Guest Blogger - Darrel Boyd

It Is Just A Car - Right? A story about good intentions, neglect, and love.

Darrel Boyd

Who Is Darrel Boyd?

Every so often on Substack you come across someone whose writing you'd have sought out anyway, quite apart from any subject it happens to land on. Darrel Boyd is one of those people for me. We found each other the way most good things happen on this platform, not by design, just by two people writing honestly and somebody noticing. Darrel became a subscriber to my own Substack and to JKTalla not long ago, and in the short time since, he's become one of those correspondents whose notes I actually look forward to.

He's generous in the way that costs a person something, the kind of generosity that shows up in how carefully he reads, not just in a kind word left under a post. His own Substack, dB's Corner, is worth your time whether or not you care a jot about cars. He writes poetry, short fiction, and memoir in roughly equal measure, and he moves between them without ever losing his own voice.

He'll give you a coming-of-age memory one week and a piece of social commentary in verse the next, and somehow both feel like they came from the same honest place. What draws me back isn't any one piece; it's the sense that he's writing toward something real each time, usually family, usually love, usually the quiet cost of holding on to either.

Which brings me to why he's here, on a classic car blog, of all places. Darrel's kindly agreed to let me share one of his stories with you, a piece about a 1970 Mach 1 Mustang he bought as a teenager with money he'd earned doing farm work, the car he taught his girlfriend Suzanne to drive in, and the one that then sat neglected for decades before his brother Randy quietly spent five years restoring it as an anniversary surprise.

It's a story about a car in the way my own pieces here are about cars, which is to say, not really. It's about what we let go of, what other people keep for us without being asked, and what it feels like when it comes back. I'm proud to have it here. Read Darrel, and you'll understand why I'm glad he's a friend. You'll find dB's Corner at darrelboyd.substack.com, and I'd start with the Mustang story below. 

dB and Suzanne the day of the surprise, 2019

To say I struggled with my first car from a mechanical point of view would be to say I shared an equal deficit of money and mechanical desire. My dad, LeRoy, did the best he could to mentor me in mechanics. He was a Great Depression baby and a WWII vet, and he wanted us kids to be worthy of at least surviving an everyday, simple-catastrophic life situation, let alone a real digger or two as he had gone through. We spent countless hours under our cars, pickups, and tractors, repairing, rebuilding, and cursing every bolt and nut that resisted our efforts, spitting and spewing on a greasy piece of cardboard as the years of use and neglect rained down on our efforts to atone for our maintenance sins.

But I was a young buck coming into my own, and as a youthful outlook would have it, my memory was extremely short-term because I was lobbying my parents for my first car.

So the deal was, a few years before I was to get my license, Mom and Dad told me, “If you buck hay, you’ll earn $500 each summer.” So I bucked hay each year (I knew full well that I would have done it for nothing if they had required it), but after 3 years, I had a theoretical $1,500 to buy my own car, and I wanted a ‘68 Mustang. Not only because it was cool, but also because it was affordable in used-car terms.

After searching for most of a day at every used car lot in Salem, I think LeRoy just got tired and said, “Let’s go back and get that green one.” My eyes popped open like saucers as we cruised back around the Salem city center to the car lot. It was a 1970 Mach 1 with a 351 Cleveland behemoth.

Now, having raised children of my own and getting them through their own driving years, I certainly don’t understand why I was allowed such a car. Since I was the oldest, I guess you could count that as their first mistake. I certainly was not about to complain.

My mom looked at me and said, “You just sit here and be quiet. Roy will talk them down.”

Next thing I knew, Roy handed me the keys.

Then my parents told me to follow them home from Salem to Lebanon — in my first car. I still remember, to this day, listening to the new David Bowie hit on AM radio… “Fame – what’s your name, what’s your name, what’s your name…” a tinny thump coming from a single dash speaker, music against the glowing orange dashboard lights. I let my parents slip ahead of me for a while, and then opened that Mustang up for a bit.

“Holy Crap!”

Then I did my first stupid thing in that car… Well, OK, my second stupid thing.

With my brother Bob sitting by my side in the passenger seat, advising me we “WILL” get caught, I broke off from the family caravan. Instead of turning left to follow my parents, I slowed down so I was way behind them; that way, I could claim I forgot the route. My brother was right, because Mom and Roy never did buy the argument that I forgot the turnoff at Hwy 26 and Brewster Road.

