with its first 28 years still shrouded in mystery…

The truck’s known history begins about 1955 when a VAEer found it for sale On North Main Street in St. Albans, Vermont.

The Roadster Pickup is locally known as an East Fairfield truck, a little village fifteen miles East of Lake Champlain in Northern Vermont. The village is known for saying yes to the railroad. The story goes, when the railroad wanted to build a line through the town in the 1860s the sleepy village center 5 miles West of East Fairfield had hysterics at the idea of becoming a rowdy railroad town. East Fairfield opened its arms to the idea… rowdy and all!

East Fairfield’s nickname is “Puddledock”that came from the Spring time hub-deep mud in the streets and the folks who live there are called “Puddledockers”; terms of endearment used to this day. When the St. Johnsbury and Lake Champlain Railroad came through town the transition was instantaneous. Hotels, granaries, a drug store, bars and pool halls were built overnight. Water power at the two dams on Black Creek sprouted all kinds of new enterprises. Puddledock took on the reputation as a rowdy railroad town while the little town center, just a few miles away, stayed safely away.

The story also goes that the model T spent many of its years, previous to 1955, in Puddledock, in fact the exact residence and driveway has been identified as its home. This information has been passed down from villagers long past away and the home was torn down many years ago. Is the story true, what was the truck used for and who owned it during that time has not been figured out completely, the detective works continues…

The VAEer who found the truck for sale in 1955 is Gael Boardman. The seller who brought it to Walter Benjaman’s garage on North Main Street, St Albans to sell it was unknown when Gael offered $20.00 to buy it. When Gael returned to find if the seller accepted his offer, he found a local hotel owner, Doug Kelly, had bought the truck for $25.00. Wheel Tracks found Mr. Boardman, sixty one years later, still a little upset he got “out-offered” by Mr. Kelly. Gael was prepared to go all the way to $30.00 but in the traditional way of bartering, one does not let that information out until the exact ‘correct’ time.

For many years the Model T was parked in a shed behind the Kelly Hotel on South Main Street until rumor had it that Mr. Kelly sold it to someone in the Boston area.

Enter another VAEer… John Lavallee. John’s dad and grandfather had a machine shop in Massachusetts and had decided to expand into Northern Vermont in the mid 1960s. John was a young man when he joined his father and grandfather in Winooski to inspect the building they had just purchased along the river and that is when he spotted a Model T pickup in one of the dark corners of the building. The truck then had a new owner, John Lavallee. A short time later, John heard a rumor the “T” had belonged to Mr. Kelly and after telling John it was impossible that the truck had been his, Mr. Kelly recognized the repair work he had done on the rear of the vehicle. The Model T was in fact the Kelly/ East Fairfield truck. Over the 20 to 22 years that John owned the truck, not a whole lot was done to it.

The Model T caught the eye of a dairy farmer in 1987 and again it found a new home, but this home was special… it was back in East Fairfield!

Dennis Dodd belonged to the VAE and his farm is a mile or two just outside the village. Over the 29 years the Model T hardly ever missed an area parade. Dennis and Linda’s children along with many other local kids spent many great times throwing candy to parade spectators from the pickup’s bed.

The “T” also had quite a transformation on Dennis’ farm. It got a Ruxtal rear-end and Rocky Mountain brakes. A new top and bed, a complete motor job and all the running gear trimmings along with a new coat of paint. Dennis told about the memorable hours he and his son drove the back roads enjoying the country side. He spoke of all the sights you can see when going 20MPH. He would just pop the Ruxtal into gear and chug along not having to shift, no mater how steep the hills.

So, now it is 2016 and Dennis has his attention on a 1908 International high Wheeler project. He also has a ’31 Model A sedan and a really cool home-built Model A Speedster… and the Model T pickup has caught the eye of another VAEer!

Enter the Wheel Tracks editor… The Ruxtal rear-end and Rocky Mtn. brakes was more than the guy could resist, the truck, again, has a new home. The good news is the 1927 model T pickup is only a few miles North of its East Fairfield beginnings. The bad news is the amount of filled space that had to be freed-up to make room for the “T”. All good, when you step back and look at the scheme of things…

Way back in ’67, my friend Dick, who was driving a ’31 Willys as his regular car, told me about a ’29 or ’30 Whippet for sale in Charlotte, VT.

