John Phillips: Thursday Nights in Lolo, Or: Car Culture in Montana
From the December 2013 Issue of Car and Driver
When I moved to Montana, I reluctantly bid adios to fast cars. Or so I thought. Last fall, I found myself in Missoula, renting a Jeep Liberty from Thrifty’s avuncular manager, Owen Kelley. He glanced at my signature and said, “I know you. You drive fast cars.”
“Past tense,” I corrected.
“That’s too bad,” he replied, “because I thought you might like to drive my 1967 Shelby GT500. I’ve owned it for 31 years.”
Ten months flew past before I took him up on the offer, and then only because he shamed me into attending one of his Thursday-night club meetings. I envisioned balding fat men encircling a sticky VFW table, discussing tedious rules of order and the names of members with unpaid dues.
Instead, the club meets at Gary Meuchel’s car-renovation shop, Cherry Lane Motors, in little Lolo, Montana, just south of Missoula. Gary is 57 and looks like Kenny Rogers if Kenny chugged a bottle of Dr. McGillicuddy’s, which is Gary’s preferred tipple. The road to his shop winds up a steep, gravel drive, interrupted by 100 yards of pavement where club members perform burnouts. “It’s how they knock on my door,” Gary explains. At one time, Gary owned 200 cars. “Then the city got on my ass,” he says, “so I pared it down to 60.”
In fact, by the time Gary completed high school, he owned eight cars, all of which he’s kept. One is a gold 1968 Shelby GT500. He paid $1200 for it. In 1976, he repainted it and rebuilt the engine. No repairs since. “Mostly it’s good for burnouts on club nights,” he says, although it was through Gary’s Shelby that he met Owen, 35 years ago.
“I spotted Gary’s Mustang and basically ran the guy down,” Owen recalls. “When he stopped, I said, ‘Wanna sell your car?’ ”
“No,” Gary replied emphatically.
“What if I threw out an insane figure?”
“Don’t do that,” Gary warned.
“Why?” Owen asked.
“Because I might sell it.”
Now 15 to 20 guys filter into Gary’s shop every Thursday. They’ve been doing it for 20 years. It wasn’t until my second club meeting that I learned that Owen, in addition to owning his “Dark Moss Green” GT500, also owns a ’65 Falcon sedan with 17,000 miles—his grandma’s car, now on loan to a museum—not to mention seven concours Mustangs, a 1966 7.0-liter Ford Galaxie, and a 1987 Dodge Shelby GLHS that he bought because it made him laugh.
In contrast, Gary leans toward ’32 to ’34 Ford three-window coupes. “At one time, I owned 10,” he says. “Today? Anybody’s guess.” He also owns five ’60s-era Ford Galaxies, including a black, 100-point 1967 427-cid four-speed model with the rare factory transistorized ignition. Tucked in a shadowy corner is his second Shelby GT500, this one a ’67 in the midst of a bare-body resto. Opposite sits a ’56 two-door Fairlane 500. “My very first car,” he says. Then there’s a ’64 Falcon that’s “about to get a 427”; a ’55 Ford pickup that his dad, a cobbler, gave him in high school; and a pristine ’65 Mustang fastback that he built “as a family car for my wife who was hoping for a wagon.” Its 289 V-8 is topped by three two-barrels.
In Gary’s shop, engine and body parts adorn the walls and ceiling as if flung there by a geothermal event. The tops of desirable cars serve as shelves for shop manuals, porcelain signs, and drag slicks. The man owns 12 vintage bank vaults and an art-deco scooter. “I may sell my Galaxie,” he says, “because it would fetch enough to build a proper showroom, clean up this mess.”
Last time we talked, Gary had four projects underway: a ’67 Eleanor clone for a North Dakota customer; a ’70 Plymouth Barracuda with an injected 512-cid big-block; a blown Ford flathead with Navarro heads destined for a ’33 coupe; and a Mopar 440 Six Pack V-8 he built “for a ’70 Charger belonging to an east-Montana wheat farmer.” Next up: a 200-mph Lincoln Mark VIII for Bonneville.
Next to an exit rests a ’28 Model A whose flathead Gary rebuilt for $2000. The car’s roof was chopped at the factory. “Ford intended it as a parade car,” he says. “Now the owner uses it as a mobile platform to shoot groundhogs.” He starts the car. It needs a muffler. The passenger seat is home to a beehive. It should be noted that Gary is Gary’s only full-time employee.
The Boys of Thursday belong to a club in the sense that The Bog at Watkins Glen was a club. There’s no president, no treasurer, no membership fees; beer is the only currency. Their weekly meetings consume one hour or six. Sometimes target shooting becomes the night’s focus. Sometimes the police descend to quell the noise. “Want a beer?” Owen once offered a sweaty, red-faced cop. “I’d love a beer,” he replied.
“I’ll never retire,” Gary tells me, and I can’t imagine why he would, neck-deep, as he is, in a blissful and contemplative mosh pit of gray-at-the-temples hobby-istas. All that engrosses Gary and pals as much as their cars is talking about their cars. I thought these guys were all dead. Which is ridiculous, because I’m not.
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