Andrew shares his unique automotive journey, from his first car experiences to his passion for Trabants and Tuckers. He discusses the quirky charm of the Trabant, its East German roots, and the joy of driving a car that embodies history. The conversation also touches on family involvement in his automotive hobbies, including building custom scooters with his son. With engaging anecdotes and a focus on the emotional connections cars create, this episode highlights the intersection of cars, family, and personal stories.
Join hosts Christian and Doug as they ride shotgun with Andrew, a volunteer firefighter and classic car buff, on an epic museum-hopping road trip. This episode is a love letter to automotive history: Andrew shares how a humble $100 Volkswagen Beetle became his first car (and first restoration project), sparking a life of travel to find the world’s most interesting cars. We journey with him to the former East Germany through tales of rescuing a smoky two-stroke Trabant, then zip to the USA to hear about tracking down a rare 1948 Tucker (Chassis # Tucker 48) that fueled his imagination. Christian and Doug add rich context as they discuss visiting the Tallahassee Auto Museum and Hershey AACA Museum with Andrew, unearthing gems like minimalist ’49 Chevy coupes and witnessing a one-of-a-kind Tucker Torpedo up close.
Andrew’s EMT background even creeps into the narrative, as he compares teamwork on the fire line to the camaraderie of a classic car club restoring a long-forgotten vehicle.
Packed with road trip nostalgia, family anecdotes (like breaking down in a station wagon en route to a car show), and plenty of car trivia, “From Trabant to Tucker” delivers insider vehicle culture and driving experience insights. It’s an adventure that will rev up your wanderlust and deepen your appreciation for the unsung heroes of car history lurking in museums and barns alike.
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Pontiac was a car brand that made popular cars, especially sporty ones, in the past. They were known for their fun and powerful vehicles.
Pontiac was a brand of automobiles produced by General Motors, known for its performance vehicles and muscle cars, particularly during the mid-20th century.
"Did they have like a Duesenberg, a Bugatti, a bunch of Tucker's, et cetera, et cetera."
Duesenberg was a very fancy car brand from the early 1900s, known for making some of the most luxurious and powerful cars of its time.
Duesenberg was an American luxury automobile manufacturer in the early 20th century, famous for its high-performance vehicles and engineering excellence.
"Did they have like a Duesenberg, a Bugatti, a bunch of Tucker's, et cetera, et cetera."
Bugatti is a brand that makes very expensive and fast cars. They are known for their unique designs and high performance.
Bugatti is a French luxury automobile manufacturer known for producing high-performance sports cars, often associated with exclusivity and advanced engineering.
"Did they have like a Duesenberg, a Bugatti, a bunch of Tucker's, et cetera, et cetera."
Tucker was a car brand that made unique cars in the late 1940s. They are famous for their innovative designs and ideas, even though they didn't last long.
Tucker was an American automobile manufacturer in the late 1940s, known for its innovative design and the Tucker 48 model, which featured advanced technology for its time.
"They have the only DeLorean prototype remaining in the world. There were two, there is only one left. It is there and it is so awesome seeing it..."
The DeLorean is a unique car known for its shiny metal body and doors that open up like wings. It's famous because it was used in a popular movie about time travel.
The DeLorean DMC-12 is a sports car that became iconic for its distinctive stainless steel body and gull-wing doors. It is famously known for its role in the 'Back to the Future' movie franchise.
"...He sold me my very first car, um, which was a 69 VW bug. I bought it, it was a hundred dollars."
The Volkswagen Beetle is a small car that many people recognize by its round shape. The 1969 version is a classic model that many car enthusiasts love.
The Volkswagen Beetle, also known as the VW Bug, is an iconic compact car that was first produced in the late 1930s. The 1969 model is part of the classic generation that is beloved for its unique design and simplicity.
"...move along to the next car, a 1984 Nissan Sentra. Nowhere near as cool as the Trabant..."
The Nissan Sentra is a small car that people often buy for its low price and good fuel economy. The 1984 version is one of the earlier models of this car.
The Nissan Sentra is a compact car that has been in production since 1982. The 1984 model is part of the first generation, known for its practicality and affordability.
"But the car had been through a couple of siblings and needed a clutch."
The clutch is a part of the car that helps you change gears. If it wears out, the car may have trouble shifting smoothly.
A clutch is a mechanical device that engages and disengages the power transmission from the engine to the wheels in a vehicle. It's essential for changing gears in manual transmissions and can wear out over time, requiring replacement.
"They didn't have this, you know, disc brakes. Cycops are, yeah."
Disc brakes are a kind of brake that helps cars stop. They work better than older types of brakes because they cool down faster and stop the car more effectively.
Disc brakes are a type of braking system that uses a disc-shaped rotor and caliper to provide stopping power. They are known for better heat dissipation and performance compared to traditional drum brakes.
Car
Land Defenders
"So from a safety standpoint, having the the defenders to be fixed and those had"
The Land Rover Defender is a tough SUV that can handle rough roads and off-road adventures. It's known for being safe and reliable, which is why many people trust it for both everyday driving and outdoor activities.
The Land Rover Defender is a rugged off-road vehicle known for its durability and capability in challenging terrains. It has a strong reputation for safety and reliability, making it a popular choice for adventure enthusiasts and those needing a dependable vehicle for tough conditions.
"...The windows were tinted. It was, you know, it was painted out...."
Tinted windows are when the glass in a car is darkened so that people can't see inside easily. This helps keep the car cooler and protects the inside from sunlight.
Tinted windows refer to glass that has been treated with a film or coating to reduce the amount of light and heat entering the vehicle. This can enhance privacy, reduce glare, and protect the interior from UV damage.
"...looking for parts because I was building a Model A hot rod. And I saw this buy it now for..."
The Model A is an old car made by Ford in the late 1920s and early 1930s. It's famous for being one of the first cars that many people could afford to buy.
The Ford Model A is a classic car produced by Ford Motor Company from 1927 to 1931. It is known for its role in automotive history as one of the first mass-produced cars, following the Model T.
"axle front end with disc brakes on it and split wishbone suspension."
The front axle is the part of a car that holds the front wheels in place and helps them turn. It's important for steering and supporting the car's weight.
The front axle is a crucial component that connects the front wheels to the vehicle and allows them to rotate. It plays a key role in steering and supporting the weight of the vehicle.
"and split wishbone suspension. And I'm like, this is crazy."
Wishbone suspension is a system that helps the wheels move up and down while keeping the car stable. It makes driving smoother and helps with handling.
Wishbone suspension is a type of suspension system that uses a pair of wishbone-shaped arms to connect the wheel hub to the vehicle's chassis. It allows for better handling and ride comfort.
"So I walk inside the barn and I'm floored because outside is like, you know, rustic looks old, you know, kind of tatty, right inside. It's amazing. There must have been at least a dozen cars inside."
A barn find is when someone finds an old car that has been stored away in a barn for a long time. These cars can be special because they might be rare or in good shape, making them interesting to car lovers.
A barn find refers to a vehicle that has been discovered in a barn or similar storage place, often after being forgotten or left unused for many years. These cars can be valuable to collectors, especially if they are rare or in good condition.
