My Favorite Ride: Well-intended columnist doesn't always get it right

What to do with a car columnist who misidentifies a car every so often? 

I never claimed to be an expert in the world of automobiles, just a writer who volunteered, more than 20 years ago, to tell some car stories. And has yet to run out of them.

Vehicles vintage, new, rusting away, rare, cherished, priceless, worthless. The occasional objet d'art.

Hidden away in falling-down barns, stored inside temperature-controlled garages, buried amid mud and fallen trees, parked out in the driveway.

Earlier this month, My Favorite Ride ran pictures of some cars, and a truck, that appeared on a Wednesday morning in a classic car tour passing through Bloomington. I asked readers to help me identify them. Like always, you came through.

First report:My Favorite Ride: When Jim Allison calls with tip about cars, heed advice and grab camera

Follow up:My Favorite Ride: Those vehicles that got away

Bill Mingee called me at home first thing on a Saturday and let me know that the shiny red truck pictured with the column online was a 1966 Ford.

(For those of you who don't see the online version of My Favorite Ride, it usually has multiple pictures; six this week. The print edition often has just one, maybe two.)

Then there was that mid-1930s cream-colored car that I called an Auburn, but that Ralph Gaebler pointed out is likely a 1934 Plymouth. I compared the car from the tour to some old Auburn and Plymouth photos online. It was the slope of the grille and those majestic skirted fenders that gave it away.

When I make mistakes such as this, people usually are pretty kind when they set me straight. "I think I can help you identify the cream colored sedan pictured in your article today," Gaebler wrote.

"You identified it as an Auburn, but I think it's a 1933 or 1934 Plymouth, probably 1934. It's definitely a Plymouth. The reason I think this particular car is a 1934 is that the fenders dip low in front, almost down to the front bumper."

Much of what I don't know about old cars I learn from readers. For instance: "The only car with skirted fenders in 1932 was the Graham Blue Streak. And skirted fenders disappeared from American cars in 1935." I thank Gaebler for these bits of automotive knowledge, which enhance my car-writer persona. 

I also heard from David Willibey, who signed his email "your faithful reader." He is that; I hear from him often when I am stumped by a car. Willibey took a stab at identifying all of the vehicles in the photo that ran in the print edition of the paper, even the ones barely visible.

"The blue car in front is a 1949 Mercury. I can tell by the parking lights. The yellow truck behind is a 1956 Ford, as it looks to have a wrap-around windshield. The reddish car is a pure guess, maybe a 1962 or 1963 Chevy, but it is definitely a 2-door hard top. The black car in the rear is something out of the early 1950s with a sun visor."

I'm left wondering about the years of manufacture of the magnificent royal blue Cord and the green-with-black Hupmobile seen that day. Anyone?

Also, I got a message from Frank and Cindi, who were driving a lemon-sherbet-yellow 1954 Chevy on the tour. I don't know their last name, but have their phone number and am on the story.

While My Favorite Ride has attracted many devoted readers over the past two decades, I realize not everyone is a fan. There are people who question the newsworthiness of what a recent letter to the editor in The Herald-Times complained is "an extensive article with photos on rusting old cars."

Ouch.

I get it. There are more important topics to write about: crime, war, inequality, climate change, nature, education, politics, poverty, health care, homelessness, jails, business, the arts, COVID-19. As a small-town newspaper reporter, I write about all of these things.

My Favorite Ride? It's an escape from the difficult and hard-hitting news that surrounds us every day. It's a drive along a country road on a blue-sky October afternoon, convertible top down, wind in your hair. It's getting away, just for a short while, before steering back into the mire.

Have a story to tell about a car? Contact Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com, 812-331-4362, 812-318-5967 or send a letter to My Favorite Ride, 1900 S. Walnut St., Bloomington, Indiana, 47401.