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)

  • Fred I had a 2009 S-line mine was chipped but otherwise stock. I still say it was the best "new" car I ever had. I wanted to get the new A3, but it was too expensive, didn't come with a hatch and no manual.
  • 3-On-The-Tree If Your buying a truck like that your not worried about MPG.
  • W Conrad I'd gladly get an EV, but I can't even afford anything close to a new car right now. No doubt if EV's get more affordable more people will be buying them. It is a shame so many are stuck in their old ways with ICE vehicles. I realize EV's still have some use cases that don't work, but for many people they would work just fine with a slightly altered mindset.
  • Master Baiter There are plenty of affordable EVs--in China where they make all the batteries. Tesla is the only auto maker with a reasonably coherent strategy involving manufacturing their own cells in the United States. Tesla's problem now is I think they've run out of customers willing to put up with their goofy ergonomics to have a nice drive train.
  • Cprescott Doesn't any better in red than it did in white. Looks like an even uglier Honduh Civic 2 door with a hideous front end (and that is saying something about a Honduh).
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