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.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Free Spirit and 30 knots NW in Center Harbor



I watched Jon WilsonSherry Streeter and Free Spirit peeling off their mooring, while Center Harbor was wild at 20-25 knots NW,  gusts to 30. When it blows NW in our part of the world--which happens with increasing frequency and intensity in late summer and fall--Center Harbor is exposed and rocking.  


Spanish Land Rover 1964


It's in Illinois and up for auction this week at B-A-T


Monday, August 29, 2016

Walter Gropius house, Brooklin ME

 
Let's all go back to the Bauhaus. Gropius brought a non-trophy-home aesthetic with this 1947 house that pays heed to its surroundings and refuses to be the elephant in the room. 


Saturday, August 27, 2016

Iveco World Cruiser, Banff

from Alex Emond in Banff: "The dogs and I, out on dawn patrol, saw this tidy, rugged unit. I walked back with the camera and took these shots. I'm impressed, especially when you compare this to some of the crazy rolling mansions that come through town. Some are so huge I swear they must have a basement."-AE
Autoliterate: German plates. They like to wander. This one looks like a world traveler. Compare to the Australian-built Mitsubishi Earth Cruisers we saw at Big Bend NP.





Friday, August 26, 2016

1960 International Harvester Sightliner ACO IHC Sightliner ACO-195

 It's on ebay. Looks like a turnkey truck, ready to roll.

1948 Chrysler Windsor Traveler

 It's for sale. In Vermont. Today. Check B-A-T. Perfect car for road trip. Not many were made between 1946-48 and this looks like a very clean well-restored specimen. Roofrack by Chris-Craft...perhaps.

Tuesday, August 23, 2016

More Rockabillies from Wolfeville, NS

 Nova Scotia is an alternate universe.
 




1962 Falcon Ranchero

The Falcon-based Ranchero. Kinda cool. It's for sale. Details at B-A-T.


Monday, August 22, 2016

1972 Ford Country Squire & German Dreams (& Carry Me)

What is it like to drive a 1972 Ford Country Sedan around Germany's most famous--and the world's most dangerous--racetrack?
Is that a question you never thought you'd ask?
The answer is here. 
The German obsession with big wide American wagons is an extension of the German obsession with big wide open American space:
“...So there I was, in Chicago,” said Knesebeck, “soon heading out on Route 66 towards the South, doing the great American Roadtrip in a classic V8 land yacht. It was an incredible adventure. Apart from a fuel tank leak I got plugged at a small garage in Memphis, Lucille provided trouble-free transportation for me and my girlfriend over three weeks of road-tripping...”
It all goes back to Karl May and the Winnetou stories. And you can read all about that in my new novel CARRY ME, which includes the primal German roadtrip, from NYC to Texas and across el Llano Estacado

"Carry Me is almost as dreamlike as its desert setting." —The National Post.

“[CARRY ME] is both poetry and cartography . . . . Behrens has mined truths so skillfully that in reading they can slip by unnoticed; they’re never glaring or contrived. They leave the reader with a feeling Billy describes as he’s driving across Germany . . . . Great writing keeps readers on this threshold, in liminal space, wanting to know and understand more than literature or life will allow, anxious for the next big lesson. CARRY ME is full of this kind of searching, characters looking for a way to map their lives against war and love and change.” —Heidi Sistare, Portland Press Herald







Sunday, August 21, 2016

Rockabilly: the Kustoms of Nova Scotia, Part 1.


 

From Stephen Hendrickson, in Nova Scotia via our East Bay (California) correspondant, Michael Moore: "We're in Avonport, outside of Wolfville, NS. It's on the west side, facing the Bay of Fundy. Facing what's called the Minas Basin. Absolutely gorgeous and cool clear days. Going to dinner in a winery tonight. My old friend Neil Jampolis, a theater designer and teacher at UCLA has his summer house here. The Rockabilly car show seems to be announced from his sign on the 20 and 21st. It's on route 358 out of Wolfville towards Scots Bay, but closer to Wolfville than Scots Bay. A fun discovery today on the way to the cliffs of Scots Bay--" SH
I'm guessing a c.1960 Dodge was the raw material here.





Thursday, August 18, 2016

Citroën of Deer Isle Maine.


Don't ask why or how. It's enough that they're there. Haven't seen one of those Citroën HY vans since Wassenaar. Craig Manning has sent some HY's from Paris. Guido Goluke caught this Citroën stake truck in the Ardennes.