This story starts in the mid 1930’s, on Midhurst Road in Baltimore County, Maryland, where two three-year-old boys with the same last name but of no relation, started a friendship that would endure the rest of their lives. Bingy Moore, my father, lived at 107 Midhurst Road, and his best friend D.Donnelly (pronounced Dee-Donnelly, said as one word) grew up at 108 Midhurst.

Both boys went to the Gilman Country School and graduated in 1951, with Bingy going to the Naval Academy, and D.Donnelly headed off to MIT. That same year, D.Donnelly’s parents purchased a new Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe tin woodie station wagon. These were called tin woodies, because prior to 1950, General Motors vehicles made as woodies, had actual wood doors and body panels. While these were beautiful looking, they were notoriously problematic, because the wood would frequently warp, causing door closure problems, and other exterior wood components would eventually swell and rot. Starting in 1950, GM moved to the tin woodie concept of an all-steel exterior skin with stamped steel panels shaped to look like wood frames, covered in a faux painted woodgrain. They did, however maintain the real wood elements on the interior of the cars.

An image of a fully restored 1950 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe Tin Woodie Wagon. This is a close representation of what my wagon looked like when new, with there being subtle trim differences between the 1950 and 1951 model years. The exterior wood accents are actually faux woodgrain painted metal.

The Moore’s new tin woodie was a true family wagon, as it had three bench seats that could comfortably seat 8 passengers; it was the precursor to the modern SUV, with high headroom, and the back bench could be removed to create a spacious cargo area. The middle bench was short, a two-seater, creating a space on the passenger side, where there was a step and easy access for passengers to get in and out of the back three person bench seat.

1951 Chevy second row bench seat with step to the rear bench seat

In 1952 or ’53, during his summer break, D.Donnelly and his parents drove their ’51 Chevy with newly installed MIT stickers on the front and rear windshields, to Southern California, up the coast, and then back to Baltimore. The car stayed with his parents until their passing in the early 1970’s, when D.Donnelly took over possession of the house on Midhurst and the Chevy wagon.

D.Donnelly was a regular fixture in our house, being considered family, where my sister and I called him Uncle Moore. In fact, as time would progress, I would refer to him as my second father, because he was so instrumental in my growth and development, and because we were incredibly close. When I married in 1990, my father was the Best Man, and D.Donnelly was the first Groomsman next to my father.

From the time I was a little kid, I have loved cars. As a young boy I had a huge wicker basket full of Corgi, Matchbox, and Hot Wheels cars, and I could play with them for hours on end. When the movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang came out, I was hooked, and loved the scenes of Dick Van Dyke’s character working on his car. My father and D.Donnelly, both nurtured my interest in cars, and both provided tools and instructions on how to diagnose problems.

I purchased my first car at age 15, in 1978 – it was a 1966 Oldsmobile Dynamic 88, with an air cleaner cover with a chrome lightning bolt labeled Super Rocket Ultra High Compression; the car was worth having just to look at that cool chrome and orange lettered sticker on the air cleaner. I bought it from our neighbor, the retired Dr. O’Connor, for $25. It ran, but it needed a new exhaust and other simple work.

The 1951 Chevy was left outside on a parking pad at the rear of the driveway on Midhurst Road, where it had died from engine failure in 1975. I had been eyeing the wagon for some time and was convinced I could fix it. D.Donnelly was happy to get it off the property and equally happy to give me a good project.

My parents house at the edge of the city had a red tin garage at the back of its ¾ acre parcel. It could house only one car, so to bring in the tin woodie, I needed to get rid of the Dynamic 88. It was now 1979. I found a buyer for the Olds and negotiated a deal. The buyer would tow the Woodie from D.Donnelly’s house to my parents, I would get $50, and the purchaser would take the Olds.

Willy Moore (the author on the left) & Tom Snider (high school classmate and buddy) – May, 1980. Riding an early 1960’s era Yazoo tractor with the ’51 Chevy in the background. We were cleaning up from a party the night before held at my parent’s house. We had pulled the wagon out of its garage for the party, to use the rear tailgate to house a beer keg and ice.

I immediately went to work on the Chevy, tearing the 216 cubic inch straight six block apart, by removing the head and exposing the pistons. After much work, I came to the disappointing discovery that the crank shaft was badly out of alignment, meaning the engine needed to go to a machine shop for a complete rebuild. This was way outside of my affordability range as a 16-year-old, so the car sat, waiting for the day I would have enough funds to bring it back to life.

Steering wheel and dash of the 1951 Chevy

As time passed, other projects took priority. I bought, fixed, and sold a variety of cars, and wherever I moved, the Chevy came with me. I would tie a loose tire to the front of the car to act as a soft bumper, tie a rope to the front chrome heavy steel bumper, and tow it from one location to the next. My then girlfriend and now wife of 33 years, would sit in the cab steering and braking, trying not to slam into the rear of whatever I was using as the tow car. In 1995 it moved to our current home in southwest Baltimore County, where I was convinced one of our two sons would surely want to work on the old Chevy with their dad.

When the boys were little, they loved to sit in the front seat and pretend drive the old wreck in the back corner of our large barn garage. As they grew older, they developed their own passions for cars, but neither was inspired to start such a daunting project with their Pop. They grew up and went off to college, with the tin woodie sitting in the same spot untouched for 2 ½ decades.

The woodie in its corner of the garage/barn where it sat unmoved from 1995-2021. The front bumper, grill, light assemblies, and miscellaneous trim pieces had been stuffed inside of the car for safe storage.

