VW Bus Nut Man Cave

My infatuation with cars began at a very early age. By 12 or 13, my dad would allow me to drive his ’57 DeSoto on the gravel driveway around my grandparents’ farm. At 15, I completed my first paid auto body repair project on a friend’s car in my dad’s garage. And by high school, I was driving a 348-powered ’59 Chevy convertible that was painted Daytona Blue in a converted chicken coop.

In 1966, Uncle Sam shipped me to Gelnhausen, Germany in a mechanized infantry battalion where I could use my skills to support our military presence there. After attending a couple of advanced training courses, I was assigned to a maintenance platoon repairing everything from Jeeps and deuce-and-a-halfs through light tracked vehicles. My daily driver was a Chrysler-powered M113 personnel carrier that could reach 60mph on pavement.