Since I always liked old cars and my Dad had told me about Whippets, I went to check it out. The owner was moving and didn’t want to move the car, which was not running at the time. He had bought the car for $300 “downcountry” and wanted to recover his investment. Marion and I had just gotten married, I was still a student at the University of Vermont, and I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so I offered him $50. He was appropriately insulted by my offer and turned it down, of course. Then on moving day, he called and said that I could come get the car for $100. My brother and I rushed to get the car and found the owner and his belongings gone and the Whippet sitting on the lawn. We towed it to my place in South Hero, VT, sent a check, and never heard from the owner again.

The Whippet was pretty much complete, but had had a rough life. It had been wrecked a couple times and had dents and rust with running boards replaced with old rough lumber. The top had been improperly replaced and water had rotted most of the wood around the top and door posts. Water and mice had totally destroyed the rear seat. But…with a little gas in the vacuum tank and a push around the yard with my brother’s car, it RAN! It burned oil like crazy, but ran all the same.

I didn’t do much with the Whippet for many years, busy with a young family and an old house. Around 1990 I installed a new set of rings and cured the oil burning. Then, in 1999, I installed a new top, and I drove it 500+ miles to Lamar, PA*, to collect the Long Distance Award*, given by the WOKR for driving the longest distance to our International Meet. In 2001, I reupholstered the rear seat and then drove it 800+ miles to Napoleon, OH*, collecting the Long Distance Award* a second time. A rod bearing failed after this trip, so I shipped the engine off for a Florida vacation to be rebuilt by one of our Whippet experts. Next came Nashville, TN* in 2005, Marshall, MI* in 2008, Flatrock, NC* in 2009, Bellefontaine, OH in 2010, Duluth, MN in 2012, Waynesboro, VA* in 2013, and N. Conway, NH* in 2015 winning four more Long Distance Awards* for a total of six. All trips were unescorted except Duluth when my friend drove his 1912 100-year-old Overland with me. Luckily this was the only trip which had a problem (other than flat tires and a plugged carb) when a fan belt broke and we backtracked 12 miles in the Overland to buy a new one. I have driven Rosie over 30,000 miles over the years with the only non-routine maintenance being the engine rebuild and new valves last year.

She is Rosie, named after Rosinante, Don Quixote’s old broken down horse and John Steinbeck’s camper pickup in his book Travels with Charlie.

What I remember most on my trips is the friendly and kind people I’ve met along the way. While touring Penns Cave, one tire went flat in the parking lot. By the time I got out of the cave tour, fellow club members had put on the spare. The tube, which I had never removed in 32 years of owning the car, had 4 patches already!

Somewhere near Ottawa, Canada, I had stopped under a street-side shade tree to take a break. The lady from a nearby house came out and invited me in for very welcome milk and cookies.

In Brussels, Ontario, I stopped at the home of Charlie Proctor, a fellow Whippet owner, but no one was home. Backtracking a ways to a Proctor mailbox I had passed, I met Charlie’s niece and her children. She told me the Proctors had already left for the meet in Michigan. I went to camp on Charlie’s lawn and his niece invited me back in the morning for breakfast and for use of her bathroom.

On my return, I had lost my way and found myself in the middle of Flint, MI. When I stopped on a side street for a break, two children ran into their house and returned with their father. He invited me in and, using Mapquest on his computer, helped to plot a route to get me back on track. A bit later at the 6 lane Port Huron border crossing back into Canada, Rosie overheated and stalled at the customs booth. After the usual and some not-so-usual questions, the agent told me to stay where I was despite angry travelers behind me. He make a call and 3 burley bridge workers in safety green shirts came to push Rosie to their maintenance area to cool while custom officials stopped traffic in several of the lanes to let us cross.

Traveling through Virginia, while tinkering on the generator in a shopping parking lot, Paul and Weeta Phillips came over to investigate the car and offer to help. They were collectors of scooters, pedal cars and old bicycles. They left me with their phone numbers and an offer to come back with further help and/or to put me up overnight with dinner and breakfast!

On Route 209 in Pennsylvania, I had just passed Muchmore’s Antique Shop when I realized that Rosy had boiled out all her water and was overheating. At her shop, Dorenda Muchmore let me fill the radiator, refill my gallon jugs, and provided me with another gallon container for the road as well as wonderful conversation and a tour of her shop.

