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Dave and I stood in my dimly lit garage. It was cold outside. It was only slightly less cold inside. The rain dripped through the ceiling onto boxes of Christmas decorations, gardening tools, and my 1989 Peugeot 405 Mi16, hood open, front end held aloft by jack stands.
On Tuesday morning, when a familiar number came up on my phone, I just knew it. It was Pat Barbour, the wife of a friend I first wrote about in 2018, and the pitch of her voice was a few notes lower than usual.
Last summer, I met a man named James Barbour III. I wrote about his remarkable life as documented original Tuskegee Airman, as a highly influential and respected racing official who’s had an immeasurable impact on the Sports Car Club of America and world-class competitions, and his time as an avid amateur race car driver who was well-known for his fast and fearless driving style.
A while back, I met the Jalopnik crew out for drinks. I approached Justin Westbrook—president of the Jalopnik Movie Club—and asked him why he hadn’t written about what I called (and what the world should know as) “the greatest car movie of all time.” He asked me what movie I was referring to. “Duel, of course,” I answered.
On the track, it racked up wins. Off the track, it racked up rumor. Its speed was a dream come true. Its handling could be a nightmare. And when the race car vanished, it became the stuff of legend and lore.
Ninety-two year old James Barbour III is tough in an unusual kind of way. The stereotypical tough guy grimaces and fights and struggles. Instead, Jim has the remarkable ability to stay even, to keep things light. To make it seem like when the going gets rough, well, it’s not rough at all. According to him and wife, Patricia Barbour, he’s never even sworn. He says “Oh my,” when he’s most fired up.
Walt worked harder than most people, and served his community more than most people do. That’s not a knock against anyone else. It’s just a testament of how tireless the man was. But he wasn’t looking for any special recognition, no grand displays of gratitude or accolades. All he wanted was a ‘55 Chevrolet Bel-Air when he retired. And that’s exactly what he got. But sometimes timing can be tragic.
With a few exceptions (I’m looking at you A-Team van), the van tends to be just an unremarkable, utilitarian vehicle. Each day the vans of the world drive the city streets and highways while coupes and pickups, SUVs and roadsters, muscle cars and luxury vehicles pass them by, getting most of the attention. To most, a van is, well, just a van. But to a touring musician, a van is so much more.
I’m a sucker for a good underdog story. Give me the person who shows up to the car show with the rusted Plymouth Valiant with a bog-standard slant-six over the guy with the garage queen Ford Mustang any day of the week. Maybe that’s why I love this story so much—a story that pits a lowly base-model four-cylinder 1961 Pontiac Tempest with an almost hapless driver against the muscle cars of the late ‘60s driven by street-racing gearheads.
There was a time when the manual transmission was everywhere, enough to be known as the “standard.” Now, especially in the United States, it’s a rare thing that’s only getting rarer. So, for this episode of Tempest, we explore the magic, the mystery, and the occasional misery that comes with learning the manual transmission.
It’s 1981, and a man pulls up to an intersection in his ‘52 pickup. He looks left to check for traffic. All clear. He looks right, but the van next to him is blocking the view. The man driving the van waves him through. The man in the pickup proceeds. Moments later, he is thrown from his truck, his skull cracked on the pavement.
A man whose life revolves around automobiles searches for the very first car he ever rode in. It sounds simple enough, but that’s just where this story begins. For this family, the past, the future, loss and joy are all hung together in the present. There’s a stranger, a son, a sibling, a spouse, and a woman who loves to rumble.
We can quantify so many things in the automotive world. Quarter-mile times, points in a race, engine displacements. But how do you measure the greatness of a mechanic? How do you quantify that? Is it how quickly they can fix a vehicle? Is it how many vehicles return to their shop for do-overs or further repair, known as “comebacks”? Is it their ability to bring something back from the brink, even when it’s extraordinarily complex?
Last year, I became a regular contributor to Jalopnik, writing essays about people and their relationships with cars. Some of those relationships were haunting, some were heartbreaking, some were endearing, some were all of those things and all of them were complex. Those are the kinds of stories that move me. They seem to move you too. This year, I’ll continue doing the same. But I’ll also be doing something else: Hosting the site’s very first podcast.
I went to Dallas to talk to John Redding about the 1966 Datsun 1600 Roadster that’s been hidden away in his storage space for years. On my second evening there, we were standing in front of that storage space, and he wasn’t crying, but his voice was quivering. I asked him if he was okay.
The old Dodge was such a fixture in the neighborhood that one particularly awful person named his or her wireless network after it: “Retarded Guy’s Charger.”
“Before we get to your car questions,” my former next door neighbor, Terrance, said, “I need to tell you both something. My wife left me. My kids won’t talk to me. I lost my job. I embezzled almost a half a million dollars because I’m addicted to BMWs, and have been hiding them all over the state. I’ll probably be going to prison soon.”
