Scratch It Off the Bucket List

By: Jon Stalnaker
AKA The Studebaker Dude

Most really hard-main car guys are mindful of the Tv set show My Common Motor vehicle. It is hosted by Dennis Gage, who is greatest identified for his handlebar mustache. Dennis has a PhD in Chemistry and was a Product Progress Scientist for Procter and Gamble at the time they were being producing the Pringles Potato Chip. Dennis swears that the mustached character on the Pringles can was not modeled just after him, but the Pringle potato chip is a nicely-known instance of his get the job done. Dennis enjoys cars and trucks and is not only proficient about them but is pretty personable and quick to talk to. He started My Basic Automobile as a car movie journal in early 1996 on the Nashville Community (TNN). It created into a popular car or truck exhibit, and he travels the environment on the lookout at neat cars and trucks and hangs out with automobile men like Jay Leno. Most of his viewers envy him and lust immediately after his position. I know I have. Dennis is properly known to be a Studie dude like me and has been a member of the Studebaker Motorists Club (SDC). He is pictured on the include of the January 1998 version of the SDC magazine Turning Wheels, Art Of Landscaping.

I drove my bullet nose Studebaker to The Dalles Oregon to show up at a vehicle clearly show alongside the Columbia River. That excursion took me by way of two additional states and Dennis was there filming his My Vintage Car or truck Tv set demonstrate that day. Though I did talk with him and confirmed him my Studebaker, I was not lucky ample to have my vehicle selected as a function motor vehicle of the episode. That was okay, it was the fourth time I had an possibility to chat with him and my spouse took a excellent picture of me displaying him my auto. As most men and women that have fulfilled him will attest, he is very helpful and talks to you like you are aged significant college pals. I will notify the tale of the other 3 moments I expended with him, as a few of them are very exciting, IMHO.

The to start with time I satisfied Dennis was at a meet and greet booth at the SEMA show in Las Vegas. The SEMA display is the final motor vehicle demonstrate, and you have to be in the organization or know any individual who is, to even get inside of. I utilized to regular Las Vegas when the SEMA clearly show commenced, and I was staying there when it was likely on. I experienced heard terrific factors about it but did not know it was an distinctive party. I walked in the entrance doorway and was promptly escorted out. A couple of decades afterwards, I was on a Docent tour with the California Automobile Museum, and we have been invited in. That’s wherever I met him for the initial time. Our community Studebaker Club was getting a zone fulfill in a handful of months and I invited him to go to. He declined but gave me an autographed picture to just take home. There should have been countless numbers of people cued up to chat with him that weekend and I figured that I was not anyone he would remember speaking to, even nevertheless we did converse about Studebakers. I would come across out a number of decades later on that was not the scenario. He need to have an amazing memory as I would obtain out the subsequent time we met.

I feel it was late in 2011 when Dennis was invited to be the keynote speaker for a fund-elevating function at the museum. I to begin with did not plan to attend. Realizing he was a Studebaker dude I shared a few of issues I realized about him with our area SDC Chapter Vice President who was planning to go. I asked her to produce a story for me to include things like in the publication I was enhancing. She took it a action further more and the future matter I realized, Dennis was likely to travel her Studebaker into the party for a spectacular entrance. This was just heading to be much too interesting to overlook, so I determined to use my press pass, and produce the tale myself. I’m confident glad I did mainly because when Dennis arrived, we ended up there to satisfy him and to my shock, he remembered me from SEMA. I didn’t explain to him I talked to him there, he explained to me he remembered talking to me at SEMA. I was blown absent. I’ll have to tell you much more about that night time subsequent 7 days.

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