Later in the day, after negotiating a mountainous detour off Route 209, I stopped on the edge of a driveway to check the radiator and let Ro-sie cool off. Bill the homeowner’s, second question was, “Want a beer?” I told him about my leaking water pump and he just happened to be an old-time plumber with a spool of graphite string valve packing in his box, getting me back on the road toward home.

Returning home in the rain through northern NY, I failed to pay attention to mileage and ran out of gas. A lady stopped and went miles ahead to bring me gas if she could find a container. While waiting a man stopped, drove me to his shop to fetch a 5 gallon can, then to a gas station and back to the car. My first rescuer had returned with a gallon window washer container filled with gas. The 5 gallons went in the tank while the 1 gallon was used to prime the vacuum tank.

With all the bad news we hear these days, it is nice to find kind and generous folks everywhere along my travels

It is like sitting in your living room recliner when you ride down the road in this 1952 Imperial!

I bought this 1952 Imperial from a dealer is Canton, Ohio six years ago. It had been owned by the financial manager at the Canton Chrysler dealership who drove it to Florida every year. I bought this car solely on the basis of photos on-line which looked pretty good. The dealer told me it would need some plating…fine, then a week or so later he informed me that the engine needed a total rebuild, also saying he would rebuild the carburetor, which he never did.

At this juncture, it should have been a deal breaker, but I stumbled on agreeing to go forward. To his credit, he did lower the asking price. Finally the work was completed and we agreed to meet at Hemmings in Bennington where I would drive it home to Mont-gomery. When we got the car off the trailer it would not start. After various experts tried to figure out the cause, McNessor, one of Hemmings editors, found the fuel filter was on backwards. The filter had arrows indicating the fuel flow and they were definitely pointed in the wrong direction.

Recklessly, or just poor judgement, we decided to risk driving it home. It first stalled on Route 302 in Barre, backing up traffic for a half mile; then again in Shelburne but we finally did get home. Since then the carburetor was rebuilt by the Carb Doctor and there have been no problems.

I have had three different mufflers installed from local vendors, one even blew out the minute I started the engine. I am no mechanic but got good advice to order and install an original type muffler from Waldron’s. I have had no problems since.

The car has needed a lot of additional work. A complete rewiring, more chrome plating, new tires and mostly correcting a lot of poor workmanship done by others. A new paint job and upholstery is my plan yet to do.

When I worked in Cape Cod one summer, an elderly lady with a mean face was walking by the house I was painting. I said “Hello”. She said “How are you?”

Replying honestly, I said I had gotten a severe sunburn that Saturday.

In a dry, raspy voice she replied, “ Well, I guess you learned your lesson!”

Yes, the lesson is when buying an old car, go and inspect it. Try to buy one, if you can, with low mileage and as good condition as you can find. Because the restoration cost are simply prohibitive.

Editors notes…….
I was surprised with Barry’s reply when asking him if I could fea-ture his Imperial. He thought Wheel Tracks only used “really old” cars for it’s features. He is correct and that is entirely my fault. My head is in vehicles older than 1930 and unfortunately that is what ends up in Wheel Tracks. I will try very hard to be more in-clusive of 1940s, 1950s and 1960s cars.

As I wrote on the front page, it WAS like sitting in my living room chair when Barry took me for a spin in his car! The transmission is a ahh-so-smooth “Fluid-matic Drive” an interesting cross between manual and automatic. The shift lever has reverse, of course but also “low range”, “neutral” and “high range”.

Another huge thing you will notice is when you close a door. It goes THUNK, not twang like my model T or boing like a 27 Dodge I know!

The Imperials were made from 1926 to 1954 and then a short time between 1990 and 1993. Barry’s “Chrysler Fire Power” engine is one of Chrysler’s first Hemi’s and puts out 180 HP. Chrysler, in WW2, developed their first experimental hemi engine for the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt fighter aircraft. The XIV-2220 engine was an inverted V16 rated at 2,500 HP.

June 1954 – mid-Century in what has been typified by many as the Age of the Automobile – General Motors had just produced its 50 millionth car – Mercedes introduced the 300SL coupe, with its now famous gull-wing doors – Nash and Hudson had merged to form the American Motors Corp (AMC) – the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at an all time high of 382.74.

