Category: Every car is a story.
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SOWING DISCONTENT
What with two-a-days underway over at Jim Bowie High School, “Home of the Fightin’ Knives,” you’d think things would be cooling off, but it’s still well over triple digits every day and the boys can’t stay hydrated enough during practice. At least a half dozen puke everyday. The coaches claim the boys are just out of shape…
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A NIGHT AT THE OPERA SEDAN
This one makes me pretty emotional, I’m not gonna lie. My grandpa ordered one of these from Grandeur Motor Car Corporation in ‘82 and took ownership of it just before he shuffled off this mortal coil. There were less than 100 miles on the odometer of the Opera Sedan. The Caddy was in the parking…
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YOU CAN TAKE THE CADILLAC OUT OF HOLLYWOOD, BUT…
If she’d have walked into any other Cadillac dealership in July of 1941 and paid cash for a brand new Series 62 convertible at the age of 21, eyebrows would have been raised higher than American flags. But when Sheila Ryan walked into Hollywood Cadillac and did just that, it was just another day of selling…
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WEATHERBEATER CATALINA
There was an old guy that lived in a duplex down the street when I was in high school who owned the mirror image of this car. Roughly the same condition. Hard to say which one had been ridden the hardest through life, the old man or his Catalina. I walked past the thing my…
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GRABBING THE CROWN
The Pinto Wagon was only the beginning. Katie adjusted to the Pinto wagon easier than she did to motherhood, but that did not deter her from repeated attempts. Blake made sure there were more buns in the oven than a Pepperidge Farm bakery. By 1981 there were three car seats in the back of the Pinto, each full…
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PINTO PARENTING
After hearing his wife was pregnant, Blake took his ’69 Cougar down to Frontier Ford “Home of the Straight Shootin’ Deal” and traded it in on a new Pinto wagon. He was a family man now, he needed a family car. A wagon. Something respectable and responsible. Economical. Days of flash and glory were over. …
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AUTORAMA
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Dickens could have been talking about Fort Stockton in 1958. Maybe all of America, but Fort Stockton for sure. The end of the war was a dozen years in the rearview mirror. Those who needed to heal from the conflict had done so. Those who hadn’t, never…
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THE SILK PURSE DEPARTMENT
So many people go their entire life looking for their gift and never find it. Lana Newsome was one of those rare ones who discovered she had two while still young enough to make use of both. Her gifts were what earned her a full scholarship to Texas College for Dramatic and Industrial Arts, where she…
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DRAGGIN’ HOME THE HOMELESS
A turbojet-powered Mercedes-Benz limo with an enclosed trailer. Who would have ever guessed there’d be two of these? But damned if there wasn’t this exact combo right here in Fort Stockton, only his had the Palo Duro Canyon painted down one side and the Cadillac Ranch from Amarillo painted down the other. The poor guy…
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IN HER MAJESTY’S BIRD CAGE
There was a couple who moved to Fort Stockton back in the mid-sixties that had one of these. They made quite an impression back in the day, but then everyone always said if you could tip Texas on its side everything that was loose would roll into Fort Stockton. First thing that set them apart…