"...switched it over to an independent front suspension to be his daily driver."
Independent front suspension is a system that lets each front wheel move separately, which helps the car handle better and ride more smoothly.
Independent front suspension allows each front wheel to move independently of the other, improving ride quality and handling by reducing body roll during turns.
SEMA is a big car show in Las Vegas where companies show off special car parts and custom cars.
SEMA stands for the Specialty Equipment Market Association, which hosts an annual trade show in Las Vegas showcasing aftermarket automotive products and custom vehicles.
"So I put like the like the C3 Corvette's, you know, very, very sort of swoopy and curvy, you know, it's it's like the hottest girl in school, right?"
The C3 Corvette is a classic sports car made by Chevrolet from 1968 to 1982. It has a unique design with a long front and a sloping back, making it look very sporty.
The C3 Corvette is the third generation of the Chevrolet Corvette, produced from 1968 to 1982. It is known for its distinctive styling, featuring a long hood and a fastback rear, which gives it a sporty and aggressive look.
"...the Trebonts didn't didn't really leave East Germany until the wall came down in 89, right? And so and there's still, you know, to this day,..."
The Trabant is a small car from East Germany that was very basic and cheap. It was made for many years and is often remembered as a symbol of East Germany before the country reunited with West Germany.
The Trabant is a car produced in East Germany, known for its simple design and affordability. It became a symbol of the former East German state and was produced until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
Horsepower is a way to measure how powerful a car's engine is. The more horsepower, the faster and stronger the car can be.
Horsepower is a unit of measurement that indicates the power of an engine. It reflects how much work an engine can do over time, which directly relates to a vehicle's performance and speed.
"...the guy driving around in the, in the Bugatti, you know, Viron, Chiron, whatever is, you know,..."
The Bugatti Veyron is a super-fast car that was famous for being one of the quickest cars you could buy. It was designed to be extremely powerful and luxurious.
The Bugatti Veyron is a high-performance sports car known for its incredible speed and engineering. It was one of the fastest production cars in the world when it was released, capable of reaching speeds over 250 mph.
The Bugatti Chiron is a newer supercar that replaced the Veyron. It's known for being incredibly fast and powerful, with a lot of advanced technology.
The Bugatti Chiron is the successor to the Veyron and features even more advanced technology and performance capabilities, including a quad-turbocharged W16 engine that produces over 1,500 horsepower.
"...you can't go 300 kilometers an hour on on route 50..."
300 kilometers an hour is a very high speed, about 186 miles per hour. It's something supercars can reach, but it's not safe to drive that fast on regular roads.
300 kilometers an hour is a speed measurement that equals approximately 186 miles per hour. It's often referenced in discussions about high-performance vehicles and their top speeds.
"...you drive a DeLorean crying out loud, right? So it's a, it's a quirky car. That's not a great car either."
The DeLorean is a unique car famous for its shiny metal body and doors that open upwards. It's well-known because it was featured in a popular movie about time travel.
The DeLorean is a sports car manufactured by the DeLorean Motor Company, known for its distinctive stainless steel body and gull-wing doors. It gained iconic status due to its appearance in the 'Back to the Future' film series.
"...it was in a Chevelle with a big block and things held together. And that was a lot of fun."
The Chevelle is a classic American car made by Chevrolet, popular for its sporty versions and powerful engines.
The Chevrolet Chevelle is a mid-sized car that was produced from 1964 to 1977. It is known for its performance variants, especially those equipped with powerful V8 engines.
"...and he had upgraded the cylinder heads on his."
Cylinder heads are parts of an engine that help control the flow of air and fuel. Upgrading them can make the engine work better and faster.
Cylinder heads are components of an engine that house the combustion chambers and valves. Upgrading cylinder heads can improve an engine's performance by allowing better airflow and combustion efficiency.
"...Well, two-stroke engine, right? It is, it's a two-stroke and it's two cylinders, right?"
A two-stroke engine is a type of engine that completes its power cycle in just two movements of the piston. This makes it smaller and often more powerful for its size, which is why you might find it in things like small motorcycles or lawn equipment.
A two-stroke engine is an internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle in two strokes of the piston, which allows for a more compact design and often results in higher power output for a given size. They are commonly used in smaller vehicles and equipment, such as motorcycles and chainsaws.
"I said, well, it does zero to 50 in about a minute and it'll do 50 to 60 in about three minutes more."
0-60 time tells you how fast a car can go from a stop to 60 miles per hour. It's a way to see how quickly a car can speed up.
0-60 time is a common performance metric that measures how quickly a vehicle can accelerate from a complete stop to 60 miles per hour. It's often used to gauge a car's acceleration capabilities.
"...I went and got her a 1960 Fiat 600 and I titled it in her name before I brought it home."
The Fiat 600 is a small car made by Fiat in the 1960s. It's known for being easy to drive and park in cities.
The Fiat 600 is a small city car produced by the Italian manufacturer Fiat from 1955 to 1969. It was designed as an affordable vehicle for the masses and is known for its compact size and efficient design.
"...rash cans, right? And she's pointing to the Tesla Cybertruck. And I thought, huh,"
The Tesla Cybertruck is a new kind of pickup truck that runs on electricity instead of gasoline. It looks very different from regular trucks and has cool features like a lot of space inside and high-tech gadgets.
The Tesla Cybertruck is an all-electric pickup truck that features a unique angular design and advanced technology, including high-performance electric motors and a spacious interior. Its introduction has generated significant buzz due to its unconventional aesthetics and Tesla's reputation for innovation in the electric vehicle market.
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Welcome back, Planet Earth, to all the cars I've loved before, your automotive podcast where,
hey, talk about life lesson through cars, and we know that every car tells a story because
this is what we get, email after email, text after text, phone call after phone call, engagement
after engagement.
We have a lot to get to today, check us out CarsLove.com and remember to order the show.
If you find it interesting, we're going to run into you at the nearest cars and coffee
or the nearest car show as the weather is changing here.
We're going to get to that in a minute.
Make sure you're following, downloading, sharing, help us to kind of get the word
out of here, and very important, we're saying as the weather changes here in Florida, you
won't believe, Doug, this stunning weather transformation.
We've gone from 80 degrees with 80% humidity to about 76 with 80% humidity.
I pulled out the parka, okay, and the thermal socks, you know how it is, right?
You got that yet?
We're in the 50s and 60s now.
In fact, I think it was 49 degrees this morning.
So do you just, how many igloos do you, do you and the kids make?
Oh, you used to live up here, you're just spoiled.
Can't do it, can't do it, man.
I cannot do it.
But hey, we did want to mention here, moving away from weather.
All right, so get out and enjoy the communal events with cars that are happening down
here on the Gulf Coast too, as the weather changes.
But we're real happy, we're starting to get a lot of responses coming in from our episode
with Nicole Johnson.
Check it out.
Just a huge thank you to her.
She was a blast to talk with.
We mentioned her name in free show prep to today's guest who pivoted to a wall.
And of course, he's got some monster truck love there too.
So yeah, just wanted to, have you been in touch with her recently or have we heard back from
her?
She was so gracious with her, Tom.
She's been so busy, you know, she, talk about his content.