In Clearfield PA, Clark Mitchell, who was still in high school, was just starting to build his own Class H modified Crosley based sports car in the Mitchell Mills garages, his family’s business.

Clark’s mechanical sensibility came from working on the Mill’s and friend’s vehicles, building & selling kayaks of his own design, and constructing & flying numerous hand-built model planes. His intention being to make a basic tubular shaped, aluminum skinned body with cycle fenders, put it on the Crosley chassis and hop up the engine for more power. Over the preceding winter he had created several scale clay models for the national Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild competition. His design ideas generated some real interest among his family, friends and neighbors. They were aware that he was working on creating his own ultra-lightweight sports car. Several days into his project, he had a visitor. Harry Heim stopped in at Mitchell Mills to purchase dog food for his Russian Wolf Hounds. Clark’s father noticed Harry’s car was rather unusual for those parts, a Riley Healy.

Quoting Clark, “When Harry learned that I was dismantling a Crosley to transform it into an aluminum bodied, cycle fendered, ‘H’-modified sports car . . . dad gave him directions to our garages. He came into where I was working, introduced himself, looked at my drawings and clay models, listened to my ideas before saying, ‘Sell the Crosley and help me design and fabricate a fiberglass sports car body for my friend ‘s Stanguellini chassis.’ He upped the incentive by saying, ‘I’ll keep the molds because this will be a completely separate project from my contract with CPI,’ and finally he added, ‘I know where there are a couple of Fiat Topolino chassis that we can lay up two more bodies for, so we can build two cars of our own and go racing.’ Could I say NO’ . . . NO!”

It was then he asked me to collaborate with him on the project car for his friend John Iglehart.

1954 Macaroni Monza I body shell, wired & ready Between that time and my attending Penn State in the fall of 1954, we were able to pull the first fiberglass body from the female mold in the Clearfield Plastics parking lot on a sunny early autumn morning. ‘Hey Harry, the way the sun is back-lighting the body, it looks like macaroni!’, Harry instantly responded, “Hey Clark, we’ll call it a ‘Macaroni Monza.’ Everybody wants to call a pseudo-sporty car a ‘Monza,’ and ours has really sporty coachwork.” At that moment Clark Mitchell’s Clearfield Classic, the original Macaroni Monza, became a reality.

The Macaroni Monzas have gone through five phases since pulling that original fiberglass body shell – when completing the Macaroni Monza I – a larger version was fashioned by Harry Heim Associates and sold through Almquist Engineering – to a day in the early ’90s when Clark inquired of his life long friend, Roger Adam if he would sell his car. . . Roger said, “You can have it!” (more on this on the page 13) – to Clark re building/ reconstructing that car into his current Macaroni Monza II.

Four years went into that recreation. In 1997 it was complete. Clark drove his new again MM II from his home near Ausable Chasm NY down to Clearfield PA where it was a featured car in the Central Mountains Region AACA car show. Clark and his car had traveled full circle back to their shared origin.

Clark shares the following about being reunited with his car, “ One of the experiences that old car buffs truly enjoy is revisiting copies of the cars they previously owned. This experience escalates when that car is THE car . . . even more so when it’s a car that they helped (maybe more like conspired) to design. Imagine . . . when I asked Roger Adam if he wanted to sell his 1959 RECONSTRUCTED ROADSTER…

The initial larger bodied Almquist Sportster made in1959 for Roger Adam by Harry Heim Assocs. Mountedon a Henry J chassis with a Chevy V8 that Roger built.

2016 – The Almquist Sportster now – Clark Mitchell with his restored Macaroni Monza II at the 15th Amelia Island Concours in 2010. Clark, who is a VAE member, will be showing his car at our 2016 Shelburne Classic Auto Festival this June 3rd, 4th & 5th. Roger & I had not only been involved in its construction, but also in the initial design of this fiberglass bodied, modified Henry J framed, Chevy powered virility symbol. He didn’t want to sell it, instead he said, ‘You can have it!” I said, ‘For how much?’ And Roger repeated, ‘You can have it!’ When I asked if he could come down a little on the price, he laughed and said, ‘Talk to Fritz, you’ve seen it at his restoration shop. Work out something with him; it’s yours. I don’t think I want to mess with it; don’t think Fritz has time either. I know you’ll enjoy fixing it up like the old days. Just give me a ride; I’d like to see it run again.”

