Gregg D. Merksamer
PCS Life Member / PCS Publicity Chairman / PCS Ele
Those of you looking past Houston towards the 2016 PCS International in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania may already be aware that the tour itinerary will include a Northeast Chapter-sponsored trip to the Antique Automobile Club of America Museum in Hershey. A strong incentive to “jump the gun” and visit now is being offered by “A Family Affair,” a special exhibit of Station Wagons that opened this past Saturday, May 23rd, 2015 and runs through October 12th (ideal timing if you’re already attending the big Fall Hershey flea market).
It was only fitting that the AACA Museum’s front lawn hosted an opening day delegation of Family Trucksters from the International Station Wagon Club, whose Founder and President is Renfrew, Pennsylvania PCS stalwart Chuck Snyder. The William H. Smith Rotunda beyond the front doors got the interior displays off to a good start with a 1959 Ford Country Sedan bearing Eisenhower Era picnic kit placed nose-to-nose with a 1980 Ford Pinto Rallye sporting porthole quarter windows. The oldest wagon featured is a 1928 Chrysler 62 bodied by H.H. Babcock of Watertown, NY, while the smallest is a 1941 Crosley teaming an 80-inch wheelbase with 12-horse Waukesha two-cylinder engine. Though other standouts span the gamut from a 1964 Dodge 880 four-door hardtop wagon to an ash-framed, mahogany-paneled 1948 Bentley Mark VI “Shooting Brake” bodied by Harold Radford Limited of London, I was personally most intrigued by an ultra-utilitarian 1955 Powell built in Compton, California using refurbished 1941 Plymouth mechanicals. Outdoorsmen were an important target demographic, as demonstrated by a long drawer that slides out of the right rear fender for stowing fishing poles.
Thrilled as I was to discover the exhibit also touts an ACC Amblewagon Arlington M-6 Hearse conversion of a 1968 Mercury Commuter originally used by the Wood Funeral Home of Branchville, New Jersey, the display’s Big Draw for those of us delighting in professional wagons is indisputably a Stageway Coaches 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne that was one of several originally used at the Milton Hershey School so its orphaned, underprivileged pupils enjoyed family-flavored transport in place of busses. The attached photos will no doubt remind 2013 PCS Milwaukee Meet attendees of the yellow version Joe Shea brought 1,000 miles-plus from Frisco, Texas, though the Hershey car retains the original body configuration where there’s only two doors on the driver’s side and four doors on the curb side. This 25-foot-long 14-seater, thoughtfully shown beside a stock 1962 Bel Air wagon for comparison purposes, was donated to the AACA Museum by Milton Hershey School Alumni Jim Hanawalt, John Hanawalt and Rosario “Roy” Sollazzi. As a fundraising campaign underway at http://www.aacamuseum.org/wagonrestoration/ has so far raised just $455 of the $40,000 needed to complete the restoration (phone donations are also being processed by Dupont, Pennsylvania PCS member Stanley Sipko at 717-566-7100), I plan to introduce a measure at the Houston Board Meeting that the Society consider a generous group donation to promote our 40th anniversary and the visit we’ll be making to this great Museum during the 2016 International Meet.
It is also worth noting in this spirit that a 1924 Reo T-6 carved pillar hearse is one of several AACA Museum vehicles enthusiasts can “adopt” for a $500 annual fee - still less than many of us would spent on Yet Another Hobby Car of our own! Its coachwork incorporated hidden compartments for smuggling booze in the days of Prohibition, warranting its appearance in the HBO gangster series BOARDWALK EMPIRE. This particular visit to Hershey was also the first where I got to see the Cammack Tucker Gallery opened with justifiable fanfare last October. The late David Cammack’s bequest insured public scrutiny and enjoyment of three of the 51 Tucker automobiles originally completed in the late 1940s (#1022; #1001, the first prototype off the line; and #1026, the only surviving Tucker with an automatic transmission), as well as treasure trove of blueprints, memorabilia and powertrain componentry. The exhibit is suitably center-pieced by a prototype test chassis featuring fully-independent “Elastomeric” rubber suspension, aircraft-type disc brakes and an engine with oil pressure-actuated overhead valves that could apparently be switched between carburetors and fuel injection. Trust me it’s a not-miss when the PCS heads to Hershey in 2016!