Check out her YouTube channel, check out, we have a great link to everything, carslove.com
slash Nicole Johnson and it'll take you to all her stuff.
Perfect.
Yeah.
Her show detour is a trip.
It is so much fun.
Check it out.
What else were we talking about here?
So we, the past few weeks, we've been talking a bit about car themes in pop culture,
in music, in movies, in books, in TV shows, a little bit of a different curveball today
and this is going to be a callback later on today.
And today's show is we pull Andrew into the discussion, but car museums, car museums, Doug
and I had this bucket list item, well, this podcast was a bucket list item.
So we did the check that one off, but when, when the kids, his kids are out of house,
my kids are out of house, we're going to go on this world epic worldwide legendary
car museum tour.
Many in Italy, Germany, obviously, but Detroit.
You got it.
West coast, east coast, everywhere.
You know, there's a really neat one in here.
This just popped into my mind and I'm going to say it, apropos with nothing.
It's the Tallahassee Auto Museum, which Doug has been to, neat, neat place.
You would not believe the cars.
It's also got boats in the collection, antique cash registers, anything mechanical.
This place has it in spades.
So we went there before I've taken my kids there.
It's a few hours down my 10 and check it out.
Can.
But one that came to mind was the, we want to give a quick shout out here too.
Was the AA, oh, let's see.
I thought I had it here.
The museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The, oh, I had it up.
Americans, trans America's transportation museum.
Yeah.
Blast.
So much fun vintage Pontiacs.
Did they have like a Duesenberg, a Bugatti, a bunch of Tucker's, et cetera, et cetera.
So yeah, we just wanted the conversation going.
Send us some notes and some emails if you've been to one.
What was your experience?
What did you like?
Which one?
Doug's been to the Peterson.
Look, your kids to the Peterson on the West Coast.
No, not the kids.
They, they wouldn't have lasted there, but the Peterson, I spent four hours there
and I needed more just getting started.
Yeah.
Just getting started with it.
Excellent.
But I, as I often do, and I seem to not be able to not get through a day, get
through an episode without saying it at the museum in Hershey, which by the way,
is near Hershey Park, which is the world.
The chocolate is there.
Hershey Park is awesome.
I took my son there at the end of this summer.
They have, you have to check to make sure it's on display.
They have the only DeLorean prototype remaining in the world.
There were two, there is only one left.
It is there and it is so awesome seeing it, especially side by side
with a, the actual DeLorean itself.
So that car that helped him, you know, get the rest of the money needed
to prove that he could build a car is just gorgeous.
Fantastic.
Yeah.
And before we introduce Andrew real quick, just wanted to pop in with a
little bit more information on the, the museum in Hershey.
Check them, check them out.
AACAMuseum.org again, AACAMuseum.org.
It's all one word.
It's at 161 Museum Drive in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Hours nine to five.
I think they're open daily, very reasonable need experience.
So check that out.
Christian, we'll, we'll link to them just to make life easier for the listeners.
So it'll be carslove.com slash AACA.
Good deal.
Good deal.
Thank you for that.
And with no further ado, we got to bring in today's guest who, who's
got so many really good stories, interesting experience.
So how did Andrew come into your life, Doug?
Yeah.
So it's a, it's one of those stories that involved cars and coffee and
involved Facebook and I just happened to see on, um, I live on what Andrew
would call the Western Shore of Maryland.
He lives on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
And I just happened to see that he, um, cars and coffee in, uh, let's see.
What is it?
Is it Queen's Town?
Queen's Town.
Thank you.
I always want to say Queen's Anne.
Uh, in Queen's Town was somebody was going to have a Trebont.
I'm like, I got to go there.
I got to meet this guy.
And, uh, you know, in the small world we live in, I happen to
mention to, to our buddy, James McCrae, and he's like, Oh yeah, Andrew,
Andrew's got the Trebont.
You should definitely interview him for your podcast.
And I went to this small, really nice, uh, you know, they're all great,
but just different meeting different people than I would meet normally around town.
And, uh, there's Andrew, only Trebont there.
And, uh, so yeah, you know, it just, uh, and we've stayed in touch.
He's referred me to, uh, he's referred me to some other cars and
coffees that I have to go to.
And, uh, you know, Andrew, I just saw today, um, the, uh, Spine Museum
is having a, maybe I saw it from you.
Uh, they're having a Trebont parade.
It was from you.
Now I remember.
Yep.
And so that's in DC in November.
And I assume your Trebont will be there.
Well, sadly, no, sadly, no, uh, we, my wife and I, um, we are, we're local
coordinators for, uh, for one of the big O'Pair agencies and that
second weekend in November is always our national meeting where hundreds
of local coordinators get together and, and do training and networking together.
And so every year I miss the parade of Trebonts, which is tied to that, um, the
second weekend of November, because it's, uh, the closest to weekend to, to
when the wall came down from the anniversary of the wall crumbling.
Um, and when, when Trebonts left East Germany, and there's a, there's a
great story in connection, um, with your wife and Trebonts and her native, uh, her
native country, country of origin.
Yeah.
She, um, so my wife, I, you know, I've, I've been a car guy almost longer
than I can remember, you know, from, from, from matchboxes driving on my knees.
And then, um, I was, uh, I was, you know, five, maybe six, but I think
I was five when my, you know, we had a family movie night and, uh, I saw
the movie American graffiti for the first time of probably a thousand, a
thousand times I've seen it, I bet.
Um, but, uh, but I've been, I've been a diehard car guy and, and unlike a
lot of fellas, uh, my parents didn't care about cars.
I didn't have an uncle or anybody to show me.
So, um, I really, I probably destroyed many cars before I was, uh, my, my
late teenage years when I, when I finally got connected to some, some
fellows who could, who could teach me the right way.
Uh, had a great farm, uh, friend who was a farmer, um, that taught me how
to, how to work on stuff and repair stuff and take care of stuff.
He sold me my very first car, um, which was a 69 VW bug.
I bought it, it was a hundred dollars.
Uh, and at the age of 10, I was, you know, helping to feed cows and, and clean.
It doesn't even sound like 10.
We're on the Eastern shore of Maryland.
We're like 40 years behind everybody else, uh, especially
in those days, right?
So, um, he didn't have a registered.
He wasn't driving it though.
We did have somebody recently who I did drive it a lot, but it wasn't registered.
Yeah.
Okay.
It was, we did have somebody on recently, uh, or we did a recording
with somebody who's from, uh, South Dakota and they can get a
license at age 14 out there and he had one at age 14.
Really?
That's fine.
I, I got my, my first license, uh, at the age of 15 in
Maine, cause at the time that was, that was the age.
And I was there for boarding school in my, my freshman year or so.
I thought it was very funny to get a lot of speeding tickets that, cause
Maine didn't have any reciprocity agreement with Maryland.
So I come to Maryland and get speeding tickets and laugh about them.
And then, uh, when I, when I returned home and got my Maryland license
at the age of 16 and immediately got an invitation from the MBA to
have a point system conference because of the six points that were
already on my license and it was not so funny then.
You know, we, we had, uh, we had a policy of not having vigilantes
from justice on, on the program, but I think we just broke it with this guy.
