Down On the Farm: The General's Troops Wait For Orders In Wisconsin

Murilee Martin
by Murilee Martin

I was born in Minnesota, my wife is from Wisconsin, and I have a job that ships me to the Upper Midwest several times per year. For all these reasons, I find myself in Door County every summer, eating cheese curds, drinking Spotted Cow, and going to vintage tractor shows. Last year, on my way to becoming a card-carrying Bitters Club member on Washington Island, I spotted these old General Motors survivors sitting in a field.

Looks like a couple of early postwar Chevy pickups and a GMC COE winch truck from the same era.

They’re not terribly rusty (for Wisconsin), which suggests that someone still cares for them.

And why not? A farm truck is still useful, whether it’s five years old or 65.






Murilee Martin
Murilee Martin

Murilee Martin is the pen name of Phil Greden, a writer who has lived in Minnesota, California, Georgia and (now) Colorado. He has toiled at copywriting, technical writing, junkmail writing, fiction writing and now automotive writing. He has owned many terrible vehicles and some good ones. He spends a great deal of time in self-service junkyards. These days, he writes for publications including Autoweek, Autoblog, Hagerty, The Truth About Cars and Capital One.

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  • Flipper35 Flipper35 on May 06, 2013

    Looks like you will have to go over it at least a couple times with a clay bar.

  • GoesLikeStink GoesLikeStink on May 06, 2013

    I miss Wisconsin. My family is from Kenosha, Grampa put together AMCs for 30 years. As a kid I loved the 4th of july parades full of AMXs and old Jeeps. Then Fireworks on lake Michigan. I still have an aunt in Racine, home of Briggs and Stratton and Snap-On. And my uncle might still be a bouncer at a strip club out near the Dells. (He is the white sheep among my 3 Wisconsin uncles)

  • ToolGuy Is the idle high? How many codes are behind the check engine light? How many millions to address the traction issue? What's the little triangular warning lamp about?
  • Ajla Using an EV for going to landfill or parking at the bad shopping mall or taking a trip to Sex Cauldron. Then the legacy engines get saved for the driving I want to do. 🤔
  • SaulTigh Unless we start building nuclear plants and beefing up the grid, this drive to electrification (and not just cars) will be the destruction of modern society. I hope you love rolling blackouts like the US was some third world failed state. You don't support 8 billion people on this planet without abundant and relatively cheap energy.So no, I don't want an electric car, even if it's cheap.
  • 3-On-The-Tree Lou_BCone of many cars I sold when I got commissioned into the army. 1964 Dodge D100 with slant six and 3 on the tree, 1973 Plymouth Duster with slant six, 1974 dodge dart custom with a 318. 1990 Bronco 5.0 which was our snowboard rig for Wa state and Whistler/Blackcomb BC. Now :my trail rigs are a 1985 Toyota FJ60 Land cruiser and 86 Suzuki Samurai.
  • RHD They are going to crash and burn like Country Garden and Evergrande (the Chinese property behemoths) if they don't fix their problems post-haste.
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