Book14

AEROBUS

Chapter 14 - BUD THE PATRIOT

This fateful day was about a month after the September 11th terrorist attacks on the United States. American flags were very much back in fashion at that time. People were displaying them on their homes, cars and clothing. I wondered how it would look to paint Bud with some American flag graphics. Horizontal red and white stripes would give me the exaggeration of length that I was looking for in a paint job.

I stood there for a long time considering how I could lay it out. I spent most of that day measuring Bud and looking at American flags and figuring out how I could do it right and proportional and make it look good. I wanted 13 stripes, seven red and six white, while keeping them proportional to the stars, that I noticed should be slightly larger that half a stripe wide. Then I had to make sure that 50 stars that size would fit well. I finally settled on a plan and began the effort.

As I've mentioned previously, I didn't have the equipment to properly paint a car and certainly not one this size. I went out and bought quart cans of red, white and blue paint and some paint rollers. I first masked off all the items I didn't want to get paint on then painted the whole car white with a paint roller. I selected a smooth roller to reduce the chance of any texturing.

Next I painted the front fenders and hood blue. All that was left was the red stripes and white stars. I waited overnight for the white and blue paint to dry well enough that I could put masking tape down to get good straight lines for the red stripes. I didn't want the masking tape to take several layers of paint off the car, like some of the tape did that held the Halloween decorations on.

For the red stripes I first used a carpenter's chalk line to mark the body then followed the lines with the masking tape. It took three rolls of masking tape for all those lines. The red paint went on as smoothly with a roller as the white.

The stars were a real challenge. I wanted them to line up properly but with a staggered arrangement as they are on a flag. I got a star stencil the right size which were, fortunately, in great supply then in craft stores. I used rulers and a tape measure to get alignment points on the front of the car, all in the right spots for the stars.

I experimented with the stars by trying the stencil on some scrap material with my paint roller and it was a disaster. The paint bled in all directions under the stencil. I could tell that it wouldn't work on Bud. I instead used the stencil to cut a large sponge in the shape of a star. I dipped the star-shaped in the white paint and used it like a rubber stamp to place the stars on the blue field. All that was required after that was to use a small paintbrush to touch up the imperfect impressions left by the sponge.

I was real pleased with the result. From ten or more feet away you couldn't tell that it wasn't a professional paint job. The look from all angles exceeded my expectations.

The last thing I did was install a new radio antenna on it before taking some pictures of it. The antenna had a slight lean to it so I tried to straighten it out with both hands. I barely began to adjust it when the whole thing snapped off in my hands. If you look at the photos on the Aerobus web site you'll see an antenna stub but no antenna.

So my four-day weekend, that I set aside to work on my friend's Marathon was history. Nothing got done on his car and I felt guilty about that but Bud was exceedingly presentable. I was real proud of the result.

Vilma, didn't observe any of my activity, preferring to remain indoors. She thought I was working on the Marathon that she really wanted me to complete for the owner. One time she ventured into the back yard but she was too short to see over the fence. I heard her coming and I hurried through the gate and hustled her back into the house.

"It's cold out here and you'll get sick."

"What are you doing?"

"I'm working on Tim's car" I lied because I knew she would be possessive of my time if she knew I was working on Bud and I also knew she wouldn't appreciate my paint job.

A couple of days after it was completed I took her out back to see it, and true to my prediction, she didn't like it. It was only after many of her friends and family saw it and raved about it that she came to accept that my artistic expression might have some merit. In fact the reaction by everyone was so positive that she finally agreed to ride in it as I drove it into town.

The paint job was a significant improvement to Bud. Even though it wasn't professionally applied at least it was done.

In the course of applying the paint I was discouraged by the evidence that the caustic Monterey sea air was affecting Bud in small ways. Bud was nearly immune to corrosion having spent all its 31 years in California. To have started to show signs of corrosion after only two years in Monterey was unacceptable to me.

Bud meant a lot to me as a project but the web site and this story began to take on a greater and longer-lasting importance. Cars come and go. Some rust away, some get wrecked, most get sold to someone else. Granted there are those that receive the loving hands of the professional restorer, aided by the deep pockets of the owner and a heated garage, then remain in a family for multiple generations.

Bud, an acronym for "Big Ugly Duckling" after all, had none of those things in its future as long as it remained with me.. Oh I fantasized about winning the lottery and sending Bud off to the restorer for a complete body-off restoration, but that kind of work is expensive. If Bud had the pedigree of a Duesenburg or a Packard it might have made sense but a vastly utilitarian Checker airport limousine would never be worth that sort of investment.