Holy mackerel on the lambs and the law before we go.
No, go ahead.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, no, I'm not, uh, as far as I know, I'm not currently
wanted.
It's been decades since, uh, since that, since those days.
We'll see.
I think I hear sirens in the background, but the, but the entry,
you do work with law enforcement.
You do work with first responders.
You do work with firefighters.
And I know we really jumped into you a little bit, but if you don't mind,
tell us, tell our listeners, right?
I know, uh, tell our listeners what you do.
And, um, when you're not, um, buying cars for your family, right?
So, uh, yeah, I, well, I grew up in the town of Sunderville,
which at the time was about 2,000 people, um, which now,
you know, years later, decades later, it's, you know, there's,
there's, there's twice as many houses as there were people in those days.
Um, but it was sort of a quiet little town.
There was nothing to do.
And so I joined the fire company because I, I had no, no connection to
the neighbors or anything.
Um, I went to, uh, you know, and sort of said, Hey, this is a lot of fun.
And went to, got my EMT license at the age of 16.
And, uh, started, you know, I was a, I was a volunteer fireman and
volunteer EMT and, and sort of parlayed into getting my, my paramedic
license and a full-time job.
And, um, you know, here I am 23 years later, uh, still doing it.
And, and between you and me, like when I'm in the back of the ambulance
and I'm with the, the second injured and, um, I'm just as excited
and into it as I was at the age of 16.
Um, fortunately I've, I've learned a few things along the way.
And I'm probably a lot better at it now.
I hope, uh, I, um, I, I feel like it keeps me on and, and, uh, it, it
can be a tough job.
Um, but you know, I, I think, uh, I think before the show, we were
talking a little bit and I said, you know, like, I, I would be, I
would literally be, be hating my life, rotting under fluorescent
lights for eight hours a day, five days a week.
Right.
So, um, I've worked 24 hour shifts and, and they can be long
and they can be tough and they can be easy and they can be
everything in between, but, um, you know, it, it really is, it's a lot
of fun and when you work two days a week, it gives you a lot of time
to, for your hobbies.
And so if you, um, you know, if you have expensive hobbies like golf
and fishing and, and traveling and then, you know, get to
play with cars, but if you play with cars and, and you play
with cheap cars like I do, um, and you know, you get to
have a lot of fun.
I want to thank you for what you do.
I could, you, you could do what I do.
I could never do what you do and hats all the way off for you,
my man.
That, that, that is impressive.
That is impressive.
And, and we are the guys who rot under, uh, fluorescent.
And tell by my gas power, grass is always greener on your,
on at least on the other side for me.
Yeah.
Well, okay.
You're sick because it's fertilized some kind of way,
right?
Looks good.
Call good call.
So my, my big question is, did you ever work off the hundred
dollars that this, your 10 year old self bought the VW
buck for?
I did.
And you know, I, so that the fella who, who is now
past, but his name was John Adams and he was, he was a
great friend and mentor.
Um, I was, you know, I was really small when, um, he
used to till the fields near our house and every, I've
seen him every day, you know, coming back from school as
early as, you know, kindergarten, I'd see him be
like, Oh, there's Mr. Adams.
There's Mr. Adams.
And I'd insist on getting out of the car and I'd run
out to the field and he'd let me, you know, I'd climb
in the combine or a tractor or whatever.
And I just ride around with him and, and learned,
you know, learned by watching and, uh, you know,
he taught me how to, how to drive and how to work
on stuff and how to swear and how to, you know,
I mean, he taught me a lot of lessons in life.
Yeah, absolutely.
Um, but, uh, so yes.
So when I was around the time I was nine, I started
going to his farm and spending a day, you know, he'd
come pick me up on Saturday morning and we'd start
with going to have breakfast and then we'd just
sort of do farm chores and I'd spend all day
with him and he'd bring me home, you know, around
dinner time and, um, it was a lot of fun.
And so he would give me $5 a day for, for
working with him, right?
And helping him as he called it, although it
was, you know, and I did work off the $100, but
it's funny because part way through the $100, um, I
had my first time driving a tractor telling the,
the, the silage cart.
So this is a feed cart for cattle.
It's about 40 feet long with a single axle
right in the center.
Well, and so we went down the farm lane, which
is probably a half a mile and across the street
and then down maybe another quarter mile is
where the silage pit was where the feed was.
So, uh, the, the farm, John's nephew, Bill, and
I each had a tractor and a silage cart and we
went out and Bill, you know, had, had the loader
on his tractor.
So he loaded my cart and then he loaded his
cart and I helped him get hooked back up and
we took off and I thought, Oh, I'm going to
get him, right?
And so I made it a race.
And so I, I had that, I had that, it was
an old John Deere 30 20 model and I had it,
uh, I had it in high gear and I was hauling
my, you know, I was, I thought I was a
NASCAR driver, right?
And I took the turn, I'll never forget, right?
I'm coming down the road and I took the turn
down the farm lane and I kept going and I'm
like, I'm laughing because I had not only
gotten back before Bill, I'd gotten unhooked
and put the tractor away and here comes Bill
and he's looking at me and he's just shaking
his head and I'm thinking, Oh, he's mad
because I beat him, right?
And I'm really quite proud of myself.
And, you know, I'm 10 years old and, uh,
so he gets unhooked and he says, Come on,
we got to go up to the house and we go
up to the house and we find John who
would, you know, kicked off his boots
already for the day.
And he told John, he said, You're going
to have to come help fix this fence.
And I'm kind of thinking, What fence?
Uh, oh, not realizing that I tore down
about that fence.
I tore down about 150 feet of fence
because the tire on the trailer
grabbed it and I had momentum
and, and, you know, full of piss and
vinegar. And I just never looked back.
Yeah. They obviously don't cover not
taking out split rail fences.
When a 10 year old takes the driving
test. So, um, so, so I got to ask
here, was the movie Footloose based
on your early life or did I step
on several punch lines here?
But okay, beautiful.
So the fence got built.
Definitely not. All right.
But we had to rebuild the fence, but
you know, one of the, one of what I
think was one of my earliest life
lessons was as John took me home
that day, John reached into his
wallet and he handed me five
dollars for my day's pay.
And I said, I don't deserve that.
And he said, you know, he said,
you know what, everybody makes
mistakes. The important thing is to
learn from them. But the deal is
you earn five dollars a day and you
put in a day's work and here's your
pay.
Wow. And it was, it was a, you know,
it's a moment in my life.
I'll never forget. And it was a, I
think it's been a valuable lesson,
but, you know, it sort of ties
into, you know, always do the
right thing because it's the
right thing, right? And own your
mistakes and people make mistakes
and look past. I mean, there was
just, there was a lot at the time
I didn't realize how important
that lesson would be for me.
Yeah. But and yeah.
Well, he made it that he was
obviously a very big
influence on your life, a big
imprint on your life.
That's so you, you just
stuff from, from a young age, you
just were bitten with, with,
with mechanical things, things
that got things done, things that
move gears.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
And, and, and how and why they
work. You know, I, I took a
part in an awful lot of stuff
before I learned how to put
anything together.
Gotcha. But the sequence is
important. Gotcha.
