![]() It was a two barrel, 390, non-air conditioned car, very plebeian, nothing much, but the body still spelled NASCAR to me when I looked at it. It was an intact car, fairly straight, but it had the Marauder package on it. We struck up a deal for $1,500 for the body. It had escaped two auctions and I called the owner, who happened to be a car dealer in a nearby town. SD: The car was found via eBay, an unlikely vehicle for me to buy a car because normally you don’t get to inspect what you’ve bought unless you have enough money to fly there, but this was a local car. TG: Talk to me about the way and the state in which you found this car? Whether this was mine or not, I’d still get excited if I saw it. It’s not so much a reflection on me, but it’s just the piece itself. The hard work of taking something that looks like absolute dog crap and bringing it to a finished product that can be seen and enjoyed by all, I have a lot of fun too watching everybody else enjoy it. I bought him lunch and he told me all of the things that they would do and not do.įrom an academic standpoint it’s been an interesting project to involve myself in. The man was still alive and he came to my shop. He was also kind enough to give me one of the chassis builders of the day’s name. Later when I proposed the project, I interviewed the man’s son that built the cars for Ford, Bill Stroppe Jr and was more or less given his blessing and he gave me photographs of his father that I was able to scale details out of. ![]() SD: No, it did stick out in that all of these large cars were on a road course, which impressed me as being ungainly looking, but yet capable of driving aggressively. ![]() TG: Did the Marauder stick out to you at the time or did you discover it later on and it jogged your memory? At that age I was aware of the place and when I became of driving age, my friends and I would drive there and witness the races of the day, of which I’ve recreated one of the cars that I saw race back then. All of these things rolled into me going to Riverside Raceway. Which I thought was quite the coincidence. TG: Which sat next to your car at the Art Center. I was 11 years old and observed the Scarab of Peter Revson. That same year I went to the LA Times Grand Prix in 1958. It was very telling in that I knew I was hooked. He sold race tires for Firestone and took me to a man’s shop close by where I live now, who had constructed a Indianapolis race car and allowed me to sit in it. As a child I built car models and then was introduced to the car world by one of my friend’s fathers. They just didn’t cover cars back then and my mother knew I was strange. I used to keep my pedal car covered with a sheet. I was always interested in cars from a very early age. Steve Dauria: I grew up here in Southern California. What can you tell me about how you got here today? Ted Gushue: You strike me as someone that’s seen a lot of life, Steve. Steve and I got in touch and as we chit-chatted about what he was up to in his little garage in Monrovia, I knew that it was going to make a tremendous story to share alongside the film. What’s his cane made out of you might wonder? A used titanium hip joint he bought off a doctor pal of his. Standing next to his car he carries an interesting looking cane for reasons we’ll get to further down in the story. It was a simple, honest Mercury that looked like it had more than a few tricks left up its sleeve. Unlike them it wasn’t a car penned by Bertone, Vignale, or Giugiaro. It stood out from the crowd of hand built tributes to the European design legends. I shook Steve Dauria’s hand for the first time after I saw his car at the Art Center Car Classic. It’s not overbearing or intimidating, more reassuring in the sense that even in the face of uncertainty, everything is going to be ok. ![]() You know that feeling you get when you shake someone’s hand and can immediately tell that they’ve seen and done more than most men will ever experience? It’s a certain texture, a firmness to the grip, an honesty to the calluses.
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