Beer, Booze, Bait & Bullets

For the thirteenth year, Jack Miller, a Hudson man and native of Ypsilanti, Michigan, staged his Orphan Car Show in lovely Riverside Park in downtown Ypsi, near his Hudson car buffs’ mecca.

Eligible for the show are orphan (no longer produced) makes of model years 1959 and earlier that have been orphans for at least seven years (meaning that pre-1959 Oldsmobiles will be acceptable in 2010 because 2003 was its last year). This year, 350 cars were displayed, including Hudsons, Nashes, Studebakers, Packards, DeSotos, and Plymouths.

Earlier this year, I bought a 1949 Hudson Commodore Six Club Coupe from a collector in Rhode Island and had it trucked to a friend near Detroit. My plan: exhibit at the show, then drive home, accompanied by my son, a University of Michigan student.

On our way to the Lake Michigan ferry to Wisconsin, which sails each morning from Ludington, Michigan, we took due note of a market with a sign that read: Beer, Bait, Booze & Bullets; its decidedly un–Bay Area sentiment had a rebellious (and somewhat humorous) appeal, an appropriate marker for our road adventure. It’s a four-hour crossing of the sixty-mile-wide lake; out on the middle, you can’t see land. A great start to our travels.

My original plan had us drive far north on Highway 2 through North Dakota and Montana, along the Canadian border. But mindful of the possibility of a breakdown, I opted for Interstate 80, with some detours on to the old, original, coast-to-coast Lincoln Highway, Highway 30. I needn’t have been so cautious—the Hudson ran like a train the entire 2,900 miles.

Trains provided one of the high points of the drive. In North Platte, Nebraska, the Union Pacific Railroad maintains a huge yard, where trains are made up for various eastern and western destinations. Diesel locomotives and railcars are also maintained and overhauled there.

This yard is amazing, even for one who doesn’t give much thought to trains except on the rare occasion out in the country where there’s a rail crossing.

 It’s eight miles long, with dozens of tracks for eastbound and westbound trains. At any given time, it accommodates 15,000(!) railcars, controlled and directed by an all-knowing computer system, and minimal human involvement.

There’s a visitor center, which features an eight-story-high viewing tower. But not many visitors appear, because the center is two or three miles from both the town and the highway. Coupled with the fact that North Platte is already over two-hundred miles west of Omaha, it’s no surprise that only the most determined road-trippers even get close (see more at goldenspiketower.com). Bruno, a retired Union Pacific Railroad employee, wearing his North Platte High School class of ’58 polo shirt, happily shared railroad lore with us.

Another remote road-trip adventure is Pioneer Village in Minden, Nebraska (pioneervillage.org; not to be confused with Minden, Nevada). Covering the equivalent of several square blocks of a little town, Pioneer Village is a collection of artifacts, machines, household objects, and even entire buildings, such as an abandoned post office, a sod house, and a school. It’s a fascinating chronicle of American prairie life from the early 1800s to the mid-1900s, and one of the reasons why “fly-over” country is worth seeing.

A bonus of old-car travel is the fact that every gas and lunch stop attracts a group of locals anxious to share reminiscences. Most of those locals seem to have had a relative who owned a Hudson. You wonder why Hudson failed if everyone’s father-in-law bought one.

You’re surely wondering about the downsides of such an adventure.  Accommodations? Food? Old car breakdown?

Don’t look for a Starbucks, except for every thousand miles or so. But most towns of any consequence now have at least a drive-thru espresso place.

Lunch is easy—go to a Subway for acceptable fresh sandwiches. There seems to be a Subway every twenty or thirty miles.

Dinner is another matter. There’s no Guide Michelin, but common sense works. Most towns have a semi-upscale steakhouse, and middle America is really good at meat and potatoes. There’s generally something on the short wine list that’s more than drinkable.

The potential for a breakdown needs to be considered. The question is: what’s the worst that can happen? Clearly, a totally disabled car is the worst. At that point, you hope you have cell-phone service so you can call a tow truck. You’d leave the car in a responsible storage garage and figure out how to get to some airport. Then call a car shipper to arrange for the car to be trucked home. I’ve never had to resort to this.

More typical is some sort of malfunction that enables you to limp into the next town where you try to find a garage willing to help. It’s amazing how many old car buffs are out there, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to help a fellow hobbyist.

Driving along in this 1949 car, I tried to imagine how a road-trip was then. There was no interstate highway system, no branded motels, and no (at least predictable) fast-food places. If you wanted to phone home, you stopped at a pay phone and had an operator place the call. Drop in your nickels, dimes, and quarters—no telephone credit cards then.

Gasoline was about twenty-five cents a gallon. The roads were the two-lane variety. Every ten or fifteen miles there was a little, self-contained town. There were no Walmarts, almost no TV, and AM-only radio.

Our 1949 Hudson, with its 120 horsepower, was a really fast car for the era, able to cruise at a relaxed seventy to seventy-five miles per hour, delivering eighteen miles per gallon. On hot days (then as well as now) you rolled down the windows and smelled the fresh grass, or the “aroma” of cows. Cars didn’t have air conditioning yet.

All the cars then were American brands. Only one or two VWs came here in 1949. Japanese cars were unknown. A few sporty guys in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and the Northeast bought the new MG TC roadsters. They rode rough and were fragile, but they’d go eighty miles per hour and cling to the corners.

For all the talk about the “good old days,” the reality is that progress has been very good for our quality of life!

Martin Swig is a former San Francisco new-car dealer who now presents the internationally-celebrated California Mille and other historic car events. As a free service to Gazette readers, he’ll offer suggestions on how to dispose of a cherished car. Call him at 415-479-9950.