And so the next, let's, let's
move along to the next car, a
1984 Nissan Sentra.
Nowhere near as cool as the
Trabant.
Nowhere near as cool as the
Trabant.
Yeah. Well, right.
So the, the, the 84 Nissan
Sentra Gilligan I bought
from, from some friends
of, friends of our family, the
Laura's family, or actually
Lester was, Laura's was, was
the daughter's married name
that had driven the car
last. But the car had been
through a couple of siblings
and needed a clutch.
And so a fella named Ted
Lester sold me that car for a
dollar.
And it was about, it was about
350 bucks to get a clutch in
it and do whatever else it
needed to be on the road.
And, and I was great.
I was, I was, you know,
15, almost 16 years old
and Gilligan was fantastic.
And I took my father and a
friend of his and Neil
Muffson out for a ride
sort of outskirts of town.
There was some sightseeing.
There was a, there was a
we always referred to it as the
Russian Embassy, but it was
really just an offsite
compound that belonged
to the Soviet Union outside
of Centerville's place called
Pioneer Point,
which was a, and you should
Google it. It's really
a neat history place.
Historically, the
man who built the house had a
bunch of kids and he was a GM
executive. So the house, I
think the original house had
like 12 or 13 bedrooms.
Geez.
And it's just, you know,
probably, I don't know, I'm
not sure how big the property
is, probably 50 or 100 acres.
And it's sort of at the,
where the, where the Corsica
River and hits the Chester
River, a big waterfront
and beach and stuff.
But we used to like to go
back there. And, you know,
of course there were, there
were, there were guards and
it was considered to be Soviet
soil, right? So we weren't
allowed too far back there.
And, and as we were leaving,
you know, it was a big, big
munt puddle in the road and,
you know, doing like 30 miles
an hour and just going to
blast through it.
And the road was washed out.
And so the front end of the
car went underwater and water
came up and, you know,
slid off the windshield and
somehow we had enough
momentum to bounce through
it. And the car was known
as Gilligan from that point
on. And Gilligan lived a
very difficult life with the
teenage me, not taking
very good care of it.
But, but it was fun.
And I was, you know, of all
the old kids I went to school
with and grew up with.
I was, you know, except for
the farm kids, I was the only
one who could drive a stick,
you know, another, another
life skill learned from,
from John Adams and farming.
Yeah. And so.
Yeah, the whole so
driving it into the first
thing that came to my mind
was the scene and risky
business when, when Joel
Goodman
puts his father's car into Lake
Michigan. So I dig how
we're just kind of going to the
movie theme that we brought
brought up kind of at the top
of the show. So from American
graffiti to footloose to
risky business, I wouldn't
bring in another film here.
And let's take the next two
cars as a couplet.
If we can, a duo,
the Chevy coup that you
also own in 1949,
as well as your dream car,
the Tucker 48.
So can we talk a little bit
about where those Tucker was
it's own film?
Let's talk if we can about
those those two cars together
because
when we're when we met
before the show, Andrew
was walking us around his
property and showing us,
hey, you know, the cars in
his barn and the Chevy's
here to bonds here.
So what what struck you
about the Chevy coupe?
Why did you have to have them?
Well, so the the Chevy coup,
the the 49 to 51 Chevy's
have always had a soft spot.
I really like I like the lines,
right? And so absolutely
that we we haven't gotten
into yet. And you guys don't
know about me is that I'm a
colorblind car guy.
And so I very much am
about the shapes because
that's what I pay attention
to. Right.
So paint paint jobs don't
impress me.
But but I can, you know,
I really like cars and I really
pay attention to their shapes
and and to that that era,
Chevy is just very appealing
to me.
I had actually I hadn't really
thought about the similarities
with that and the and the
Tucker.
But I, you know, I was probably
I don't remember exactly when
the Tucker movie came out,
but it was it was fairly fresh
and I watched it.
And the and the film
had it drug me
in much in the same way
that American graffiti did in
that it just I was fascinated.
And I was fascinated with the
story and the characters.
Really.
And for those not familiar,
that the the Tucker
story is is, you know,
it's like it's like Dante's
Demand comedy, right?
I mean, it's it's it's so sad
and it's so wonderful and so
inspiring.
And it just it's such a
triumph of the underdog and
much a lot of people would say
like, oh, he didn't try him,
right. But he really did
in a way.
And we're still talking about him.
And it's still, you know,
he brought a lot of important
things to light and innovation
despite the fact that, you know,
no one wanted to talk about how
intrinsically unsafe automobiles
were, right, because people
weren't using seatbelts.
They didn't have padded dashes.
They didn't have safety glass.
They didn't have this, you know,
disc brakes.
Cycops are, yeah.
Right. Right.
So the, you know, Tucker
originally had the fenders
and with the outside lights
were the ones that turned and
the Cycops was supposed to be
fixed.
But in wind tunnel testing, they
realized that the fenders were
rudders and they made the car
very unstable and unsafe.
So from a safety standpoint,
having the the defenders
to be fixed and those had
lighting to be fixed and then
having that Cycops eye and it
only comes on when the steering
wheels turn. So when you're
just driving straight, actually,
the third eye is not on.
So it.
Oh, that I didn't know.
They didn't know.
And the.
So I was, yeah, I became fascinated
with it with the Tucker story.
And, you know, I'm when
when most of my friends didn't know
what a Tucker was, I wanted one.
You know, and and
in in the late 90s
or very early 2000s,
actually, I was in Atlantic City
at an auto auction
and car show.
And Buddy Mine and I had gone up
there for the day.
And that's when I saw,
or at least I thought I saw my
very first in-person
Tucker.
And I fell to my knees
almost sobbing because
this car from a from
a historical significant
standpoint, the car had been
heavily modified.
And I was heartbroken.
And I'm like, who
messes with a Tucker, right?
I mean, like, you don't you don't
touch up a Picasso, right?
You know what I mean?
Well said.
Right.
Right. And so I just and
there's some things that are
just fragile and precious
in life. And you know, I'm
all about modifying cars, but
like, you don't mess with a Tucker.
And I couldn't find anybody
around this car on display,
but it was airbagged.
The windows were tinted.
It was, you know, it was
painted out. The interior was
done. It had a Cadillac North
Star V8 in the back of it.
And I'm like, who
does this, right? And I'm
really pretty upset about it.
And it had these
amazing wheels on it, though.
And, you know, in the late
90s, early 2000s, no one
was running like a 20 inch
wheel, but they were like 20
inch wheels. And there other
than the Tucker family crest,
which was about an inch and a
half tall, there was
nothing on visible
on the face of the wheel.
It was just a solid wall of
polished, you know, aluminum
or chrome or whatever it was.
And there was no place for
hubcap. There was no seam
anywhere to hide the lug nuts.
There were no lug nuts.
And I was fascinated.
And I'm like that.
That was eaten at me.
And for years it ate at me
because I couldn't find pictures
of those wheels online.
I searched wheel manufacturers.
I couldn't find them.
I couldn't find them.
And, you know, fast forward to
probably around 2006
and I'm on eBay one night
looking for parts because I
was building a Model A hot rod.
And I saw this buy
it now for
$125, a complete drop
axle front end with disc brakes
on it and split
wishbone suspension.