The work Clark did after getting his car trailered back home wasn’t really a restoration per se. It was more a synthesizing of ideas about how to revitalize the concept of what Roger had put together thirty-two years prior for his car. Clark then amalgamated that with his own ideas about how he had set up his original smaller bodied version in 1954. After reviewing numerous old photos of both cars, making sketches from measurements of Roger’s car, and making a small scale model in clay similar to that which Harry Heimand had done for the original fiberglass body, Clark undertook his hands-on reconstruction to fit the 1984 Corvette chassis that would result in the creation of his Macaroni Monza II. He decided to use the ’84 Corvette chassis following a conversation with a friend who restores corporate jets and suggested that the body shell from Roger’s car would be almost a perfect fit other than needing to alter the wheel well configurations because of the slightly shorter wheel base.

Since completing the car in 1997, Clark has enjoyed participating in numerous vintage car events including invitational showings in concourses at Amelia Island, the Milwaukee Masterpiece, the Hemmings Concours at Saratoga and more.

Your writer met Clark six years ago at the Keene Hill Climb Reunion in Keene NY. We had gone over to check out that rather unique vintage event . . . when I first heard the guttural growl of the Chevy V8 as he geared down to pull into the show field. When Clark rolled his MM II into the parking area, I was saying to myself, “WOW, I’ve never seen anything quite like this fifties-styled bright-red roadster coming straight at me!” Once he parked, I went over and introduced myself to begin what has become a fast friendship and shared love of small, low, loud sports roadsters.

In summary, let me quote the Amelia Island show card description of Clark’s MM II which provided the following brief history from 1954 on, “Clearfield Plastics Inc. (CPI) contracted with Fiat of Mexico to supply them with 100 bodies to construct complete cars. The bodies were shipped to Mexico. The tariff had not been paid and the bodies were returned. Harry Heim & C.P.I. owned the molds/production rights and contacted Ed Almquist in Milford PA. After Almquist purchased the 100 bodies, they were renamed from the “Macaroni Monzas” to “Almquist.” This chassis sports a larger version of the original Heims/Mitchell design. Heim and Almquist collaborated on several other “ahead-of-their-time” body designs & accessories.”

Clark Mitchell & Don Perdue are currently working on compiling a more comprehensive, illustrated history of the Macaroni Monzas to share at the 2016 Shelburne Classic Auto Festival.

This 1919 Franklin Touring has been a car David Lamphere has known about much of his life. Franklin manufactured about 150,000 cars in Syracuse, New York from 1902 to 1934. This one has a story to tell…

World War I had just finished its four year blight in November of 1918, our 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt, died in January and according to Wikipedia, Amānullāh Khān became king of Afghanistan.

In Rutland, Vermont that year George Lamphere was shopping to buy a new car. He and his wife, Eva, lived at 3 Clarendon Avenue and their creamery & dry goods store on Main Street must have been doing fairly well. There were a number of auto dealerships in the area but the one at 107-109 West Street must have caught their eye because they sold an air cooled car where you didn’t have to worry about the radiator freezing up during the winter. Another thing they might have seen in the car ads was, “you could put the accelerator to the floor, even in the desert, and run it that way all day or until you ran out of gas”. That is how good these engines were. The dealership was named Rutland Machine and Auto Company and they sold Seldon trucks and Franklin Automobiles. The Franklin touring car pictured above is the car the Lampheres decided upon.

David and Cereta Lamphere are VAE members from Westford, Vermont; George Lamphere is David’s grandfather and the Franklin touring sits in David’s garage today. The car was passed from George to David’s dad, Richard, and then to David.

The Franklin Company had sold about 43,000 cars by 1919 and had the process fairly well perfected by then. They were using 6 cylinder engines in 1906 for some of their models and by 1914 all Franklins had six cylinder engines. Managing the air flow was important in these air cooled vehicles and until 1922 all that was required was a fan between the engine and the transmission to help “pull” the air through. As the horse power increased they moved the fan to the front of the engine and continued to use the cylinder fins to force air down past the hot cylinders, this was called a “down-drafter”. As the 6 cylinder engine power grew, from 24 HP to over 100HP, the company changed again in 1930, to keeping the fan in the front but now forcing air “across” the engine thus calling it a side drafter. A much more efficient way to keep the engine cool.