I cruised a roundabout route to the A&W in Lebanon, Oregon, to show off the car to my friend Shawn Perron. Back then, the drive-up stalls with the drive-in speakers were still a thing. In fact, I had worked there for a time. Unlike Shawn, I was not a very good fast-food cook. I could work hard, but working smart was still a bit beyond my capabilities, so farm work seemed to be my best option at the time.

He took a break from his cooking duties to walk out the back and inspect my new car. I highly respected Shawn because he owned a few classic cars as a high school student. He had a convertible Lincoln Continental, a Thunderbird, and an Edsel Station Wagon. Not the coolest high school cars, but cool enough, and he had three cars. I have lots of great memories cruising the streets of Lebanon, Oregon, with him as I was getting the first sniffs of my driver’s license.

Shawn was very frugal; he probably didn’t have $1,500 in the three cars he owned. He asked how much it cost. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. “You spent $1,500 on a car?... You don’t know how to take care of a car this nice.”

He was right, and as it turned out, he was right for many, many years to come.

Over the course of a few short years in high school, I abused that car and then subsequently worked on it non-stop. In hindsight, the car was never the problem. It was the immature, throttle-heavy, young neophyte driving it into the ground. That was the problem.

But then, in the spring of 1976, I met Suzanne. In fact, I’ve written another piece describing our “First Date” in our family farm truck while my beloved Mach 1 was in the garage with parts strewn about it.

Suzanne and the Mach 1; One of our many road trips in 1977

Over the next year or so, I somehow scraped together enough money to fill up the gas tank and go on dates with Suzanne. Cruising the gut in Lebanon was epic, much like scenes from American Graffiti: hanging out at the A&W while watching the muscle cars go by, and burning rubber at the lights when it seemed like the coast was clear.

Suzanne and I were becoming an item. So much so, I started picking her and her sister up in the mornings to drive them to school. I removed the center console and placed a pillow there so Suzanne could sit next to me. Her sister Michele squeezed in beside her—all three of us packed like sardines in the front.

When Suzanne decided to learn how to drive, she frightened her parents so much that they refused to teach her. So she looked at me with those eyes and asked if I would teach her. Of course, the only car I could let her use was my Mach 1, so we set about the driving lessons.

There is no power steering, and it’s a four-speed stick. There were some moments for sure. One particular one was a hill that came to a stop sign near Sodaville. It was not only hard to see to the right, but you had to feather the clutch so the car didn’t roll back.

“Just keep your right foot on the brake and let the clutch out until you feel the car hold. Then give some gas and let the clutch out all the way.”

I must admit she did exactly what I told her to do, except she gave it more than enough gas and kind of popped the clutch.

Screeeeeee — Our heads snapped back, and we were off.

“Sorry,” she said as she gripped the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping her on the planet.

The Mach 1 just before my high school graduation in 1977

When I graduated in 1977, I left the Mach 1 with my folks, as I needed something a little more practical to drive to Phoenix, Arizona, to attend school. I didn’t last six months in Phoenix. Suzanne and I got married and started my three-quarter-decade bachelor’s degree with a first baby on the way. The Mach 1 had not weathered well. Fresh out of college, with a family and not many work opportunities to be found, that poor car lingered as we moved up to the Portland area in 1984.

Over the next few years, Suzanne’s biological father purchased a car lot in Newport, Oregon. They had a Quonset hut and allowed me to keep the car there. After three years of not doing anything with it because I had no money, I was asked to get it out of there. So it ended up in my garage for years. I finally towed it down to my folks’ place again, and there it sat.

One day, around 2003, my parents called me. My dad was having a lot of health issues, and my mom had Parkinson’s. He said they had an offer on the car and wondered if I would like to sell it. I thought about it for a minute, and I said to Roy, “You go ahead and sell it. But I want you and Mom to keep the money.” It was hard to finally let go of that car, but I was struggling between jobs at that time and commuting up to three hours a day to the work I could find. In fact, it was that daily commute where I met my future business partner, Jay. But I’m getting ahead of things.

