J.W. Burleson photo / Boquillas del Carmen, Coah.

PHB

My photo
Brooklin, Maine, United States
We own a 1975 GMC Sierra Grande 15 in Maine and a 1986 Chevrolet Custom Deluxe 10 in West Texas. Also a pair of 1997 Volvo 850 wagons. Average age in the fleet is 28 years--we're recycling. I've published 3 novels: THE LAW OF DREAMS (2006), THE O'BRIENS (2012), and CARRY ME (2016). Also 2 short story collections: NIGHT DRIVING(1987) and TRAVELLING LIGHT (2013). More of my literary life is at www.peterbehrens.org I was a Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study for 2012-13. I'm an adjunct professor at Colorado College and in the MFA program at Queens University of Charlotte. In 2015-16 I was a Fellow at Harvard University's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. The Autoliterate office is in Car Talk Plaza in Harvard Square, 2 floors above Dewey Cheatem & Howe. SUBSCRIBE TO THE AUTOLITERATE DAILY EMAIL by hitting the button to the right.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

One Morning in Maine

I met this 1930 Ford Model A Town Sedan outside the post office in Brooklin, Maine. It's a nearly-original car. Richard Hero, the owner, says his father bought it from the original owner in 1959.



The o.o. took delivery of the car in 1930 in Westborough, Mass. (BTW, Autoliterate found another 1930 Model A, a Cabriolet, in Nova Scotia a couple of weks back.) When the Heros got the sedan, it wore a layer of grey housepaint; the car was repainted its original colors in the mid-1970s.



The body has never been off the frame: all the welds are still there. It has been in Maine since 2006.
      If you've been following Autoliterate, you're aware we have a weakness for trucks, especially clean old Western machines. This International Harvester KB-5 was spotted at McVay's Garage in Blue Hill, Maine but it was wearing a South Dakota plate and, from the age and condition, we suspect it spent most of its life out there on the dry plains. Looks like a grain truck box, except there's no little door in the back to slide grain out of. It  probably was a farm truck, though; perhaps used for hauling livestock?


International Harvester's  K and KB trucks were introduced in the mid 1940s. In total there were 42 models, 142 different wheelbase lengths and load ratings ranging from 1/2 ton to 90,000 lbs. Acording to Wiki, the machines were known for durability, prewar design in a postwar era, and low price. The followup to the K, the KB, was introduced in 1947, with the characteristic difference being a widened lower grill appearing like "wings". The KB series went all the way up to KB-14.








And there's a graveyard of International Harvester KB's up in...where else? Saskatchewan. That prairie province seems to be the old truck center of the universe.


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