Local legacies drive our blue collar lust for things that go

While at the most recent Lakewood Car Kulture Show I felt a little guilty. All these examples of gas guzzlin' and throat clearin' and power and paint made my inner enviro a little guarded. What were we doing here? Did we expect to see an old gas sipping BMW Isetta among the 424's and Mustang Mach 1's? We did.

Well, it was easy to determine that my love of the internal combustion motor (moving parts, grease, grime and scraped knuckles) does not entirely go against my love of the environment. The simple fact is that the Car Kulture show was a fantastic reason to shut down an under used city street and bring the community together. Sure, exploitation of petrol burning motors may rub some the wrong way with the brouhaha over offshore drilling and rising/falling/rising gas prices but these cars and bikes are not your typical daily drivers. They are loved family members, cherished memories and guarded dreams. They don't represent consumption gone wild, they represent the exact opposite. Squeezing every bit of life out of your old cherished possessions. As I watched the MarJ peer in windows and point out fun customizations I realized that while one can hate the idea of personal cars there is a deliberate history that allows one to love the expressive freedom and identity of the classic car. They represent unbridled hope and dreams and a foray into a exploration of a relative young technology and all the promises to mankind that they allow. Even literature of the Dymaxion House allows for the potential of every homeowner owning their own auto (count the driveways). Argue the sprawl and the pollution, but it comes down to not knowing any better. Well, now we do.

I also stumbled across a fine flock of Templars. The Templar Motor Company was a car manufacturer based right here in Lakewood, Ohio and turned out some fine motor coaches with what have to be the longest running boards I have ever seen in person on a car. That sent the gears in my head spinning. Cleveland once was a blue collar manufacturing giant. Born on the shoulders of people willing to take chances and invest in their dreams, sacrificing their time and hard work to turn a vision into a reality. I found it eerily prophetic of the direction Cleveland may have to take again. Reinventing itself as a manufacturing town, building on it own interest and invention. Damned if I didn't feel a bit hopeful again. Maybe we need to reinvent the electric car. Maybe we need to redesign the city to accept those fleeing the suburbs for the density of the urban core. Maybe we need to look at the success of others and adopt it to fit our own mindset. A mindset of doing things the hard way, the right way, the blue collar way.

As you mull that over, here is a list of Cleveland based car manufacturers. Wikipedia had a decent list of OH auto manu.

*in no particular order...
Baker Motor Company
Winton Motor Company (1897)
Stearns Automobile (1898)
The American (1902)
Royal Motor Car Company (1904)
Brew Hatcher (1905)
Baker Materials Handling Company - electric cars
Templar Motors Company
White Motor Company
Peerless Motor Co.
HAL
Jordan Motor Car
Willys who acquired Stearn...