HOT SPORTS CARS TO HOT HEARSE

Or: "How My Life Was Shaped By Cars"

By Dave Wiest

It all started my 1^st Class year at USAFA when we were allowed to have cars. I was engaged and feeling very practical, so I went to the Ford dealer in Colorado Springs and ordered a Ford Falcon, black, 6-cylinder. It didn't scream "adventure." Then, my fiancée dumped me! Something snapped. Adventure was on the way.

Kurland Motors, a sports car dealer in Denver, is where I found a Berkeley--a small British sports car imported from 1957 through 1960--70" wheelbase, aluminum (aluminium to the Brits) and fiberglass body and powered by a four speed, three-cylinder Excelsior motorcycle engine of 500cc and 30 hp. This two-seater car weighed 600 pounds empty, had a top speed of 80 to 90 mph and got 50 mpg, cost $1600 new--1000 Berkeleys were imported to the US.

The gas tank is the black box behind and above the engine, so the gravity feed precluded a fuel pump. At the first start of each day you had to "tickle" each carburetor to allow fuel into the cylinders, then she'd run the rest of the day. While working on the engine, the mechanic was smoking and started a fire, burning up my first "adventure." Not to worry, they had a Morgan 4/4 (four wheels, four gears--the first Morgans were three-wheelers, one in back and two in the front powered by a motorcycle engine).

This was a 1955 Morgan with a four banger English Ford flat head engine (1172cc) that put out 36 hp. With a body weight of 1000 lbs it got good mileage. My brother drove home (Lynchburg, VA) with me after graduation. We were in Kansas when a tire blew. We found a dealer, and the only tires that fit were competition motorcycle tires. So, I ended up with a spare tire that had tread halfway up the sidewall--I told folks who noticed that under hard cornering the front wheels laid over and needed the tread.

The Morgan had a very flexible body and rigid, rock hard suspension. When parking, if one wheel was on a bump or in a hole, the body would flex enough that you couldn't open the door. The body was supported by wood (robust ash) in the tradition of British coach building. All this worked quite well, because you sat close to the ground, and speed (75mph tops) was greatly enhanced. The engine was small and sat well forward in the engine bay, the transmission forward of the fire wall. This meant that the shift lever, while vertical, had a horizontal connecting rod that fastened to the top of the shift lever and then passed through the firewall. The shift pattern was reversed because of the pivot at the firewall, and this flexing made it feel like you were pulling the chain of a flush toilet. It had a great sounding exhaust!

While attending BPT at Bartow, I was in town at a movie, the movie ended and I headed for the parking lot. My Mog was parked all alone in the middle of the lot, and as I approached I saw it was surrounded by fire trucks with hoses deployed and several police and firemen poking the Morgan. I asked what was happening, and was told to get back, there might be a bomb in the car. I said it was my car. He picked up a bull horn and announced that the exercise was over and everyone should leave. I checked out the Morgan and found no damage, and never did talk to anyone about that "exercise."

The Morgan almost got me through pilot training. I was in Basic at Reese AFB in Lubbock when I met my future wife Laura. (Sam Waters was dating Laura's roommate and we often drove into Doak Hall at Texas Tech in formation, my Morgan and his Austin Healy). It wasn't that Laura didn't like sports cars, but the Morgan was far from an all-weather vehicle. Although there were windshield wipers, they should have been inside the windshield. The rag top fastened to the top of the windshield (windscreen, for you Brits) with snaps and twist fasteners. The seal was not good and during rain and blinding fast forward motion at high speed, the water came over the top of the windshield and under the rag top and down the inside. The other unique feature was jacking up the car--the jack was inserted through the floorboards from inside the cockpit at the outside edge by the doors. This section was held to the rest of the floorboard by the floor mats. Also, the heater was marginal, and the seats were inflated, actually containing inner tubes from a fat tired bicycle. You could adjust the firmness by how much they were inflated. If you were driving alone with the top down, the passenger seat would "float" a couple of inches off the seat bed at higher speed because of air drafts.

Laura and I were getting married September of 1961 and I needed a more suitable conveyance, and the sports car dealership in Lubbock had the perfect replacement (and, what a name!)

Fiat Abarth Zagato Record Monza Coupe-Fiat Abarth, engine (750 cc) and suspension, Zagato, body designer, Record Monza Coupe, body style; rear engine/drive, water cooled (see radiator on the right)--and, it got good mileage of 40-50 mpg.

The body was an aluminum monocoque wonder. You sat even closer to the ground than the Morgan, with speed enhancement that was special because you could really go fast. There was a back seat for two if they were willing to be quite friendly. After getting married I had to hang around Reese until Helicopter school started, and the Fiat became a problem. It weighed only 600 lbs, and when we'd go to the movie on base some Airmen would pick up the car, and illegally park it. I got well acquainted with the APs explaining my way out of several tickets.

