[LargeFormat] '12 Buick roadster

[Les Newcomer]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2003, at 07:52 PM, Richard Knoppow wrote:
>>
>> Ahh we all have our blind spots.  I rode through the UP,
> from Sault Saint
>> Marie to the Wisconsin border, in a 1912 Buick Roadster
> with an average
>                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>> drive speed of 35mph.
>
>  Whoa there, just a minute, just hold up a second. A 1912
> Buick! -- _1912_? There is a story here somewhere which is
> missing from this post.
> ---
>

No there's a winter's worth of stories, but I don't have time to type it 
out.
In an edited version....

Dad got out of the Army in May of '46, found the car in a chicken coup and 
towed it home Thanksgiving day of the same year after leaving the farmer 
with 50 Barber Dollars and a promise of $50 more. He Made the mistake of 
trying to wash chicken poop off with HOT water, his mom wouldn't let him 
in the house until he changed his clothes.
By 50 or '51 he had discovered the Antique Automobile Club of America and 
the Glidden Tours--a yearly tour to honor Mr. Glidden who in the '00 and 
teens, sponsored 'reliability tours'to prove the roadworthyness of the new 
auto.

By '61  Dad had found  a job, a wife, a house and me.

 From 1963 through 1976 this was our vacation car.  The whole Chevy Chase 
thing was foreign to me.

I've been to Pikes Peak, Jekyll Island, Monteal, St. Pete Beach, FL and 
Disney World on Glidden Tours.
In '68 to honor the '08 New York to Paris Race we went from New York to 
San Fran.  (Tony Curtis made a movie ROUGHLY based on this. There's a free 
T-shirt for the first person that can tell me why I remember the name of 
Tony Curtis' car.)

It was so much fun in we repeated the idea. In'72 we went from Montreal to 
Tijuana (through the UP among other places) We broke the crankshaft in 
North Bay Ont. on this trip.

We couldn't let the bicenntenial go by unnoticed, so in '76 we left 
Seattle, WA on June 6 and pulled into the Holiday Inn in Philly July 2 and 
stayed till the morning of the 5th. The same crank broke again in 
Indianapolis.

In '84  I got left behind and mom and dad went from Pebble Beach Calif. to 
Pebble beach, Ga.

There were two other 'Trans continental' tours that we didn't participate 
in.  One in '79 from Portland Ore, to Portland Me, mostly through Canada  
and the other was  from New York City to New York City, by way of South 
Hampton England, the QE II, several castles, and the Concord.  For me it 
was either this trip or 2 years at RIT.  :-(

All of this was done with a group of 50 cars or more all 1914 or earlier. 
I got to meet a lot of nice people like Curt Blake, found of Frendly's Ice 
Cream, and Bill Harrah of Harrah's in Reno.

We went through the rains of Iowa, the heat of the Great Salt Lake and 
hotel fire alarms in Philly. Been snowbound in Wyoming in June, cursed at 
on the freeways of California,  and paraded through Disney World. (Is this 
starting to sound like a country/wester song lyric??) Rode the Auto train,
  and a brama bull (a very old and sedated, brama bull). Walked through 
snow, sleet, and rain...and that was just from the parking lot to the door 
of the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone. Been in front of more Argus C-3 
cameras than I care to remember. And, finally, told most of the people in 
every town we went, where we got our tires and what we do when it rains.

here's a photo

http://home.twmi.rr.com/lnphoto/buick.jpg

(to keep this post legit, I never saw a single large format camera, film 
holder or dark cloth. Not even when the PR folks at the Kennedy Space 
Center got a guy to suit up and pulled the lunar rover out for some press 
photos of the LRV next to Dad's car, an astronaut 'cranking' our car, etc.
  Mom got to ride back in the LRV, I'm still jealous!)