The last Checker Cab doing service as a taxi in New York sold for over one hundred thousand dollars but it had the historical significance to command that price. Despite the folly of sinking tens of thousands of dollars into a proper restoration for Bud I would have done it if I had unlimited capital. I would have done it for no other reason than to preserve what became a large part of my life for seven years.

The dusting of corrosion that was forming on Bud was disappointing. Of course I could keep it in check if I had a garage big enough for it or if I had every weekend to keep polishing the chrome and rinsing the body thoroughly. But I had neither.

It wasn't the corrosion I could see that bothered me but the rust that might be taking place in areas that I had no control over like inside the doors and tailgate.

For the first time I seriously considered selling Bud. The thought seemed odd to me that I only just finished the project and I was willing to consider getting rid of it. I should have been planning to enjoy it in its finished state.

For days I tried to rationalize my thinking. I thought perhaps it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Sure it's pretty when it's all done and it's an accomplishment but then what?

I thought of a quote that I heard attributed to Elizabeth Taylor. I don't know if she was referring to her jewelry or all of the husbands she's had but the quote reportedly goes, "It's not the having that I enjoy, it's the getting." Similarly I've heard the trite phrase "It's not the destination but the journey."

I considered that might be the case with Bud and me. Did I just enjoy the process and challenge of finding an old car; of putting the puzzle together?

Oh, I could hang the jigsaw puzzle on the wall, or drive the Bud around town but where's the creativity in that? I needed to get back to the blank canvas, the forgotten vehicle or the empty card table again.

Bud was too original to start with. If it was a gutted car like the YLS parts car I could have been more creative with it and less pressured to leave it original. I could have made the interior more plush and limo-like. I could have a made a lot of modern improvements to a car that needed them. Modifications would have detracted from Bud's originality.

If I had a car that allowed more creativity I wondered if the end result would have been any different. Would I still have come to this point only to find myself saying, "Okay, what's next?"

So a combination of project completion syndrome and not wanting to see the car deteriorate any more prompted me to formally put Bud up for sale. I contacted Joe Pollard and told him. I knew he was well connected with potential buyers and I also knew he coveted the CHECKER license plates on Bud. I offered to give him the plates if he brokered the sale.

I was asked to drive Bud in the Monterey 4th of July parade that year and I agreed. The city allowed me to have my for sale signs on it and they even called attention to the fact that is was for sale all along the parade route over the public address system. My sign only had my cell phone number on it and I got about six calls from spectators while in the parade. They all seemed disappointed that my asking price was $12,000 and none expressed an interest in looking at it closer.

I was also contacted that summer by a person who wanted to buy it and who lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the location of the Checker factory. I was very anxious to make that sale because it would have permitted Bud to return to the place of its manufacture and that seemed like a fitting conclusion for my story as well.

The transportation would have coincided perfectly with the biennial, international Checker show, held partly on the factory grounds. Bud was on the cover of the Checker international newsletter with its flag paint job just a couple of months earlier and would have been well recognized at the show.

The potential buyer didn't want me to drive it out there and put that many more miles on it. Gary wanted to attend the show too so he and I worked on several methods for getting both of our Aerobuses transported to Kalamazoo for the show but it was going to be cost-prohibitive for that many miles. In the end, the buyer couldn't make a firm commitment so I didn't make the trip to Kalamazoo. When I backed out Gary cancelled his plans as well.

Gary and I decided to drive our Aerobuses to the California Checker show in Los Angeles the following month rather than trailer them down again. This was a trip that was going to be four times the distance that I had ever taken Bud before. I didn't drive it enough, in the three years since driving it down from Sacramento, to have the confidence it its ability to make such a long trip.

I finally decided to make the trip to Los Angeles for several reasons. I figured I couldn't sell a vehicle in good conscience if I wasn't confident of its ability on the highway. I knew that several Checkers have sold previously at the annual California show. I also knew that Joe Pollard would be at the show and he would appreciate the good condition of Bud and perhaps be more inclined to broker a sale in the future.

The trip down to Los Angeles and back went perfectly. Bud ran great despite temperatures well over one hundred degrees and having to go over the high mountain pass on the way. Gary and I made quite a site on the highway with two Aerobuses, his in brilliant yellow and mine painted like a flag. People were pulling up beside us and taking pictures. I got many inquiries, some at 65 miles an hour, on the price of Bud, since I still hadn't written it on the for sale signs. Again no takers.

