Antique automobiles

When I was growing up in Norfolk, VA, we had a Model "T" Ford in the garage and either a Maxwell or a Model "A" in the driveway. I played basketball every day in the space between them.

The soon familiar sight and oily smell of them belong as much to my childhood memories as our trampoline,

Little League baseball,

and our dachshund Snoopy (right).

When my father when wasn't working as the chaplain at O.D.U., coaching my Little League baseball team, or singing in an operetta (here  as Ko-Ko with Carlotta Bell as Katisha in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado),

he went into the garage and worked on restoring his precious 1926 "T". Several times we journeyed up to Hershey, PA, to go to the annual car show together, where we saw Dusenbergs, Stutz Bearcats and straight-eight Jaguars, all of which I collected or built as small models. Antique cars were a big part of my life.

So when I had the opportunity to go to an antique automobile show right up the road in Ludwigsburg this past weekend, I jumped at the chance. This year the show featured the Rolls Royce, which is a car I only came to appreciate as an adult (as most of the 99% do!).

I spoke with some of the owners, smelled the oil and grease of the cars and felt transported back to my childhood!

What I ended up really enjoying were the details of the nicely restored cars. The nice interior of the Ford reminded me of the horse-drawn coaches one sees on castle grounds here in Germany.

Remember the days when ashtrays were also found in the back of the car?

This is what my father's old "T" looked like from the front...

...and from the inside.

And had he had time to restore his Model "A" before we moved to Indiana, it might have looked like this.

This man also had a Model "A" and was quite a fan of the U.S. See his stars-and-stripes suspenders? Do you recognize what he is drinking?

After I changed photographing with the 8mm fish-eye and changed to the 70-200mm lens, I began looking at the automobiles with different eyes.

They became bodies with beautiful shapes and lines.

The parts of the cars are sometimes recognizable and sometimes ar(en')t.