When we produced our first issue of the then-Alfa Romeo Market Letter, I was 38 years old and had never had children.
Now, more than three decades later, I have watched my daughter, Alexandra, and my son, Bradley, grow and prosper in this car-centric household.
They both started their automotive relationships early. At nine months, Alex was standing in the 1947 Siata Nardi Zagato that her mother, Cindy Banzer, and I drove in the 1992 Mille Miglia Storica.
Bradley, at three days old in 2007, rode home from the hospital in a vintage Mini Cooper S. His car seat fit neatly in the rear.
I have pictures of both children at about the same age, 16 years apart, in our grigio mare 1965 Alfa Giulia Spider Veloce. (Later, Alex drove that car on the NW Classic Rally.)
Family pit crew
On a more recent memory-making trip, Alexandra, her partner Ross, Bradley and I created our own mini-caravan. The destination was Astoria, on the Oregon Coast, for fish and chips.
Alex and Ross were in our 1965 Volvo 122S with its antediluvian Borg-Warner 3-speed automatic transmission. Bradley and I claimed the 1971 Jaguar V12 E-type. It too had a B-W “slushbox,” but the 272 horsepower of the V12 made up for the deficiencies of the transmission in a way the 86 hp of the 122 could only fantasize about.
What could possibly go wrong? It was a sunny day, the route using Highway 26 was simple, and the cars were both fully fettled.
Let’s just say it became another Martin family adventure when the rear exhaust bracket support on the Jag failed and the tailpipes began dragging on the ground. At the same time, the idle began to creep up.
Alex and Ross showed SCM-style initiative by finding a nearby NAPA and returning with baling wire and a pair of needle-nose pliers. While they rehung the exhaust, Bradley was under the bonnet of the Jag, adjusting the four Strombergs in the manner that his teacher, Ed Grayson of Consolidated Autoworks, had instructed him.
Soon enough all was well, and we were back on the road.
The cars and challenges themselves are not important. It was the opportunities for experiences that give them value.
We each have our own path
I never knew or met my father; he abandoned my mother before I was born, and despite repeated attempts on my part, refused to connect with me. I assume he has passed by now.
My grandparents took me in as a newborn and raised me. I only recently reflected on the momentousness of this decision. I picture my mom at the age of 20, with a child and no partner. I could have been put up for adoption.
I was fortunate indeed that Thomas and Dorel McDowell stepped in and accepted the responsibilities from which my biological father had fled.
Without them, my life certainly would have played out differently.
Driving at 8
My infatuation with machinery began with Gramps. He had a gentleman’s farm of a few acres in Novato, CA, at the time a small town an hour from our home in San Francisco.
We spent weekends and summers there, where he tended to the Bartlett pear orchards and vegetable gardens. He was originally from a family of alfalfa growers in Cozad, NE, and nothing gave him more pleasure than to watch things grow in the fertile California soil.
Every Saturday morning, Gramps would fire up his Ford 9N tractor and perch me on the nose, with the radiator cap as my handhold. I recall the vibration of the engine and the heat that rose from it in the cold mornings.
He would explain to me the attachments he was using, whether disc, plow, scoop or flatbed. We would spend the next few hours working the farm as he talked with me about everything from the right way to graft multiple types of plums onto a single tree to when a plow was better to use than a disc.
When I was 8 years old, he taught me to drive the tractor. I recall the hand-throttle with its notches. He showed me how to attach the rear flatbed, and I spent hours, unattended, dragging it around the farm to smooth the dirt. Especially important were the areas under the walnut trees.
My job was to take a long two-by-four and whack the walnut branches, shaking the nuts out of their opened green husks. Picking them up from the manicured dirt was easy.
Grandma and Gramps are long gone now, as are my mother and her two brothers.
But each time I gather my children with me and set off on another adventure, I think about my grandfather and the trust he had in me to watch me start the tractor, slide the hand throttle to the lowest level, depress the clutch, engage first gear and set off across the orchard.
My grandfather started me on a never-ending adventure, which continues to this day.
As a reader of SCM, I am sure you have your own stories with your partners and your children. Keep in mind that all of you will remember the memories you are making, forever.
Let’s celebrate the magic and the mystery and the one-of-a-kind lives that motorcars have created for all of us. ♦