We encountered veterinarian and all-round vintage enthusiast Greg Leck of Bangor, Pennsylvania at the Hemmings pre-Concours Cruise-In Spectacular on Saturday, September 26, 2015. What first caught our eye was Greg’s period-perfect looks, including vintage felt hat, suspenders and two-tone spectator shoes—and he wasn’t even by his car yet! When we finally met Greg by his 1937 Buick Special 46S Sport Coupe , it was little surprise to find he was the owner of such a gorgeous throwback to pre-war motoring, nor was it shocking that he was providing his own soundtrack of big-band swing music.
You see, Greg is a retro kind of guy, and when people suggest that he is dressed to complement his car, he’s quick to point out that in fact he bought the car to complement his lifestyle. That said, Greg is no wannabe car enthusiast. Greg’s father grew up during the Great Depression and started pumping gas at the age of six. Greg’s uncles played with Model T Fords in the era. So via those stories Greg grew up with an appreciation for the period and its automobiles.
While the ’37 is Greg’s first pre-war car, he’s certainly no stranger to old cars or wrenching on them. He had a 1962 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88 from his college days until 1998. But Greg’s heart is in the late 1930s, so what he really wanted was a streamline moderne beauty.
Greg’s search began when he was ten, but really picked up steam fairly recently when he decided “If not now, when?” and began to scour Hemmings with certain criteria in mind: running boards, pontoon fenders, free-standing headlamps, a coupe bodystyle and side-mount spare tires. Greg says he joined the Packard Club while considering a late-‘30s One-Twenty but also considered LaSalles and Series 61 Cadillacs.
Ultimately he found what you see here—a December, 1936-built 1937 Buick Special. The once-repainted car wasn’t perfect—he had to fix an overheating issue and a heat-soak issue, repair the climate-control systems (such as they are) and admits he’s still got to install a new wiring harness. But it’s nice enough that he’s able to make it a rolling resto and fix things as he goes. And go he does!
Now that Greg had his Chancellor Blue beauty, he wanted to drive the wheels off it. But like many owners of cars from the pre-Interstate era, Greg was well aware that his ’37 was likely to be overstressed and underappreciated on the high-speed thoroughfares of the 21st Century. The answer, he decided, was shunpiking.
While shunpiking was developed by cheapskates looking to avoid tolls, in modern usage it has also come to mean skipping major highways, regardless of tolls, and taking the bypassed bucolic and scenic paths along lightly traveled country roads—which were often the main routes of the pre-WWII era.
Greg relishes this slower pace of travel. He says there’s more to see and it’s more fun to be seen. He gets far more smiles, thumbs up and waves of appreciation when he rolls down a country road at 45 or 50 MPH or sitting at a red light in a quaint downtown than he does with his foot to the floor on the Interstate.
The last time we saw Greg, he had shunpiked all the way to Wildwood, New Jersey, where he and his Buick looked right at home among the prewar enthusiasts charging their hot iron down the beach. He had quite a drive home as well, with flat tires and an ignition switch failure making themselves part of the adventure. But that’s Greg’s attitude, too, the little roadside repairs are just part of the experience “if you’re prepared.”
“It sounds like hell,” he says, “but it lends a tremendous sense of adventure. And accomplishment.”
Greg is prepared, he’s even got a home-built, period-looking jumper box nestled among the vintage luggage in the trunk. Other concessions to modern drivers include 6-volt LED taillights, a set of accessory amber LED turn signals (in 12-volt—Greg is very resourceful with electrical work), and a 12-volt jump pack that lets him charge his cell phone and GPS on the road.
The GPS doesn’t get much of a workout, though, as Greg prefers to plan his adventures using the Google Maps “Avoid Highways” feature and asking locals for directions if he makes a wrong turn. No doubt Greg will be back at it next summer, and we look forward to seeing him on the roads again, bringing smiles to kids from 8 to 80 as he trades the hermetically sealed world of modern cars for his swing-era coupe and gets back “in touch with travelling.”
See original article at" http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/01/07/the-shunpiking-specialist/
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