So, it was sold to a gentleman who had every intention of restoring it, as I did. But over the next ten years, not much happened to the car. My brother Randy mentioned he saw it a couple of times. He said the car was just sitting in a field.

Roy passed away in 2005 after having several health issues, many of which were linked to injuries from the war. In 2013, Mom passed away from complications due to Parkinson’s. The car was the furthest thing from my mind.

Financially, I was doing much better, though. In 2005, just as we were going through all the hospital stays with Roy, I started a business, EleMar Oregon, importing and distributing natural stone slabs with my carpool partner, Jay. We busted our butts for several years, but things were coming together.

Not long after our mother’s death, my brother Randy got a call. It was the gentleman who bought the Mach 1. The way Randy puts it, my parents asked him for first dibs if he ever sold it. Since Mom had passed, he called my brother and offered him first dibs. I’m not sure exactly how the whole deal was structured, because my little brother is one of the finest barterers I’ve ever known, but my brother got the car back.

On my next visit to the folks’ old place, the Mach 1 was sitting in the drive. It was a mess.

“I’m gonna restore it, and it’s gonna be yours,” Randy said.

After telling him multiple times he should keep the car, I finally gave in and said, “Well, for once, I have the money to fix it up. You tell me what you need, and I’ll either send you the cash or go out and find the parts and buy them.” |

And with that, we began a five-year journey. I became a very good customer of CJ Pony, acquiring parts and having them delivered. All the while, my brother and I kept the car a secret from Suzanne; I had plans to surprise her.

Over the next few years, my phone would occasionally buzz with Randy on the other end—many times very late at night. He would be working on that car with drop cords and flashlights. He often told me things like,

“They sent the wrong clutch linkage again. I specifically told them it needed to fit a Cleveland 351, not the Windsor. They sent me another Windsor linkage.”

Eventually, Randy ended up cutting, welding, and machining two Windsor linkages to make one that would fit. He did that sort of thing with the driveline, too. When I asked him if he was sure it would hold up at high RPMs, he laughed. “I’ve fabricated drivelines for lots of race cars. You better not be getting this motor anywhere close to those kinds of RPMs.”

Randy was still working for his friend and mentor, Virgil Hanson, at Hanson Auto Machine in Albany, Oregon. He was also building dirt track cars that raced at Willamette Speedway, and he raced there, too. The first order of business was to rebuild the 351 motor; Randy went through everything himself and rebuilt it from the ground up. Next, the body was completely disassembled, repaired, and painted, inside and out. When Randy asked me what color, I resisted the desire I had since high school to paint it candy apple red.

“Let’s keep it as close to stock as possible — but — shinier,” I said.

We were very fortunate that Randy had become a very skilled sheet metal welder because the floorboards needed to be completely cut away and rebuilt due to rust damage.

Somehow, over the years, the original transmission was lost; nobody claimed to have seen it for decades. So Randy located one that met factory specs. We also replaced the original drum brakes on the front wheels with disc brakes to keep it safe and drivable. The big Holley 4-barrel double-pumper carburetor I bought as a teenager was long gone, so we replaced it with the old factory 4-barrel.

By 2019, Randy had got the car running just well enough to drive — well, maybe just well enough. We had just gotten back from a beautiful adventure into the wild of Southwest Alaska celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary. All our friends and family were there at the house in the backyard. Our oldest daughter, Jessica, was making clandestine phone calls and texting my brother. I was staying busy cooking my ribs and trying not to look worried. Randy had to trailer the car up from Lebanon. Apparently, there were some hiccups getting the car running and on the trailer.

Thoughts were racing through my head as I made contingency plans. Time was ticking away as I stalled and stalled. Jessica, who is a singer for the Slicker Country Band, sang us a beautiful song she had written for the occasion. When she finished with “They made their way…,” she immediately checked her phone. She walked back over to me and gave me a big hug.

“Randy is here,” she whispered, “…the Mustang is here.”

I pinged a butter knife against my glass and got the crowd’s attention.

“Forty-three years ago, I met this pretty young lady in high school.” I smiled and crossed my fingers. “To this very day, I am still amazed at how lucky I was to have her go on that first date. In fact, several years ago I wrote the story of that somewhat comical first date. Despite all the things that went wrong on that date, I still managed to end up here with that lady by my side.” I turned away from the crowd and looked Suzanne in the eyes.