I got to put a fair amount of miles on the Fiat running to Fort Worth and back (my wife's home), but finally some engine problems (broken valve rocker) caused another change in my transportation venue. Size is important (as we guys like to say)..

Is it a giant Renault? No--it's my 1962 Rover 100. The color is Heather with leather seats and walnut wood work and a 6-cylinder in line motor (160 cubic inches, and 93 hp) with floor shift and overdrive. She was as heavy as she looks at 3300 lbs (the picture was taken at Stead AFB where I was going to Helicopter School, 1962).

From Stead AFB my first duty assignment was a Rescue unit at Dover AFB, Delaware. I was there a few months until getting an overseas assignment (1963) to Incirlik AB, Turkey. I took the Rover 100 and it did great over there. An interesting cultural thing to get used to while driving in Turkey was that the right of way on highways was determined by whoever first honked the horn or flashed the headlights, or both.

My assignment from Turkey was Vietnam in '66. The Turks liked the Rover quite a bit and I sold it for use as a taxi. On the way back to ConUS we stopped in London and purchased a  new Rover 2000TC (Twin Cam). This one lost some weight and tallied at 2700 lbs., with an inline 4-cylinder, 121 cubic inch engine putting out 113 hp (both the Rover and TC had 14 gallon fuel tanks).

Then, there was this thing called a Camp-O-Tel. It was a plywood and aluminum box six feet long and four feet wide. It unfolded into a tent. There were two water tanks, one on each side and a box across the back that was the kitchen. We acquired one of these in Taos, NM in 1967. We used this unit on several vehicles to come.

After Vietnam I resigned my commission (1967) and we ended up in Taos NM, where I restarted life as a photographer. As additional duties I hosted at an art gallery, put up the Taos County booth at the New Mexico State Fair, moved a couple of businesses, and did some mat-cutting for pictures. Payments on the Rover got in the way of living, and, in Santa Fe, we traded for a 1958 Volkswagen Pickup. The low speed on highways caused a future trade for a "Barn Door" VW Van--it carried my photographic equipment with ease, and I also did camera repair for a store in Albuquerque.

Once while cruising the back roads of Taos, I pulled over and was taking pictures of some ducks on a nearby pond. I was using a long lens and had the camera mounted on an old rifle stock. I was immediately "visited" by the State Police because he thought I was poaching. Following that, my career options in Taos expanded to being a Ski Bum at Taos Ski Valley, which was good for room and board, but to supplement I swamped a dozer for a friend on a forest fire. We eventually traded the VW Van for a Jeepster Commando.

Anglo-Hispanic relations at this time in Taos (1972) got strained (Brown Berets and the Reyes Tejerina courthouse shooting), and we ended up driving the Van on a trip to Maine, and buying 40 acres of land in the southwest part of the state near New Sharon.

Some months later, while picking up the mail at the Taos Post Office, I saw a flyer for a job with the US Forest Service; so, we both became Fire Tower Lookouts in the Cloudcroft Ranger District of the Lincoln National Forest in New Mexico (March to July 1972). For transportation we sold the Jeepster (payment problems again) and leased a Ford pickup for a few months.

To keep entertained I helped with calf branding on my off days. A local rancher had a Forest Service lease where he grazed his cattle in the summer on the Forest and he needed help during roundup. At the end of fire season we went to Fort Worth and I bought a 1961 Ford 150 pickup with a ¾-ton Chevy rear end and a 1963 Ford Pickup bed. (Unfortunately I don't have a picture of this combination, but this stock photo is close enough.) I parked the truck in my in law's back yard and rebuilt the 6 cylinder engine. (My brother in law presented me with major strength Interstate battery and we were off to our 40 acres in Maine).

To pay for repairs, I worked as a carpenter's helper for Showalter Construction, Lynchburg, Virginia; first, I'm driving a front loader, and after that I ran a pneumatic drill to place dynamite charges for the base of a pumping station beside the James River. After going to Maine and living in a cabin, Laura needed her own transportation, so I found her a Volkswagen Beetle (1958 vintage, 1300cc).

Maine was a continuing adventure. We picked apples one season, I cut pallet wood for a local pallet mill (got paid in pure Jersey milk), worked for a general contractor, milked 100 head of Holstein cows, helped rebuild a 1700s vintage barn, did freelance technical non-fiction writing (Popular Mechanics, Mother Earth News), and worked in a racquet factory making tennis, badminton and squash racquets. After a few years of life in the Maine woods, Laura's folks retired to a lake in northern Arkansas and asked me to help build their retirement home. So, in March of 1976, we left Maine with three feet of snow on the ground, traded the Ford pickup for a Datsun 1500 pickup and went to Arkansas. (Notice the tent box on top).