And I'm like, this is crazy.
This is worth like a thousand
bucks. Who would who in their
right mind would sell us for
$125, right?
So I I whacked it by it now
and I sent a message to the
seller and I said, listen,
this looks like just what I'm
looking for.
The price seems to be a little
bit cheap. So if it's a mistake,
just cancel the auction.
There's no hard feelings, right?
Because if I had made a mistake
as the seller, I would want
someone to be fair with me.
Right. And and the next
morning I get an email back
from the guy and he said,
no, price is right.
I just didn't want it to sit
around. I don't need it.
Glad you can use it price to
move.
And I'm like, man, this is so
cool, right?
Wow.
So I drive up to
you know, I drive up to, you
know, the Jersey Parkway
and and go pick this thing up
the following weekend and
I go to this house and there's
this, you know, sort of
bland looking very large barn
behind the house.
And that's where I meet him
and behind the barn is my
front end and loaded up in the
truck. And I said, man, this
is a beautiful property.
I said, if I had a barn like
this, I'd have a million cars.
He said, oh, you want to see
inside, right?
So I walk inside the barn
and I'm floored because outside
is like, you know, rustic looks
old, you know, kind of
tatty, right inside.
It's amazing.
There must have been at least
a dozen cars inside.
There's several lifts.
There's billet aluminum
everywhere. There's a CNC machine.
There's lathe. There's mills.
There's all this stuff.
And I'm like,
pinch me, right?
I think I died.
I'm in heaven, right?
Here it is.
And I said, man, I don't
I don't mean to fry, right?
But like, what is it that you
do that you get to play like
this?
Right. And he said,
I was stopped down the street,
right? I built hot rods.
And I'm like, man, this is crazy.
And so he shows me shows me a
lot of the projects that he's
got going on.
And the 38
Ford that he had bought that
he took my front axle out of
because he switched it over to
an independent front suspension
to be his daily driver.
And so and
he's told me, he said, yeah,
we actually I had a had a car at
SEMA not so long ago.
It's a it's a willies.
I called the the switch back,
but it was all all sheet metal
hand fabricated.
So it's a tribute car, but it's
all metal, no fiberglass or
anything. And I'm like, oh, man,
I'd love to see that.
He says, oh, sure, come on down.
So attached to the house, there's
a three car garage.
And he opens up one of the garage
doorbays and I see the most
beautiful car I could I could
remember, right? And this thing
was immaculate.
And I'm fat.
I'm like, dude, this is so cool.
And it had those wheels on it.
And I I dropped to the ground.
I'm like, all right, you explain
these wheels to me.
How do these work?
Where do you get them?
And I saw these wheels once on a
Tucker in Atlantic City.
And he said, oh, I built that
car, too. It's over here.
You want to see it?
And I like I about wet my pants.
I'm like, wait, that's yours
with the North Star and everything.
And he was so surprised that I
knew it. So I tell the guy's
name is Rob Ida
and he and his father
actually his grandfather was
going to be a Tucker dealer
and never got a car for his
dealership.
Never got a car.
It was part of the problem.
Which is part of the problem,
right? And so he and his
father, Bob, built
a fiberglass Tucker.
And they had they had a lot to
do with the car with the movie
and the Tucker family.
And they have Rob
and the Ida
automotive team in New Jersey
has restored more Tucker's than
anybody else. They are like the
world's authority on on
everything that there is Tucker.
And they work with it with the
grandchildren of Preston Tucker.
So and at the end of the
day, the answer to the wheels
was that Rob Ida made
them and the lug nuts
go in the bolts go in from
the inside, like the back
side of the car.
And they're just super cool.
But he is such a neat guy.
And I continue to follow him
and stalk him on social media
and everything. And we've been
in contact a few times and I
say, like, oh, hey, you probably
don't remember me. He's like,
sure, I do, Andrew. What's up,
man? And I'm like, dude, this
is I love it.
That's and that's interesting.
You mentioned that
you're drawn to the shapes of
those two automobiles.
Try the 48 Tucker
in the your car, the
49 Chevy.
They to me, I
don't know how to say it,
but there's kind of this this
classic minimalist vibe
before the big fins
of the fifties in the
whites in a lot of the
chrome accents really took over.
Maybe that's not fair.
What do you think?
Is that at all accurate?
Well, you know, I know, I think it is accurate.
And I think that I, you know,
I I appreciate very, you know,
I appreciate all kinds of different cars
and for different reasons, right?
But but cars of that era
and not necessarily that era.
So I put like the like
the C3 Corvette's, you know,
very, very sort of swoopy
and curvy, you know, it's it's like
it's like the hottest girl in school, right?
Not necessarily the prom queen, right?
But the girl with the with the curves
and just there's just something about her, man.
And every time you look at her,
you get that warm feeling inside
and you just smile and your body is like,
Poof, right?
And that's it, man.
And that's I've got a glass of ice water
after all this. My goodness.
All right, moving on.
Yeah, let's talk about
and we've alluded to this
in the discussion, the Trebot.
And how did we talk to
we talked a little bit about how that came in your life.
But Doug, you wanted to hear a little
something a little further on the Trebot.
Yeah, well, I think I think there's the
the personal connection with Andrew
and his wife and when he
when he first saw the Trebot
or learned about Trebonts.
And I think it was on a trip to Iceland.
Yes. So my wife is from Iceland
and she introduced me to a whole world of cars
that that I didn't, you know, because, of course,
before the Internet and all these YouTube guys
and channels and whatnot,
there's a lot of cars that that never came to the US
and couldn't, you know,
the the Trebonts didn't didn't really leave East Germany
until the wall came down in 89, right?
And so and there's still, you know, to this day,
there's probably somewhere around 200 of them in the US.
So having a Trebot and daily driving a Trebot
is a lot like being maybe like the fifth coolest guy
at Fat Camp, right?
It's not something that it's really not a trophy
that anybody wants, but it's fun.
And, you know, I've, you know,
through through the cars that I've owned
and the cars that I've, you know,
find after and bankrupted myself with
and whatnot over the years, right?
Like the the struggle for horsepower is a contest.
I just, frankly, my pockets aren't deep enough
and my arms aren't long enough to win it.
And even if you do, right?
The guy driving around in the, in the Bugatti,
you know, Viron, Chiron, whatever is, you know,
right, you can't, you can't go 300 kilometers an hour
on on route 50 on the way to Ocean City, right?
Not for very long at least.
And so, you know, part of part of being a paramedic
is having some, some sense of responsibility
for others around me and safety and all that kind of stuff.
So fun cars have been come more important to me than power.
Yeah. And, and, and, you know,
powerful cars are fun, right?
But, but, and Doug, you know what I'm talking about, man,
you drive a DeLorean crying out loud, right?
So it's a, it's a quirky car.
That's not a great car either,
but it's a great conversation starter
and it's a lot of fun.
And it's history.
And it's American history.
An American history.
You know what, automotive history meet your history.
You got it.
Yeah, exactly.
And, and so the, you know, with the Trabant.
So in one of my trips to Iceland,
because you know, my wife is from there
and we go frequently, fortunately, I love it there.