As an antique car nut, I am on several mailing lists with news and stories for collectors and enthusiasts. In 2019 I read a story about The Great Race; a 150 antique car race run across multiple states in the US every year. The race was named after the 1965 comedy movie of the same name, which had an all-star cast of Tony Curtis, Jack Lemon, Natalie Wood, and Peter Falk, just to name a few.

The concept sounded like fun, and since I had two other mechanically sound antiques (a ’62 Mercedes 190sl and a ’67 Mercedes 230sl), I placed my name on the waiting list.

On Father’s Day of 2021, I went to Harbor Freight and purchased an engine hoist that was on sale.

The following weekend I pulled the block from the wagon frame and chassis by myself, loaded it on my company pick-up truck, and delivered it to Small’s Machine Shop in Westminster, MD. Mark Small had a stellar reputation for rebuilding engines, and had been written up in some auto rags about his quality work. He said he would need 12-18 months to complete the work because his shop was filled with engine blocks needing work. By that time, I had owned the car for 42 years, so what was another year+ of waiting going to hurt?

In May of 2022, I received an email from the Great Race saying I had “first priority” to enter the 2023 Great Race from St. Augustine, FL to Colorado Springs, CO. The Chevy’s block was still at the machine shop, but as I read through the rules of the race, I realized that older cars received a higher handicap. A 1951 would have a far better chance than a 1962 or 1967. That jumpstarted the need to get the Chevy roadworthy.

Small’s Machine shop finished their work in April of 2022, and the Chevy and new block went to John Tokar at Vintage Restorations in Union Bridge, MD. John is a terrific guy who works almost exclusively on vintage British cars. His shop is filled with gorgeous Jaguars, Lotus, MG’s, and Triumph’s, and John builds and repairs steam locomotives. His shop has several beautiful working scale locomotives that can pull people on tracks running out of his shop. I think I got John at a weak moment when I asked him to take on the work for the tin woodie.

The Hannibal Twin-8 used in the Great Race movie

John happens to be a big Great Race movie fan, having seen the actual Hannibal Twin-8 (the bad guy car used in the movie) in a private collection. John had a great sense of pride working on my Chevy, albeit a rolling piece of junk, because it was going to be in the 2023 Great Race. From a new gas tank to new fuel and break lines, rebuilt suspension, to all new brake assemblies, a new wiring harness and conversion from a 6 volt to a 12-volt system, John’s crew got the Chevy game ready. They also gave it its nickname, The Hippo, because they all decided it looked a lot like a hippopotamus. All in the Moore house agreed with the assessment, and the name has stuck.

The Hippo getting ready to leave Vintage Restorations

On September 2, 2022, the Hippo drove under its own power on the open road for the first time in 47 years. I picked her up from John’s shop and drove her to the retirement community where D.Donnelly and my mother each had their own apartments. D.Donnelly was then 89 years old, and restricted to a wheelchair, and he was quite excited to go for a ride in his parents’ old wagon. He was in the front seat, and my mother in the back, and we drove to 108 Midhurst Road, the longtime home of the tin woodie and D.Donnelly. My father had passed away in 2012, but his spirit was surely with us.

Back in 1979, when D.Donnelly and I thought I was going to get the wagon running sometime soon, D.Donnelly would talk about the two of us taking the car on a multi-state adventure, much like he and his parents had done. He died in January of 2023; weeks shy of his 90th birthday. Prior to his passing, we would talk about my plans to participate in the Great Race, and he reveled in the thought of it all.

D.Donnelly Moore (on the left) and Willy Moore (author on the right) – July 4, 2011

Seeing the joy, awe, and amazement in his face as we drove in his old family car, is a wonderful memory I will carry for the rest of my days. I miss him dearly, but every time I drive in that car, I cannot help but have a flood of marvelous memories of the man who was one of the biggest influences on my life. The MIT stickers are still on the windows, the original winding dashboard clock still works and ticks loudly, I have cleaned up the chrome a bit and have replaced and refinished some of the interior wood, there are random squeaks and thumps, and it will never win any car show prizes for being pretty. It has rust holes, dents, flaking paint, and well-worn and torn very thick Naugahyde upholstery, and a headliner that is ripped and missing in places. We have two lovely antique convertible Mercedes roadsters that are much more mechanically sound and nimble, a sporty PHEV Volvo and a new PHEV BMW at the house, and my 1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe tin woodie wagon is still the most fun thing of all to drive!

Hal Burnett, one of my oldest and best friends from kindergarten through grade 12 and beyond, is going to be the navigator for our trip. And another high school buddy, Marcus Ranum, is helping with getting the blog up and running and out for distribution. [Blame Marcus if the blog is ugly]

Hal Burnett (Navigator on left) and Willy Moore (Driver/Author on right) – 2011

The great Race is not a speed race, rather it is a race of timed accuracy. No cell phones, GPS, or digital calculators are allowed, and we do not know our daily course until the morning of each day’s race. Our odometer must be blanked out, and our mapping instructions are on a spreadsheet showing street sign images and miles traveled from one turn to the next. Hal must use our travel speed and time to calculate our distance traveled on each stretch of road that has been defined on our daily trip sheets.

The 2023 Great Race route

There will be daily winners, race winners, rookie winners, and a variety of other prize-winning categories. The grand prize winner, the team with the closet times to the designed completion time, will win $50,000, and there are multiple other awards bringing the total payout to $160,000.

We will be traveling for 8 days with 16 town stops. At every day’s lunch stop and dinner stop, all 150 race participants become the festival of the requisite town. Each team is allowed a support vehicle to handle any needed repairs, but Hal and I, team name The Baltimore Bohs, will be going without support. Fingers crossed we make it to the finish line!

The Hippo – Great Race ready with its sponsor stickers