It appears George and Eva began a family tradition with the Franklin car. Over the years they had the 1919, a 1923 sedan and two 1929s sedans. One of those 29s later was reworked into a pickup truck which also sits in David’s garage. David’s dad, Richard, added a 1930 and 1931 sedan to the family Franklin history and then David took his turn when he was 15 years old, when he purchased a used 1930 sedan for $45.00. David also bought a ’31 roadster at one point bringing the count to eight Franklins.

Richard was an engineer and loved to tweak things and make them better. While the 1919 was in his possession he added an electric fuel pump with a pressure regulator, to keep the carburetor from handling anything over one and a half pounds of fuel pressure. He also added a fuel pressure and a vacuum pressure gauge to the dash. The ignition switch has an extra position so when you engage the starter a second battery is wired in to have 12 volts. Once the engine is running, the switch is moved to the 6 volt position.

It is probably not totally unusual for an automobile to be purchased new and be in a family for ninety eight years, but Wheel Tracks did not want to miss out telling this story.

As you have read in our classifieds the 1919 is for sale. David and Cereta need to down-size and have decided to try to find a good home for the old girl, that still runs perfectly. The hope is that the car stays in the VAE family and will have many more stories to tell years from now.

How many of you will be watching for those Rutland addresses the next time you go through. Please take a picture of what is there now and send them to Wheel Tracks.

The Locomobile automobile (1900-1929) finds its evolution linked to the indomitable and identical Stanley twins, F.E. and F.O. In 1896, after re-locating their successful photographic dry plate business to Watertown, Ma., from Kingfield, Me., the Stanleys started experimenting with a steam propulsion automobile and by 1899, were building cars for the public. In the same year, the Editor and Publisher of Cosmopolitan Magazine, John Walker, was also I interested in getting into the burgeoning automobile business, and approached the Stanley brothers with an offer to purchase their company. After repeated offers and their constant refusal to sell, the Stanleys were quickly tiring of the annoying Mr. Walker. In an attempt to get rid of him, they countered with an exorbitant price of $250,000 ( $7.1 million today) and a term of 10 days. To their surprise, Walker jumped at it, and along with Amzi Barber, ”the asphalt king”, purchased the company from the Stanleys and changed its name to Locomobile. With only a one-year “non-compete clause” in the sales agreement, the wiley Stanleys were right back in business.

Within the year, Walker and Barber split, after Barber discovered that he had been hoodwinked into paying the full $250,000, and Walker had invested nothing. Barber ended up owning Locomobile outright, and moved it to Bridgeport, Ct. Walker went on to build the Mobile steam car in Tarrytown, NY., but by 1903, he was finished. Barber desperately needed someone who knew more about automobiles than he did, so he hired an electrician/mechanic by the name of Andrew Ricker, who then traveled to Europe to “observe” automobile designs, specifically Mercedes. Locomobile continued with both steam and gasoline engines until 1905, when they switched to gas engines exclusively, fighting several Mercedes patent infringements along the way due to Ricker’s keen sense of “observation”. The “Type E” was designed for this year and continued through 1908, with many mechanical improvements. It utilized a 15/20 HP “T Head” four cylinder engine, dual chain drive rear axles, and a 3 speed sliding gear transmission, which evolved into a four speed selective gear transmission in 1908. Ignition was a “make and break” type running off the intake camshaft, with the hammer and anvil spark inside the combustion chamber. Spark timing was adjusted by sliding the cam back and forth. (Google “make and break engine” and watch Greg Cone demonstrate his 1908 Matheson’s “make and brake” engine). Locomobile’s slogan was “Easily The Best Built Car In America”. They were indeed, exceptionally well built and expensive, utilizing bronze castings for the crankcase, transmission case, steering box, etc. Although only a 15/20 HP engine, the “T Head” accelerates to a very comfortable cruising speed of 45 MPH, as was evidenced on my recent Fall day outing.

