[Fot] Don Stanford: The Red Car

[Justin Wagner]

Okay... so, as I mentioned in a prior post, I recently acquired this 
book off the internet after looking for it in used book stores for 
something like over 10 years! (After a Triumph newsgroup member 
mentioned the book and put out a request for it!)

Today, I finally sat down and read the book!   I felt I had to read it 
before shipping it off to one of my nephews!

What a great story!  It really took me back to my early days of 
discovering auto mechanics and tinkering on my first car at the age of 
15.  My own father wasn't that much different than the main character 
Hap's father.    He distanced himself from my work on the car and word 
was, he thought it would just be a good experience for me to tinker on 
the car, only to have the unfinished project sold off in a few months.  
He was right that it would be a good experience, he was wrong to think 
it would never be done.  A year later, the car was on the street, 
registered, and ready for his now 16 year old son to drive! 

I even had a moment with my father where he said my Triumph was only 
good for parades and shouldn't be driven on the highways.  I talked my 
dad into taking a drive in my car.   He drove it a few blocks and I 
couldn't take it.  He was going 25 mph in 3rd hear!  He was driving it 
like it was a Model A.   I took over the driver's seat and drove him to 
a straight away just a block from our home.  I asked him to be sure his 
seat belt was tight and just as he said it was, I floored it.  I chirped 
it into second, throwing his head back.  I chirped it into third, 
throwing his head back again. Before he knew it, I was in fourth going 
about 110 mph just as I downshifted and brought the car to a stop.   
Then I asked him if he still thought my car was only good for parades.  
And then I started to realize what I had just done... I had just driven 
like a maniac with my father in the car on a residential street near our 
house!  I wasn't sure what was going to come next!  He just sat there 
for a moment, got his bearings, took an overdue breath, exhaled, and 
asked, "Can we do that again?"    (I'm sure I shared that story here 
before, but it never gets old!)

And while I never had an old salt of a mechanic to teach me, like the 
character Frenchy, he certainly resembles a composite of men I looked up 
to in my youth.  And, yes, I had an older brother  that  I learned a lot 
from before I flipped it around and started teaching him!  : )

I have no doubt that I would have loved this book back then!  And I 
would highly recommend the book for grand kids, nephews, etc.  Or to 
adults that could use a lesson that might help them to understand the 
attraction to these beasts.

The book stands up to the 21st century pretty well.   The fact that 
there's no cell phones, Ipods, computers, etc. etc. in the story isn't 
even an issue.  And the dialogue isn't so full of out dated vocabulary 
that it draws attention to itself.  The main character, "the Red Car" is 
presented as an older model MG, so it just reads as an old British car.  
That 60 years has passed doesn't really matter.   About the only thing 
thing that might need a reality check for a young teen reading the book 
is that an old MG TC, with a little damage, isn't going to sell for 
$50.00.  And a $400 college fund isn't going to buy even the first 
semester's books!   Etc. 

Too bad it was published in 1954!   He probably wrote the book long 
before it was published.   If he had only waited a little longer, 
perhaps a TR2 would have been in the mix of the wonderful cars 
highlighted in the story.

--Justin Wagner