Stuff

We’ve all got it.  Some of it, we actually need, but it’s likely that a lot of it we don’t.

Stuff. 

And, if you’re reading Garage Style Magazine, you’ll likely be guilty of having a lot of stuff – stuff few others understand, needful things like tools and hubcaps and grilles and hood ornaments and neon signs and painted signs and – even more stuff that’s more extreme.

I think I wrote about him once in this column, but there was a guy in my neighborhood, a great car guy, who had a coffee table made up of a tempered piece of glass secured to an old wooden shipping crate complete with labels and stamps.  One couldn’t help but notice the Ford oval, and if you looked at the labels, the destination was a place called Kar Kraft in Brighton, Michigan.  This, of course, was the company that did the construction of the Boss 429 Mustangs and Boss 302 Mustang racing cars. They also had a huge hand in producing the GT40.

Anyway, story goes that inside the unopened box was a Boss 302 engine that was shipped from Ford to Kar Kraft, but never used.  In fact, the story further goes that the crate was never opened.  Somehow, it ended up with this neighborhood guy, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Charles Bronson, who turned it into his coffee table.  As a young lad in his late teens and early 20s, I of course, thought this was the absolute end of interior decorating.  I am still seeking something similar – but now, finally having my own home, I am not sure where this crate would go.  The house is no where near large and, being with a wife and daughter, I’m not sure an old crate would be a welcome addition to the living room.  Then again, we do have an old metal can of Duplex outboard engine oil on the end table.  One step at a time.

So – tell me about your stuff, and enjoy reading about Mecum’s upcoming sale of cool stuff and Rick Rader’s philosophy about stuff below!