Our own Jim Dillon has an article in the AACA magazine. Thanks for taking the time. And you say you never took pictures of your Grandfather's collection? Well, you've painted pretty good images for us in your descriptions over the years. Hope there are more articles to come.
Is his grandfather Barney Pollard ....with the hundreds of antique cars stacked vertically on their bumpers, in warehouses in Detroit
Yes, and yes. Jim has shared with us what his young life was like, good to see it printed in a national magazine.
Jim Dillon is a really great guy with a ton of knowledge, wisdom & passion,.... A respectful Congratulations to him,... and humble thanks for sharing with all of us his valuable Knowledge and insight.
Thanks, guys. AACA asked if I would write an article on my grandfather but I kept putting it off. I finally sat down and started writing and I guess finally finished it but then had to come up with enough pictures to accompany it. As I stated in the Introduction of the article, I hated cameras which was really stupid in retrospect. My grandfather and grandmother took still or moving pictures of everything we did it seemed and I hated cameras so much I bought my first at age 30 and then it was too late to document all of the cars. There are quite a few more parts to the story and it should go on a for some time I suppose. I put together I guess some decent photos so the article may be somewhat illustrative. Hopefully you wont get sick of the story by the time it ends.-Jim
I read quite a bit on your Grandfather, back in the 70s or so. I don't recall if it was Old Cars Weekly or Cars & Parts magazine, or both.
Probably both. There seemed to be occasional stories in the car publications. I mean how many guys out there stand hundreds of cars vertically hanging from the rafters to save space. I was present during a number of interviews and I learned firsthand that the final story often took some liberties with what was actually said. I never saved any of the articles as I took it for granted that he was just my grandfather. I guess I was never a scrapbook type of guy although now I wish I had been. I found a couple when I was in the process of writing the article but I am sure there are few more out there.-Jim
Jim, the first articles I remember were about the auctions. Your grandfather had a lot of courage and forethought to save that much history. Sure wish I had met him.
Jim, I had the pleasure of visiting your grandfathers place, and meeting him, with my dad in 1959. I was just a little kid then, but growing up around antique cars (my dad joined the Horseless Carriage Club in 1946) I was well aware of what I was experiencing while seeing his collection ! Peeking in the buildings and seeing all those eary cars standing on end was quite a sight ! Pete Eastwood
Doug, I think the auctions made for some good press I suppose so there were a number of articles. Quite a few cars came back on the market and the prices were not too terribly out of line. Lee Hartung's collection not so long ago did pretty well with some dusty iron. The auctions we had dated back to the late 70s so pricing was a bit different. My grandfather did have history in mind but most of all he was just a car guy that kept buying cars. I have a segment in the article on the auctions. Probably a few issues before we hit that topic though.-Jim
Pete, The building's were pretty crazy. As kids we spent a lot of time in those buildings and I caught hell for ruining my clothes so many times I can't count. With the way that light would enter through some of the crevices and be the only light there was, looking at the cars on end was something you never forget. Glad you got to see it. The place was always cool and I went through those buildings 100s of times.-Jim
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