HOWARD MINTZ: RAMBLIN’ MAN!

Orphan car brand aficionado and Sarasota Café Racer HOWARD MINTZ: RAMBLIN’ MAN blogs about his vintage 1950s Nash Rambler station wagon, then and now. It’s Déjà vu all over again (with apologies to Yogi Berra and John Fogerty)!

HOWARD MINTZ: RAMBLIN’ MAN!Last month my good friend John McKeon was enjoying the Venice (FL) Museum and Archives Facebook page when he came across an old photo of a car crossing the intersection of Nokomis and Miami Avenues. What caught his eye was a ‘52 or ’53 Nash Rambler Station Wagon, with other old cars parked on Nokomis Ave. He immediately sent the link to me because I have the same Nash!

Shortly thereafter I visited the Museum and purchased an enlarged print of that image. I decided to try and reproduce the scene with my car and the assistance of my car buddies in Pelican Pointe, many of whom are also members of the Venice Region of the Antique Automobile Club of America (AACA), http://venice.aaca.com/

Earlier this month we all met at sunrise in our old cars and convoyed to the Nokomis/Miami intersection. Despite some traffic and the unavoidable new car parked nearby we successfully reproduced the scene. It’s interesting to identify the differences between “then and now”, but the street and buildings are largely the same as they were when the original photo was taken in the early 1960s.

Thanks to the Venice Museum, https://www.venicemuseum.org/ and my carguy friends for making this possible, HOWARD MINTZ: RAMBLIN’ MAN!