So a friend of hers that she, you know, grew up with
was daily driving a Trabant.
And, and so I said, well, she said,
oh, you got to see, you got to see Bowie's car.
You got to see Bowie's car.
So Bowie, who has become a friend of mine
over the years too, not only did he show me his Trabant,
but in 2014 in the snow, I got to drive his Trabant.
And it's the second time in my life,
somebody said, him and just punch the gas
and sidestep the clutch, let her rip.
Right.
The other time it happened to me, it was a,
it was, it was in a, it was in a Chevelle
with a big block and things held together.
And that was a lot of fun.
But the Trabant was somehow more fun with,
and he had, he had upgraded the cylinder heads on his.
So I think he was putting out almost 26 horsepower
compared to the, compared to the 18 that mine develops.
So, yeah, but it was, it was a lot of fun, man.
And it was, it was as much fun as being a little kid
the first time you drive a go-kart,
except maybe the go-kart was a little bit more refined.
So the Trabant was terrible.
And I was, I was so, I was taken aback
the shifting pattern of the Trabant is very strange.
It's, it's not like a three on a tree.
The shifter comes out of the dash
and it has a sort of, you know,
imagine shifting a three on the tree with your left foot.
Right.
And that, that's what it's like to drive a Trabant
for the first time.
It just feels so unnatural
and you're, and you're sort of looking for the gears
and trying to figure out the pattern
and pushing, pulling, when to go up, when to go down.
Right. And this, and this angry little weed eater engine
that's screaming, you know,
and you feel like you're, you know,
driving a Trabant at any speed.
Well, two-stroke engine, right?
It is, it's a two-stroke and it's two cylinders, right?
Yeah, it is.
And I laugh when I pop my hood and people are like,
wait, it has two coils.
I say, yeah, this is the performance model,
but in truth, they're all that way, right?
Because they're both just kind of on.
And then, but no, it is, it's a super simple thing.
And by anybody's standards, it's a terrible, terrible car.
Right.
But if you think about behind the iron curtain, right?
Yes.
And in communist East Germany,
and having a lack of resources,
a lack of skilled labor force,
you know, a lack of funding,
a desperate need for automobiles, you know,
from 19, they, so mine are the, mine is the 601 model.
And from 1963 to 1989, they built about 3 million cars
and they're rumored to be as many as half a million
of them still on the road.
And so by my metrics, it's not a terrible car, right?
It's a terrible car by 2024 standards.
That's right.
But if you look at the simplicity of it,
you know, there's five moving parts in the engine, right?
And so it is so reliable and easy to work on
and just, you know, you're not going to get anywhere in a hurry.
I say, I joke.
I said, well, it does zero to 50 in about a minute
and it'll do 50 to 60 in about three minutes more.
Right?
So it works and it's so much fun, you know?
Absolutely does.
So I think yours was, was it yours,
the third generation of the model and one that was so
so possible as vehicles there had like a 30 year production
run, did something close to that, didn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yeah.
63 was the first year of the 601s and then and and it was
the it was the mass produced one.
So the majority of them are limousines or the two door
sedan version that seats four adults and then mine is the
combi or the wagon version.
Interestingly, you know, the the rear door on the wagons is
all sheet metal and but other than the panel just below
the grill, it's the only sheet metal that you can see on
the exterior of the car.
The cars are made with a it's like a fiberglass.
It's similar to fiberglass, but they it's a resin
impregnated fibers and it was they used recycled
clothing and blankets and things to to source the
fibers.
Yep.
From cotton, whatever they had.
There's actually there's great YouTube videos about
travel production and you can see guys, you know, cutting
all the trimming the edges of the panels and and there's a
couple of them, like literally there's on the assembly line,
you know, they're trying to fit the doors and so the guy
will open the door and stick a block of wood in it and
slam the door about five times.
Then he pulls the wood out and he closed the door.
He's like, that's good, you know, close enough, close
it up.
But it was funny one time, one of the days I was driving
the Trabant around town and this woman starts waving
at me furiously and I thought, oh, she just thinks my
car's on fire, right?
Because the smoke coming out of the tailpipe.
Yep, I saw that.
But she's she's waving me in.
And so I pull over and she was so excited.
She said, oh, my God, it's a Trabant.
It's a Trabant.
And I said she knew.
OK, she knew, right?
So so what we got something in common.
And I said, how how do you know Trabant?
And she said, well, years ago, my husband and I went to
Budapest for business and there was a problem with our
rental car reservation and we couldn't get a car.
And someone sold us a Trabant in the parking lot and we
drove around Budapest for two weeks.
And when we went back to the airport, we just left
the keys in it and we gave it away.
I just left it there.
And she said, she said, does yours have hand warmers?
And I said, what?
And she said, and she runs around to the back of the car
and she looks at my back window and she says sort of in
dismay, oh, you don't have the hand warmers.
And I said, what?
And she said, you know, the lines that go across the
glass that keep your hands warm when you're pushing it
in the wintertime performance model.
Yes. Yeah, right.
It wasn't the utility model.
It was the yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't the wagon.
The wagon version.
Is it true that some animals have actually chewed up parts
of Trabant's?
You know, I'm sure that if they did, they met an
untimely demise.
Oh, sure.
Yeah, the moths were after the wool.
Yeah, it's probably not good in the tummy.
But I thought I read some of the pigs have eaten,
chewed on them, gawd on them.
Well, I think they were looking for any way
to get rid of them because, you know, they burned a few,
I think, and realized that the smoke is super toxic.
Yes.
And I've heard rumors that they ground a bunch of them up
and use them as winter traction and as an affordable
alternative to sand.
Yeah, yeah.
The cars, you know, they die and they don't go away.
So elemental reclamation is not a thing with Durplast.
Well, yeah.
How many Trabant's are in the US?
Do you know?
I bet you have a good idea.
Well, so it's around 200.
It would be difficult to come.
You know, there's a few that have snuck in under the radar
of customs.
And but there's a lot of them that are out and about.
And there's a fella in Baltimore
I've come to know he has 11 or 12.
He and his son have what I know as the largest collection.
The first Trabant I bought was actually
with no motor or no engine.
And I was going to put an electric motor in it.
But I bought it from a fella in Indiana.
And he had nine Trabant's.
And he was torn because he said, well, I have one I'll sell you.
But it's my only wagon.
It's my only combi.
And so I'm very hesitant.
But we made a deal and got that done.
And both of those fellas are big into the parade of Trabant's
at the Spy Museum.
So mid-November or second weekend of November in DC,
there'll be often like 40 or 50 Trabant's
and they attract some Lada's and some Zadastavas
and some other Soviet cars.
And they set up a cardboard version of the Berlin Wall
and they crashed through it on the street.
Oh, that's neat.
I've got to see that now.
I mean, it's, yeah, you kind of have to.
You kind of have to.
And that's a, wow.
So between, and that's a great theme for today
is cars and movies or cars as they intersect with movies,
car museum.
So that's a wonderful way to sort of move to the,
move this episode gracefully into the off-ramp.
But before we go here, Andrew is Doug's,
one of Doug's favorite things is how this show,
this podcast has become, well, unexpectedly
or maybe expectedly, depending about family.
