A Lifetime of Cars

Some of my earliest memories are of watching my older brother and his hot-rodder friends building and repairing all sorts of vehicles, from go-carts to motorcycles to hot rods to serious dragsters. My friend Jim and I (shown here) were there to “help” our older brothers with their cars from the time we were in kindergarten. So we were working on cars even then.

In particular, my brother Paul Van Valkenburgh started building his ’23 T roadster pickup in high school in the 1950s, and by the time he graduated in 1959 it was drivable.

He went on to be a noted vehicle engineer, driver and experimenter, working at Chevrolet R & D as well as many famous organizations like Penske Racing and Chaparral. For more about him, CLICK HERE.

My grandfather owned dealerships in rural Kansas that sold Ford and Dodge Brothers cars in the 1920s. When Henry Ford broke off with John and Horace Dodge, my grandfather had to choose which brand to sell…and he chose Dodge Brothers. So my dad loved those cars. He bought this 1924 Dodge Brothers coupe around 1960.

In 1928 Grandad had a Victory 6 sedan as his demonstrator car and he took my dad on vacation in the car that year. It was then sold to a local farmer. In 1961 my father found the farmer and bought the car back. This photo was taken in Topeka in 1961 for a newspaper story with the 1924 and 1928 Dodges.

I’m now the third generation owner of the 1928  Victory 6 sedan.

This is the second car I owned myself…a 1974 Porsche 914 that I bought in 1976 for about $5,000.

All the guys I grew up with were car guys. We were always working on them or building them. My friend Jim built a series of dragsters, and here we all are at the Winternationals in Arizona sometime in the 70s.

I loved my 1985 1/2 Porsche 944 and drove it (and worked on it) for 21 years before it was demolished by a red-light runner.

I ‘ve enjoyed driving this 2015 Cayman S daily for over 8 years now. There have been a few very fun track days as well…such as Sebring in this photo.