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From Bruce Ludemann, Tripod Controller:

Greetings from the office of the Beancounter. As I write this letter, the snow is gently falling in Billsville. While I personally enjoy the winter season, the first snow is the signal of the end of one my favorite hobbies, muscle car rag-topping. Yep, if you've read the Tripod staff pages recently, you will have discovered that I am a "Motor-Head."

The year was 1968; I was seven years old and lived in Brooklyn, NY. In 1968 gas was cheap, $.27 per gallon, and the cars were built big and strong. My next door neighbor had a new Mustang convertible, and I grabbed a ride from him whenever I could. There was something special about rag-topping in a muscle car through the streets of Brooklyn. I was hooked. There was only one problem: No one in my family shared my addiction. Worse yet, the family was moving to Long Island, far away from my neighbor's Mustang.

As the years passed, so did my passion. In the late '70s the alleged "gas crisis" hit, and fuel prices skyrocketed. With that, Detroit scrambled to build smaller, more fuel-efficient cars to compete with the imports. And so the muscle car era ended. Bummer. In some sort of a weird irony, at that same time a good friend of mine, Ed Mesloh, introduced me to his father's hobby -- rebuilding classic cars. Mr. Mesloh was not a muscle car guy at that time. He rebuilt cars manufactured during the the 1920s through the 1940s. When he was done, it was as if they had just come right off the production line. I swear, Ed saw a light bulb go on over my head when I first went to the garage. So, after graduating college and working for a few years, I finally bought a beat-up 1968 Ford Mustang Convertible in 1987.

In the spring of 1996, the final restoration work was completed. It was a long frustrating process, but well worth the time and effort. Don't get me wrong -- I did the work in bits and pieces over those nine years, and drove the car quite a bit. But now it is done. It was such a pleasure to drive it all spring, summer, and fall in the Berkshires. My greatest joy came when I took it to Cape Cod this summer -- cruising at 70 mph with the top down for four hours to join up with my family. When I arrived, my two year-old nephew Dan greeted me and was in awe of the rag-top muscle car. All week long, he wanted to drive Uncle Bruce's car. I finally had someone in my family to share the passion with, and it felt great. By the end of the week, Dan had started referring to the car as "Dan's car." Who knows? Someday it just might be.

Cheers,
Bruce

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