Jenny King / Special to The Detroit News
This stunning 1927 Peerless Model 6-90 has a boattail design and a 70-horsepower six-cylinder engine.
Couple's vintage auto museum is an enviable accomplishment
By Jenny King / Special to The Detroit News
RIO RANCHO, N.M. -- Evonna and Gab Joiner have managed an enviable accomplishment. The New Mexico couple have collected, restored to perfection, driven everywhere and put on display an amazing variety of special cars and trucks.
Their 80-some vehicles are in or around the J & R Vintage Auto Museum here about 10 minutes north of Albuquerque, a few miles west of I-25.
The automotive family includes the ratty 1918 Ford Model T pickup that Gab Joiner bought for $45 back in 1959. The "truck" was originally a touring car, the owners say.
It is surrounded by the likes of four Marmons, some very unusual light and medium-duty trucks, a two-tone 1931 Reo Royale, a Rickenbacker and a Peerless from the 1920s, and the only surviving 1948 Ford convertible custom-built for work in the Sleeping Bear Dunes Scenic Rides 10-vehicle fleet near Glen Lake, Mich.
The Joiners had been deeply involved in collectible cars for 30 years when Evonna and her friend Melba Anderson signed up to drive in their first cross-country rally. While they had to drop out of that race, they completed a second attempt in late 1988, making the "Golden Girls" the first female team to finish the Great Race. They completed the two-week, 4,700-mile course from Disneyland to Boston in a 1931 Ford Model A cabriolet.
Their husbands, who had manned the required support vehicle, switched roles and drove a 1931 Reo Speedwagon in 1989, while Melba and Evonna followed them in a modern car, Evonna says. Typically race vehicles are trailered to the starting point, and often trailered home again after the race.
"We did better than the guys in our first race," she adds.
The Ford and Reo are among 12 vehicles in the collection that have competed in races. The 1917 Marmon was the top winner in the 1995 Great American race. It, and other athletic competitors like the 1932 Hupmobile and the 1931 Packard with rumble seat and lime-green wheels, look new and could almost be mistaken for trailer princesses.
The 1931 Reo Royale, restored by the Joiners, was expensive for the company to build. A smaller luxury car, it couldn't compete with the large cars in this category.
|
Gab Joiner, with experienced assistants in a large shop attached to the museum, continues to restore vehicles. He is especially fond of trucks, Evonna says, and managed to add an unusual Buffalo, New York-built 1935 Buddy Stewart half-ton and a 1923 chain-driven Mack to his automotive family.
The Joiners like to put their vehicles on the road. That was true 50 years ago, when they began using the 1918 Model T pickup. Beginning in 1990, the husband-wife team has driven together in Great Races in a 1931 Ford Model A roadster; a 1932 Packard cabriolet; a 1932 Hupmobile (two years); a 1917 Marmon (four years), and a 1934 Ford roadster.
They say they are planning to take the beautiful '32 Packard in the 2009 Great Race from Tacoma, Wash. to Haverhill, Mass.
The Great Race is a street-legal rally on public highways. Vehicles must be able to attain highway speeds and have 12-volt electrical systems, turn signals, modern brakes and overdrive, Evonna says.
"The speedometer and clock are all you have," she says.
In addition to the precision that rallying demands and the fun of driving antique vehicles long distances, the Joiners enjoy the camaraderie of touring.
"We've made everlasting friends on tours and in races," Evonna Joiner says.
There are two fold-down outside jumpseats available to courageous passengers on this 1922 aluminum-bodied Marmon Speedster with its 80-horsepower six with three-speed transmission. Marmons moved to extensive use of aluminum by 1916.
|