“What do you think, mio amore? Would you like to go on another first date?”

She gave me one of those “Yes, but what are you up to?” looks.

I motioned for our friends and family to follow us out to the driveway. Our home in Sherwood sits in a little valley on Chehalem Mountain. We have a long driveway that runs the length of our property, dropping downhill from Canter Lane above. From the drive just in front of our home, we can see a very large section of Canter Lane that runs along the ridgeline above us. Randy trailered the car to a neighbor’s field just behind a tree line. As they unloaded, the neighbor, Rusty, walked slowly out to my brother and his friends who were unloading the car. This part of the plan was not discussed; we didn’t have permission to use the field.

After explaining to Rusty that this was his brother’s first car and that it was a surprise, Rusty just looked them over and then said, “You all take as much time as you need.”

The phones started rolling video as soon as we reached the edge of our drive. The crowd started filling in the gaps around us. Our grandkids bounced in tow, asking, “What are we waiting for?”

Jessica nodded her head. I looked up. Off the ridgeline came a familiar rumble. There is a very distinct, soft rolling sound that my car made, and Suzanne said she recognized it right away.

“What did you do?” she asked with her eyes big and wide.

By this time, we could see the familiar green car streaking across the ridgeline above us. It slowed as it approached our driveway and turned down the hill. Some of the grandkids asked, “What is it? Is this a surprise, Nana?” As the Mustang rolled slowly toward us, we could see it was packed with my brother driving, his wife and family, and a buddy who came to help in case the car decided not to cooperate. Suzanne was completely surprised and thrilled, and the stories came spilling out.

We really enjoyed telling everyone the story—our story—about this special car: Suzanne’s and my love story as we were just starting out; the love of my parents who put up with my youth and years without the money to fuel my best intentions; the love of my brother who got the car back and spent countless hours putting it back together while accepting minimal compensation for his efforts; and the love of our great big family that played significant parts in the journey of pulling off the surprise.

As Suzanne squeezed into the front with her sister Michele, just like they used to do when I gave them rides to school, my brother Randy leaned in and whispered, “I’m going to have to take it back with me. There’s a lot of work to do yet.”

dB, Suzanne, and her sister Michele crammed into the front of the Mach 1 just like in high school.

That work took over a year. For a while, I was worried I would have to pry it from my brother’s wife, Brandie, who had taken to driving it to work to “work the bugs out.”

Since then, during COVID, I would drive it around the neighborhood to keep myself from going stir-crazy. We have taken it out occasionally for dinners, especially on our anniversaries, and I drive it to my warehouse on sunny days. I’ve also started showing the car here and there.

There is still work to do on the interior, and I am chipping away at that — slowly. Overall, it has been just a joy to show off and give the grandkids rides.

Randy purchased Hanson’s Auto Machine shop from Virgil Hanson before he sadly passed away in 2021. Randy worked for Virgil from the time he graduated from high school; he loved and respected Virgil a great deal. But risking everything to start your own venture is a daunting and frightening step, and during the negotiations to buy the business, he asked me about starting my own venture.

“Little brother, you are going to work your ass off for quite a little while,” I said with a smile.

Virgil’s funeral ceremony was something to behold. I never really knew Virgil; his story is fascinating, and he was deeply loved by many who were car enthusiasts. Friends and family came from all over, and many brought their cars to line up outside in the church parking lot. I drove the Mustang down at Randy’s request. All those cars at that service rivaled those at many car shows I have attended. That day, I was very proud of that car and my little brother.

When I think back, I sometimes get caught up in the “coulda, woulda, shoulda” aspects of this car’s journey. But I’m realizing that I shouldn’t wish for one single thing to change. All those years, all the good intentions, all the phone calls and texts with my brother, all the time, money, bloody knuckles, and love make for quite a story. I’ve come to appreciate that it’s not just a car. It’s the story of this car, and of all the people I love who are a part of that story.

One final thing: my dear brother leaned into me as he handed me the keys back in 2021.

“Nobody works on this car but me,” he said.

As soon as things slow down for him and his business, I’m looking forward to spending some time with him. (Wink, wink.)

Copyright © 2026 Darrel Boyd (dB). All rights reserved.

dB, showing appreciation to his little brother Randy. 2019

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