Several people at the show expressed interest in Bud. One wanted to trade his Marathon and some cash but, as I told him, I really didn't want to sell Bud but if I was going to get out of the Checker business I was going to get all the way out.

Another person, who obviously knew a lot about Checkers, looked Bud over very carefully, paying particular attention to areas that Checkers are often weak, but Bud is not. I rather expected to hear from him later and may still.

Making the trip to L.A. and back successfully felt like a tremendous accomplishment. It confirmed that all my work on Bud over seven years was done right. Had I made that trip before the national show in Kalamazoo I think I would have had the confidence to drive it there as well, whether I thought there was a buyer or not. To be able to write about that adventure would have been worth the trip.

The Pebble Beach Concourse d'Elegance was a couple of weeks after returning from L.A. I got a bit more involved with the volunteer activities for several days leading up to the event. I knew my volunteer work would have me centrally located and I figured I could park Bud out there with the for sale signs until some overly-wealth person came along who just had to own it.

I was on the job for only an hour before my cell phone rang.

"Is that your Checker for sale?"

"Yes it is." I answered with some anticipation.

"Well this is Pebble Beach security and we don't allow commercialism out here and you'll either have to move your vehicle or take the signs down."

Well that really burst my balloon. I went and took the signs out of the windows but I laid them down in full view in the back station-wagon cargo area for any curious on-looker to see. The next morning, when I showed up to volunteer again, I parked in a red zone right in front of the Pebble Beach convention center. This was the center of Concourse activity and I saw many other people leave their cars out there for several hours at a time the day before. None nearly as conspicuous as a twenty-three foot flag however.

Well just my luck, they beefed up security that day and I could see that I wouldn't get away with that trick for very long. I stood off a bit and watched security try to find out who owned Bud. I saw two people looking at Bud and I could tell that they were very animated and one was jotting down the phone number from the for sale sign laying in the back so I started walking in their direction.

"Is this your car?" I could hear a security man ask the two people who were looking at Bud.

"No but if Mr. DuPont has anything to do with it, it will be his." answered Mr. DuPont's assistant.

I walked up and told security that it was my car and I was about to move it and I introduced myself to Mr. DuPont.

"This is my car if you are interested"

"I am very interested, here's my card."

I looked at his business card and saw that it indicated that he was the publisher of a national monthly magazine familiar to most people who know anything about automobiles.

"I'm going to have to move my car." I said. "I had to take the signs down too because they don't allow commercialism out here."

"Yeah, I know, they won't even let me plug my magazine out here. I tell you what, I've owned a Checker before and this one is really nice. You can consider me a serious buyer for your car. My office is in Florida, I'll contact you from there later."

I was really pleased at this point. It didn't matter that I had to move Bud from this prime sales location since I thought I had a firm buyer for it.

So the story was coming to an end. It was accomplishment tinged with melancholy. There was so much more that could be done to Bud and with a car that old there was always going to be something requiring attention at varying degrees of urgency. Bud never left me stranded more than a half-hour or so at the halfway point during its maiden voyage to Monterey.

It never embarrassed me despite seven years of a blemished exterior. It seemed to have more character that way. I never understood all the glee Bud imparted to first-time observers but I often felt it had something to do with its ugly condition. Kind of like listening to Joe Cocker sing. I think we find it attractive because that ability, or that condition, is within all of our grasps. We all think we could sing that well and we've all been forced to drive an ugly car at one point or another in our lives. We can identify.

There was no doubt when seeing Bud for the first time that it was an un-restored, original vehicle. I wondered if the response would be the same when it was painted. Or if people would assume it was a normal station wagon modified by a hobbyist by adding four more doors as a sort of custom statement.

Bud was done as much as I was going to do on it. The book was nearly done. In the case of the car it is the first I've taken from such poor condition to near completion. In the case of this manuscript it has been satisfying to tell the story and complete the first of what I hope will be many manuscripts.

Writing has long been what I consider to be my destiny, if I have one. I've sort of taken a 47-year detour in getting there but putting nearly 50,000 words in some form of order has been no small accomplishment. I don't really expect these words to see the light of published day but if you purchased this in book form then my greatest dream has been realized.

I know that a memoir of someone's experience restoring an old automobile, as interesting as it may be to some, has little chance for bestseller notoriety but it has been a pleasure to complete. With the book and Bud completed, all that I am left with is the web site. It continues to be an enjoyable, creative pursuit and I hope that technology allows it to remain a reference source for all time, even outlasting Bud.