I don’t like automobiles and I don’t understand the love affair that most people have with them. I know I’m being a hypocrite because for many years I have been supporting myself working as a car auctioneer pretending to know and care about them.
There was only one vehicle in my life that ever really took my fancy but that was a very long time ago when I was just a boy and, sadly, it left me with a broken heart. We called her Hup, and for some reason we always referred to the old car as if she were female. The ancient Hupmobile luxury sedan ended up in my Dad’s possession in 1945. She had seen her heyday during the Dirty Thirties and was in rough shape. The car had been purchased new in 1932 by the only resident of our dusty backwater town of Unity, Saskatchewan, who had the resources to acquire such a vehicle, old Doctor Rutledge. In the ensuing thirteen years she had passed through a number of different hands during her fall from grace until my Dad found her standing dilapidated and coated in swallow dung perched on blocks in an abandoned granary.
I don’t know how much money changed hands when my Dad and the farmer who owned her, finished haggling; it couldn’t have much because Dad had precious little to spare. I think the owner was anxious to make room for the grain he expected to get from the first good wheat crop he’d had since the dusty depression began. The main reason that the vehicle was in my Dad’s price range was because it didn’t have a motor. There was just a gaping hole where the old four-cylinder engine once resided. Instead it had a long pole and a neck yoke attached to the front bumper. In her last years she had been a Bennet Buggy, a name honouring Premier Bennet of Saskatchewan, the man lucky enough to be in charge during Great Depression. With gas shortages and cash squeezes, thousands of people across North America had pulled the motors out of their vehicles and hooked horses to them. In the States they were called Hoover Buggies.
If the man who had sold Dad the Hup got anything at all in the transaction he probably thought that my father was a fool. He didn’t know that my tricky old Dad had an ace up his sleeve: he worked as a mechanic at a garage in town, (Lord knows how he ever acquired the skills and knowledge) and recently had found an appropriate motor in a scrap heap of old motors that had accumulated during the recent temporary regression to horsepower. The farmer had also thrown in the transmission and a drive shaft that had been lying in a corner of the granary and those parts, coupled with the other bits of running gear that my Dad had scrounged, completed the package.
At first my mother was opposed to the presence of the old car in the backyard of our little house in the backstreets of town, but after a trip to visit her sister in Toronto she had a sudden change of attitude. She had set her sights on that big city in the east and as the old car gradually took shape she saw it as the magic carpet that would float our family out of our prairie poverty into a new life in Upper Canada, albeit just another kind of poverty.
When we finally set out on our journey east, true to the predictions of neighbours who were skeptical about the reliability of our old car, we were only a couple of miles out of town when disaster struck. The Hup bucked a bit then came to a complete halt. Dad got out and lifted the hood and immediately diagnosed the problem. One of the essential components of the motor had split its seams. After pondering the problem for a short time he took out his pliers and went over to a nearby fence, liberated a length of wire, then took it over to car to repair the offending part and after a couple cranks the motor purred to life and we were once again on the road. The rest of our journey was not uneventful.
After backtracking a bit to visit an Aunt who lived near Banff in the Rockies, we headed south to the border. In those days the only route east to Ontario was through the northern states of the US. We caused quite a stir when Dad inadvertently passed through the border crossing at Sweetwater Montana without stopping. A Bonny and Clyde type car chase ensued with border guards, guns drawn, sirens blaring, pursued us for several miles. When we finally stopped and surrendered, the officers took one good look at the car and the passel of kids crowded in and around all our worldly goods then let us carry on, undoubtedly with the images from “The Grapes of Wrath” movie in their minds.
We made good time as we cruised through our second state with the old Hup purring like a kitten and only misfiring and belching smoke occasionally as we ascended or descended steep inclines. Dad was pretty pleased with the car’s performance and was getting cocky about how he’d shown up all of his dissenters back home. Of course he had spoken too soon because as we pulled over at a place called Bemidji, Minnesota, to admire a huge statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue Ox, disaster struck once again. One of the gears in the universal had broken a cog. Even if we had been located near a big centre, the chances of finding a replacement gear for a car as old as ours would have been impossible.
Dad was down but not out. Borrowing a few tools from a helpful mechanic at a nearby garage he stripped the transmission down and removed the broken gear. To the amazement of the mechanic who watched him work, Dad did something that was a forgotten art in the age of Remove and Replace. Using a welding torch, some screws, some brazing rods and a file he rebuilt the broken tooth. After a few final sweeps of the file to make sure it was perfect he slid back under the car, replaced it and shortly we were on our way again. In fact years later, that repaired gear cog was still in the Hup and still performing perfectly. When we finally arrived at my aunt’s place in Toronto, the Hup was parked in a back lane and started a well deserved rest while Dad and the rest of the family got jobs and started to pursue their new lives in the big city. No need for a car with the streetcars so handy.
It was the winter of that first year that Dad had his first run in with the law. For the first time in his life he received a speeding ticket in the mail. The summons suggested that at some time during the winter a foot patrol officer had seen the Hup moving along Bloor St. at a high rate of speed. Since the old car had been immobilized and up on blocks since its arrival from the west, my father took umbrage and opted for his day in court. When it finally hit the docket, the case was a short one. There had been an obvious mistake. When the judge put the description of the Hup together with the claimed speed, he just laughed and said, “My God, that old wreck couldn’t go half that fast.” At that my father, truly insulted, leapt to his feet and shouted, “I don’t know about that, Your Honour!” Nonetheless, the charged was dismissed.
It wasn’t long before the combined wages of the family made it possible for a down payment on a new home in the suburbs and the acquisition of a shiny Ford car that was more appropriate to our new status. Other than the few times she was called back into service to tow the Ford and other neighbours’ cars up our street’s steep hill in the winter she sat sadly languishing out of sight behind our house. I was only eight years old at the time and I had a special fondness for the old car. I had helped Dad put her back together back on the prairies. “I need your hands, Garry,” he would shout when his big paws couldn’t reach a tight spot under the hood. The first day the car was mobile he sat me on his lap and let me steer while we did a victory lap through the town. I also drove the Hup for thousands of imaginary miles while she sat parked and forgotten at our new home. She was alternately my car, my boat or my spaceship; Tom Corbett Space Cadet was one of my favourite radio shows.
One day I returned home from school to find that she was gone. Just four bare spots in the long grass where her tires had rested. Dad had sold her to a mechanic he knew. I never saw her again and can only speculate as to what might have happened to her. It’s a slim chance but I’d like to think that a collector ended up with her. Whenever I see a restored 1932 Hupmobile at an antique car show I sidle over to it, check to make sure I’m alone then discretely whisper, “ Is that you, Hup?” I have yet to get an answer.