The story behind Fred and BJ’s Locomobile is filled with all sorts of characters. Soon after WWII, a widow from Wycliffe, NJ. contacted Henry Austin Clark, who owned the Long Island Automobile Museum, and wanted to get rid of her late husband’s 1908 Locomobile. She would be willing to part with it for $1, just to make the transaction legal. This was common at the time and many cars were acquired this way after the war. The famous opera singer and collector, James Melton had many people give him early cars. Remember, these vehicles were only 40 years old at the time and pretty well “used and abused”. Apparently Clark took the car and in ’52 sold it to Lou Schaffer, also of Glen Cove, Long Island. Schaffer spent the next 2 years “restoring” the Locomobile. Having only 1905 literature, he made fenders and acquired items that fit the earlier style. In the early ‘50’s, restorations would often copy the oldest styles trying to make them as “antique” as possible. Schaffer finished the restoration in time to participate in the 1954 Glidden tour. Ironically, Fred Gonet grew up only 3 miles from the Locomobile he would eventually own 30 years later. In 1956 it was sold to a John Snyder, who in turn sold it to his son in Scarsdale, NY.

Enter, the infamous character Morris Burrows who had a summer house in Springfield, Vt. Morris was a brilliant, yet quite eccentric mechanical engineer. He was known to have bought a new Porsche 911 when they were first introduced in 1963, ordering an extra engine with it so he could dismantle it to study how it was constructed. Being a subscriber to Car and Driver, in 1963 he came across an ad for a 1908 Locomobile. For some time he had decided he would like a brass era automobile and decided that Locomobile was a car worthy of him. He paid the lofty sum of $1200, and the Locomobile moved to Vt. Morris and his wife drove the car many miles over the next several years. In 1970, his wife passed away, and he re-married, but his new bride was afraid to ride in the car because it lacked front doors, so the Locomobile was put up on blocks in the basement. During this time, Fred Gonet had moved to Vt. and became involved with antique automobiles and motorcycles, eventually starting what is today known as G & G Restorations of Proctorsville, Vt., with his cousin John.

As time went on, Fred let it be known that he would like to find a brass era car. Every year, Harry Olney (Gary’s father) would register and insure his 1910 Reo for Fred to drive around during the summer, but he wasn’t interested in selling. Along comes Ruffus Estey, an old car guy who is a friend of both Morris Burrows and Fred. Morris is now in his 80’s and ill, and Ruffus informs him that he knows of a very knowledgeable young enthusiast that would be a good candidate for the Locomobile. Morris is kind of an irascible old fellow who was known to scold people if they ventured too close to one of his antiques, didn’t especially like children, and could otherwise be a grumpy old curmudgeon( like many of us). Morris agrees to let Ruffus introduce Fred. Being a quick study and fearing the worst, Fred does his homework on Locomobiles. After the introduction, Morris starts grilling Fred, asking him about his feelings on certain engineering aspects regarding the Type E Locomobile, what his plans for the car would be, what he thought about the incorrect 1905 style fenders and the other incorrectly dated items on the car, etc. After a few hours, the meeting ended. Several days later, another meeting, and more questions for Fred. This goes on a few more times, and now Morris wants to meet BJ, Fred’s wife. The meeting goes well, and Morris actually asks BJ if she would like to sit in the car (still up on blocks). BJ looks at Fred, he shrugs, and so up she climbs into the Locomobile. Morris is concerned that she might feel uncomfortable about the lack of front doors, but BJ is unfazed. As the meeting draws to a close, Morris states he would like to meet their 2 children. Knowing of his unwavering love of children, Fred and BJ agreed, and hoped for the best. Well, as it turned out Morris liked the kids, invited them to also sit in the car and the rest is history. Fred and BJ finally signed the adoption papers in 1985, and enjoyed driving the Locomobile for the next year. At the end of 1986, Fred started a total frame up restoration.

Using cardboard templates, he was able to recreate the correct compound curves on both the front and rear fenders before hammering out new ones. Finding an original 1908 owner’s manual (with Morris) at the Bennington car show, Fred was able to fabricate all the other correct pieces for 1908 that he needed for the restoration. Through good luck and perseverance, he was able to find the original box of discarded “make and break” items that had been taken off the engine in 1952 and eventually sold to Walter McCarthy. If you look on page 893 of The Standard Catalog Of American Cars, you will see a picture of Fred’s 1908 Locomobile taken by Henry Austin Clark shortly after its “restoration” in 1952. Notice the 1905 style ”chopped off” fenders. There are only 7 surviving examples of the Type E Locomobiles, and only this one for 1908. To date, Fred, BJ and family have driven over 40k miles throughout New England and Canada, a true testament to Fred’s meticulous restoration of an exceptional automobile.