In the fall of 1976 we returned to Taos, where I did general handyman work. And for a change of pace I did a stint as substitute math teacher at the local high school. They were so impressed with my USAFA transcript that they offered me the job of heading the Math Department, which I declined. In the spring of 1977, we went back to our old fire tower jobs near Cloudcroft, NM, where I built the cap on the Datsun pickup with hand tools. I even coated it with shipbuilding epoxy. While on the tower I picked up a Honda 350XL dirt bike, because Laura was the lookout, and I had other work on the District and we both needed wheels. The dirt bike was another adventure.

For entertainment I cut and sold fire wood with a Forest Service employee on our off days. For further relief of boredom, I helped a local rancher round up wild cattle onto the flat land south of Alamogordo, NM. These cows knew no fear, and would run straight through a barbed wired fence or horse and rider. After a long, long day we managed to round up one steer. We got paid in saddle sores and bruises.

The last season on the lookout tower we stayed on and planted trees until the first snow in January, and then moved off the mountains and into an apartment in La Luz, north of Alamogordo. Laura started working at the Forest Supervisor's office as a receptionist, and I took to scrimshaw and jewelry making. I also played banjo with a small group (two others--fiddle, guitar/vocals). This is when we found a used front wheel drive Ford Fiesta to round out our vehicles (circa 1980).

In 1986, the Datsun pickup caught the eye of a friend of ours who was a potter, and we traded for a bunch of pottery. Later, on a trip to Albuquerque, we traded the Fiesta for a Ford Ranger King Cab pickup.

Laura's work at the Forest Service became serious and she moved from the reception desk to being co-in-charge of the mainframe computers; then, she applied for, and got, a job on the Gila National Forest, Silver City, NM (R: If you want a great and beautiful place to live, Silver City is it!) After moving to Silver City in 1988, she worked in the computer shop and I went to work doing trail maintenance in the wilderness of the Gila National Forest. We lived within walking distance of the Supervisor's Office where Laura worked, and I took the truck for four ten-hour days a week. I worked with a foreman and a couple of mules. We would truck the mules from a District Office to the edge of the Wilderness, load up the mules (diamond hitches and all) and walk into the Wilderness leading the mules. Our main job was to cut out trees that had fallen across the trails during the winter using a two man crosscut saw.

After a couple years of trail work, including packing supplies into some fire camps, the budget changed and the trail job went away. However, there was a need for a Cartographic Aid in Engineering at the Supervisor's Office, so I took a reduction from a GS-4 to a GS-3 and went to work in Silver City. They decided to look at my personnel file, saw my USAFA transcript and told me that I qualified as a Civil Engineer GS-7. They hired me, and I eventually got to GS-11 by my retirement December 30, 2000. (During this time a Lincoln Mark VII caught my eye on a used car lot and we bought it).

Pretty snazzy! This was our first automatic transmission car! Eventually, maintenance became a problem (constant replacement of air bag suspension). Also, we picked up a Ford Windstar van; so, by now, parking was a problem as well as maintaining 'the fleet.' We gave the Windstar to Laura's niece, and traded the Ranger and Lincoln for a brand new 1998 Ford Explorer XLT, which has been our mainstay ever since.

In the background is our RoadTrek motor home. You may notice some items running vertically behind the side window from top to bottom. These preserve the laminar flow and keep the cavitations of airflow right behind the motor home from forming. The airflow joins smoothly about ten feet aft, which keeps the rear window clean during dust and rain and reduces drag. Next, my father in law gave us his pickup conversion of a Dodge Dart.

This was not a Chip Foose (he's the famous designer and builder of hot rods, has the TV show 'Overhaulin.') job, but, bless his heart, Dad loved it and thought I should have it. I sold it to a student at work. The student was very happy . . . but I'm not done yet! After retiring with nineteen years of Federal Service--7 years USAF and 12 years USFS--we acquired a 2002 RoadTrek motor home, and we've enjoyed camping the past seven years.

We're still not done! I want a GMC motor home of '73 to '78 vintage. These are hot, very restorable and customizable. This would be my Hot Hearse: The idea is to cruise around the country in this rig. I'd make the bed in the back, convert that to a coffin, and add an ejection device so that when I die all I'd have to do is back up to the grave and punch a button and in I'd go . . . the end of a great adventure. This narrative mentions about 28 jobs and 19 vehicles. It seems I could neither hold a job nor keep a car for long. I guess that was the adventure.

P.S:  Here's a current photo of Laura (the real Adventure) and me, taken near our home [ . . . in ] Silver City, NM. [ . . . ] We'd love to hear from you. /s/ David Lewis Wiest.