It was only fitting that the AACA Museum’s front lawn hosted an opening day delegation of Family Trucksters from the International Station Wagon Club, whose Founder and President is Renfrew, Pennsylvania PCS stalwart Chuck Snyder. The William H. Smith Rotunda beyond the front doors got the interior displays off to a good start with a 1959 Ford Country Sedan bearing Eisenhower Era picnic kit placed nose-to-nose with a 1980 Ford Pinto Rallye sporting porthole quarter windows. The oldest wagon featured is a 1928 Chrysler 62 bodied by H.H. Babcock of Watertown, NY, while the smallest is a 1941 Crosley teaming an 80-inch wheelbase with 12-horse Waukesha two-cylinder engine. Though other standouts span the gamut from a 1964 Dodge 880 four-door hardtop wagon to an ash-framed, mahogany-paneled 1948 Bentley Mark VI “Shooting Brake” bodied by Harold Radford Limited of London, I was personally most intrigued by an ultra-utilitarian 1955 Powell built in Compton, California using refurbished 1941 Plymouth mechanicals. Outdoorsmen were an important target demographic, as demonstrated by a long drawer that slides out of the right rear fender for stowing fishing poles.
Thrilled as I was to discover the exhibit also touts an ACC Amblewagon Arlington M-6 Hearse conversion of a 1968 Mercury Commuter originally used by the Wood Funeral Home of Branchville, New Jersey, the display’s Big Draw for those of us delighting in professional wagons is indisputably a Stageway Coaches 1962 Chevrolet Biscayne that was one of several originally used at the Milton Hershey School so its orphaned, underprivileged pupils enjoyed family-flavored transport in place of busses. The attached photos will no doubt remind 2013 PCS Milwaukee Meet attendees of the yellow version Joe Shea brought 1,000 miles-plus from Frisco, Texas, though the Hershey car retains the original body configuration where there’s only two doors on the driver’s side and four doors on the curb side. This 25-foot-long 14-seater, thoughtfully shown beside a stock 1962 Bel Air wagon for comparison purposes, was donated to the AACA Museum by Milton Hershey School Alumni Jim Hanawalt, John Hanawalt and Rosario “Roy” Sollazzi. As a fundraising campaign underway at http://www.aacamuseum.org/wagonrestoration/ has so far raised just $455 of the $40,000 needed to complete the restoration (phone donations are also being processed by Dupont, Pennsylvania PCS member Stanley Sipko at 717-566-7100), I plan to introduce a measure at the Houston Board Meeting that the Society consider a generous group donation to promote our 40th anniversary and the visit we’ll be making to this great Museum during the 2016 International Meet.
It is also worth noting in this spirit that a 1924 Reo T-6 carved pillar hearse is one of several AACA Museum vehicles enthusiasts can “adopt” for a $500 annual fee - still less than many of us would spent on Yet Another Hobby Car of our own! Its coachwork incorporated hidden compartments for smuggling booze in the days of Prohibition, warranting its appearance in the HBO gangster series BOARDWALK EMPIRE. This particular visit to Hershey was also the first where I got to see the Cammack Tucker Gallery opened with justifiable fanfare last October. The late David Cammack’s bequest insured public scrutiny and enjoyment of three of the 51 Tucker automobiles originally completed in the late 1940s (#1022; #1001, the first prototype off the line; and #1026, the only surviving Tucker with an automatic transmission), as well as treasure trove of blueprints, memorabilia and powertrain componentry. The exhibit is suitably center-pieced by a prototype test chassis featuring fully-independent “Elastomeric” rubber suspension, aircraft-type disc brakes and an engine with oil pressure-actuated overhead valves that could apparently be switched between carburetors and fuel injection. Trust me it’s a not-miss when the PCS heads to Hershey in 2016!
