Jim Kennedy’s Car Collection

Five years after my Route 66 journey (see “1973 Fury Gran Sedan”), I decided my next adventure would be conquering the Lincoln Highway—the nation’s first transcontinental roadway, running from San Francisco to New York City. I had discovered during the Route 66 trip that the car I was driving (the 1973 Gran Sedan) had lived along “The Mother Road” in St. Louis, which I considered a cool connection. So, for this adventure, I likewise wanted to find a Plymouth that had spent some time on the path I would be following. A brief Internet search led me to an unrestored 1970 Plymouth Duster with original blue-and-yellow California license plates; this car had been sold new at a dealership on North El Dorado Street in Stockton, California—part of the Lincoln Highway. After a protracted negotiation with the owner, and some extensive surgery by repair shops in both Northern and Southern California, in August of 2008, I ventured from the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco and headed east toward Times Square.

As with my Route 66 journey, the tale of the Lincoln Highway is a much longer story for a later day. I will say the Duster and I made it to Manhattan, and I learned the valuable life lesson that good suggestions can come from unlikely sources (in particular, if you ever find yourself in need of transmission repairs in Dixon, Illinois, do not discount the recommendation from the Assistant Night Manager of the local Round Table Pizza). For now, here is what I know about the Duster’s history before and after its cross-country duty:

The Blue Duster rolled off the line at the Chrysler Los Angeles assembly plant in July of 1970, the first year Plymouth produced the Duster model and the only year it was identified as a “Valiant Duster.” The car was transported by truck to Ray Ghilardi’s Stockton Chrysler-Plymouth in Stockton, California, and displayed on the showroom floor. That Labor Day weekend, Alfonso Joseph Martin—“A.J.” to his co-workers, “Fonce” to his family and close friends--decided to celebrate his 60th birthday by buying a new car, one he could pay off before his retirement. He stopped at the Chrysler-Plymouth dealership because it was the car lot nearest his job as a machinist at Corando Machine Works; he picked the Duster because it was the first car he saw when he walked through the door. Mr. Martin drove the car for the next ten years or so—to San Francisco Giants games at Candlestick Park, on vacations to a local lake, and on at least one extended trip to visit his wife’s family in Louisiana. When he fell ill, his wife, Fern, assumed the driver’s seat, learning to drive in her mid-sixties so she could visit him at a local long-term care facility. Fern drove until she was in her early eighties and then bequeathed the Duster to her youngest son, with one condition: that he never sell the car to “some hot-rodder kid” who would chop up her beloved Plymouth. Her son drove the car for a few years before parking challenges in San Francisco convinced him to sell. When I responded to an online ad and met him to look at the car, his first words to me were, “Well, at least you don’t look like a hot-rodder.”

Once my Lincoln Highway adventure ended, I pointed the Duster north, determined to follow through with this car on the plan I had failed to execute with the Gran Sedan after my Route 66 trip. The journey ended at Mike Mancini’s American Muscle Car Restoration, Inc., where Mike and his automotive magicians restored the Duster to a ridiculously high-level of showroom quality. The little “grocery-getter” Duster spent two years winning awards at MOPAR and other auto shows, and was featured in periodicals such as MOPAR Action and MOPAR Muscle. I have never had the courage to add up the invoices I paid in having the Blue Duster restored. I suspect they would total more than I paid for my house, which is just fine; as a friend once told me, you can’t drive your house, but you can always live in your car.