And so he wanted you to recall some of your stories
with your wife's new role about procuring new cars
as well as anything you do for your kids
that involves a scooter,
which made me think of it when you mentioned earlier,
your kind of scooters and fiberglass.
Yeah, right.
So I, right, my wife sort of put her foot down.
I have a, I don't view it as a problem.
I view it as a solution, right?
Some people think I have a problem with acquiring cars.
And a lot of times they just find me, right?
I mean, like if one of you guys stumbled across a,
a traveling that needed to be rescued or saved, right?
You'd probably reach out and you'd say, hey,
you know who to go to.
Yeah, right.
You know a guy now.
And so, right, cars find me
and I really don't go looking for them.
But, you know, amongst my collection
are my wife's least favorite vehicle
is a 1976 U-Haul truck that has a different story.
Maybe an episode ended up itself at some point.
But yeah, so she told me, she said,
listen, you can't have any more cars.
And so I said, okay, hey, you know.
And then somebody called me on a car
that I tried to, you know, she had expressed interest in
and I tried to get for her and couldn't strike a deal.
And about a year later, they called me
and so I made a deal and I went and got her a 1960 Fiat 600
and I titled it in her name before I brought it home.
And she said, no more car, you can't have any more cars.
And I said, honey, this one's not mine, it's yours.
And so, so she, yeah, well, it was funny.
My son really wanted me to, my son, my youngest is six
and he really wanted me to buy a 67 Cadillac
not so long ago.
And I said, buddy, mama's not gonna be happy
if we buy this car, it is cool.
It's cool, but mama's not gonna be happy
if we buy this car.
And he said, daddy, just give it to her.
And I said, buddy, I love where your head is, right?
But yeah, we're not gonna do that.
We're not gonna get away with this one.
So we're not gonna try it.
But now he had a little consolation prize too
because you've done a clever thing
with the scooters and little fiberglass bodies on them
for the younger folk.
Yeah, so a year ago in May, May of 2023,
we were at a car show and some guys that I've come
to know through car shows, the Big Ocean City car shows
are looking at the enthusiasm and my son,
five at the time, is really into cars.
And they said, man, I love his enthusiasm.
He's such a good kid.
I wanna give him something
that I'm gonna give him a pedal car body that,
but you guys gotta build something really cool with it.
I bought it, I was gonna do something.
I never did it.
It's been sitting in my garage for years.
I wanna give it to Julian.
My son's name is Julian, right?
So I said, oh, I meant, hey, thank you so much.
And I wasn't sure if this was a real thing
or if it would follow through, but it did.
And so we get this 1962 Chevy
and Palo convertible fiberglass pedal car body.
And it's literally just a raw body.
And I'm like, huh.
So what are we gonna do with this?
And my son is a pretty good-sized height-wise
for a five-year-old already.
And I'm like, man, he can ride a two-wheeler.
Like he doesn't really want a pedal car.
This is gonna be very short-lived.
We ought to do something that even I could ride, right?
Something that'll last for a few years.
And so I went on Facebook Marketplace
and I bought a mobility scooter
that was no longer needed.
And we tore all the mobility scooter stuff off of it.
And we laid everything out.
And believe it or not, the wheelbase was perfect.
I had to narrow the scooter a little bit to get it to fit.
But so we did.
And my son, we cleaned up and we sanded it
and we did some body work and he primed it
and he painted it and we taped off the bumpers
and we did like rattle can chrome for bumpers
and trim around the windshield and the grill and stuff.
And we've got it loaded up with LED headlights
and tail lights and underglows.
And he's won several trophies competing at car shows,
not against pedal cars and other little kids.
But so he's very proud of his six trophies
and he has a really good time with it.
And he said to me, he said, daddy,
it was about two months ago, he said, daddy,
you need a scooter too so we can cruise together.
And I'm like, man, how do I?
Daddy has a problem with that.
How do I say no?
And I'm like, well, it's not really a car.
So daddy's not gonna get in trouble.
Loot pole.
Right?
And so I go, this time I'm gonna start with the scooter
instead of starting with a body, right?
I'll start with a scooter and see where it goes.
And my 15 year old bonus daughter,
so she's the daughter that came with my wife.
We have four kids total, right?
So my oldest is almost 22
and she's mine from my first marriage.
And then I have a bonus son who's 20,
a bonus daughter who's 15
and we have the six year old that's ours together.
But my bonus daughter, we're driving down the highway
with her and she said, oh God,
there's one of those trash cans, right?
And she's pointing to the Tesla Cybertruck.
And I thought, huh,
what if I just get a stainless steel trash can
to put on my scooter chassis?
Because people refer to these things as trash cans
and that would be funny.
And I couldn't find one.
And I thought, well,
maybe I'll just get a piece of stainless steel sheet metal
and build my own.
And then I thought, wait a minute,
I'll just build my own Cybertruck.
And so my son has been learning
how to use the metal brake
and we started with aluminum
because it's a little easier to work with
and now we're bending up the stainless steel
to make our Cybertruck mobility scooter.
It's just fun.
Yeah, man.
So you and he will be able to cruise around your property.
And I just, I think that's the coolest thing.
Doing laps around the Trebonne,
I think is gonna be fantastic.
So in closing here, I gotta ask,
could we get some pictures
of your scooters at some point
and kind of share them with the listening audience?
Because I just love what you do, man.
I mean, it's family all the way.
You're incorporating them at every step of your passion.
And I just think it's great.
It was really great to meet you.
And yeah, thanks for spending some time with us.
Yeah, well, thank you guys so much.
I'll be happy to get pictures and links
and our plan with the scooters is,
so we'll be at the big cruise in Ocean City show
in Ocean City, Maryland in May
and we are gonna ride in the boardwalk cruise.
So from 27th Street down to the inlet on the boardwalk,
there's a sort of a parade of cars.
And he and I are planning on riding that together.
That's really neat.
So you've already got a deadline.
You got a deadline to keep you honest
and it's something to shoot for.
Well, thank you again.
Hey, it was great meeting you, Andrew.
Thanks for spending some time with us this afternoon, man.
Yeah, man.
Thank you guys so much.
All right, we'll see you soon at Cars and Coffee.
Yeah, I look forward to it.
See you soon.
Maybe I'll build a DeLorean scooter.
Yeah.
Please do.
Challenge.
Yeah.
I'll park next to Doug.
Very good.
All right, guys.
Thank you so much.
Thank you for spending time with us.
That's it.
We're, boy, where do we start here?
The Trebot, the Chevy, all these scooters.
The Tuckers.
That he's loved before.
Talking Tuckers.
Dig it.
Oh, the AECA museum that we mentioned before
at the top of the hour has a nice collection
of, I'm going to say, half dozen,
as well as suspension assemblies, possibly a chassis,
I think a cutaway motor of the Tucker there, too.
Several motors, including one of the,
sorry, I'm doing it again,
one of the original air-cooled ones
before they made them water-cooled.
They came from helicopters.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, you can also check out carslove.com
slash ACCA, carslove.com slash ACCA.
We'll take you by way of our sight to theirs.
That's it, another episode of the book.
Have a great week, everybody.
We'll see you soon.
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