specials for Drive In movies beyond compare, and the one thing that we had over the GM, Ford and Mopar kids.
Anyway, that is why I spent the ten hours driving out there to make some very brief remarks to the enthusiasts on behalf of Dad, who can no longer complete a full sentence, and from whom all the memories except those in the books and in me have been taken.
The Bill Reddig Rally was held in the parking lot of the Shipshewana, Indiana, Convention Center, and that was strange as well. A fetishist local entrepreneur has fifty Hudson Motor Cars representing the entire history of the sleek "step down" marque, and taking a break from the displays toured the collection in wonder.
(Concours D’elegance 1951 Hudson convertible from the collection of the Hofstetler Musuem)
He won the concours d'elegance at pebble Beach last year, so he is no slouch in restoration business. All the pics are on my Facebook page; it was worth it, since my folks cared about these lunatics, and it was good to pass along their farewell in person.
Now, about the drive....jeeze. Good technical ride, swift but ticket-free in the Bluesmobile, the Ford Police Interceptor package-equiped King of the Road. The only time I was afraid for my life was at the 1179-mile mark in the trip, when a bright blue foreign-made SUV swerved across two lanes to attempt to get brief advantage of a bumper or two of room in the traffic near Rockville, MD.
I could actually sense the adrenaline rising with each mile coming down to the National Capital region from Breezewood, in the Pennsylvania mountains. The people here are nuts and I have as much interest in going to work this morning as I have in going to the moon.
Or driving to Petoskey in a couple weeks, for that matter.
(King of the Road 2004 Crown Vic P-71)
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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