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.

More by Murilee Martin

Comments
Join the conversation
2 of 10 comments
  • 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)

  • 1995 SC I will say that year 29 has been a little spendy on my car (Motor Mounts, Injectors and a Supercharger Service since it had to come off for the injectors, ABS Pump and the tool to cycle the valves to bleed the system, Front Calipers, rear pinion seal, transmission service with a new pan that has a drain, a gaggle of capacitors to fix the ride control module and a replacement amplifier for the stereo. Still needs an exhaust manifold gasket. The front end got serviced in year 28. On the plus side blank cassettes are increasingly easy to find so I have a solid collection of 90 minute playlists.
  • MaintenanceCosts My own experiences with, well, maintenance costs:Chevy Bolt, ownership from new to 4.5 years, ~$400*Toyota Highlander Hybrid, ownership from 3.5 to 8 years, ~$2400BMW 335i Convertible, ownership from 11.5 to 13 years, ~$1200Acura Legend, ownership from 20 to 29 years, ~$11,500***Includes a new 12V battery and a set of wiper blades. In fairness, bigger bills for coolant and tire replacement are coming in year 5.**Includes replacement of all rubber parts, rebuild of entire suspension and steering system, and conversion of car to OEM 16" wheel set, among other things
  • Jeff Tesla should not be allowed to call its system Full Self-Driving. Very dangerous and misleading.
  • Slavuta America, the evil totalitarian police state
  • Steve Biro I have news for everybody: I don't blame any of you for worrying about the "gummint" monitoring you... but you should be far more concerned about private industry doing the same thing.
Next