About 10 years ago, on one of my trips to Michigan, I drove my Jeep up with the top and doors off... Memorial Weekend was certainly not cold... but between the rain and the temps in the low 50s, it wasn't warm, either.
My Aunt was always a bit on the worrying side... When I decided to hit the local "Cruise" one evening, she was sure that I was taking my life in my own hands. After all, car people were a bunch of ruffians, right? I didn't agree... and since I was well into my adulthood, I went anyway.
The "ruffians" were grandfathers (some grandmothers, too), Dow Chemical executives (some even knew my grandfather, a Dow Alumnus), farmers, families... kids, dogs and other assorted "dangerous people." I made a few friends... there were even a few people that had seen articles I had done for a couple of 4WD magazines.
The danger was in ticking off my grandmother by coming home at 1am after chatting with cool, friendly people in a parking lot...
We were all "car people"...
A couple of years ago, a young Amry Reservist had his Jeep vandalized by anti-war "activists". The trashed the rig, including spray painting "Soldiers are Murdurers" on the hood.
4Wheelers are generally a pretty patriotic bunch. There are lots of cops, fire-fighters and military folks in the ranks. What happened to Viktor Whitlow just wasn't something that was going to be unanswered... And Dan Dubose of Blue Torch Fab was one of the first to answer. He volunteered his shop, and started lining up vendors to make theep better than it had been before. He wasn't looking for a bunch of publicity from it... but soon, other vendors started hearing about the project and they were calling Dan to be in on it.
FabStock 2008 was born. Volunteers from all over the country gathered at BTF for a weekend of hardcore wrenching.
They were all "Jeep people"...
This evening I ran across this video on Cars & Coffee. Tyler Shipman had an incurable form of cancer... and at just 18 years old. But he had an unfinished piece of business... a 1986 Pontiac Fiero. But when the call went out that Tyler wanted to see his Fiero done before he died, it was answered by Fiero enthusiasts from all over the country. The guy that put it together, did it from Iraq...
In 24 hours, they built a Fiero... Tyler got to drive it...
Tyler passed away last night, but his Fiero will live on with his younger brother.
Unless otherwise noted, all content of this blog is the property of Lane Bailey, ©2012 Lane Bailey.
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