Sure, they have their quirks.

Not only do some people live with the eccentricities of owning an antique automobile, but they love the vehicle's uniqueness. They call it "character."

"You have to be careful when you take off that you don't spin the tires," Mac Dennis said. "You also have to be careful on the interstates; you don't want to upset the tourists."

An Orangeburg resident and antique car collector, Dennis isn't talking about a GTO, a 427-loaded 'Vette, or even a beefed up, pre-gas crunch Camaro of the 1970s.

He's talking about his 1929 Ford Model A, which, when Dennis comes clean, is a roadster, not the sedate sedan model.

"It will keep with the cars" on the interstate, he said. "Most don't know it will drive that fast."

And the original probably didn't, at least not often. Dennis' Model A is a factory reproduction built in 1980 that uses the fire-breathing four-pot engine from the 1970s Ford Pinto.

While "fire-breathing" is a bit facetious for the Pinto's power plant, the 86-year-old Dennis said the four-in-the-floor transmission gives it the "go" power.

But the Model A is a bit of an anomaly in a collection of antique cars. The three other autos in Mac and his wife Shirley Dennis' collection are pretty much original, down to the last bit of chrome on a 1939 Cadillac bought when the car was 30 years old.

Sharing garage space with the Cadillac and Model A is a 1966 Chevrolet Corvair, a 1933 Ford and a 1967 Buick Wildcat, a 1960s muscle-car.

"I liked them when they were coming along, I've always liked cars," Dennis said. "The first car my family ever had was bought in 1929."

Cars still being somewhat of a novelty then, the Lake City native said he and his siblings had to teach their parents to drive. It wasn't an easy chore, Dennis said, when the older generation was more used to bicycles.

"When she'd (his mother) turn a corner, she'd lean, like this," Dennis said, laughing at the recollection.

As a teen, Dennis and his buddies would visit local car dealerships every year, collecting brochures on the new models.

Dennis got his driver's license at the age of 14 after passing a stringent test -- answering 10 questions administered by a traveling South Carolina Highway Patrolman.

His first long-term job was as a salesman for a tobacco company when he was 22. They gave him a company car to use. Dennis met his first wife through his travels.

That resulted in his move to Orangeburg and his crossing paths with another love -- a mint condition 1937 Chevrolet, which was traded in at a Bamberg dealership about 40 years ago by a New Ellenton lady.

"The dealer, when she took it to him, he said, 'Miss Annie (Speaks), the car doesn't have a heater in it,'" Dennis recalled. "She said, 'Well, if we were cold, we put a blanket on us.'"

Speaking of creature comfort, only the Wildcat has an air conditioner in it. The rest require a lowered window for any type of breeze.

If it rains, most of Dennis' cars do have windows. But the Model A has curtains you have to install quickly in order to keep the elements outside the car.

Mac met Shirley in 1980 at a car club meeting. With their respective spouses having passed away, the two car fans married a couple years later.

In today's world of cookie-cutter cars with little character, if asked to take 'em or leave 'em, Dennis would probably choose the latter.

"They all look alike," he said. "You can't tell one from another." There is, however, a 10-year-old Buick sitting in the drive.

As the book keeper for Lighting Creations on John C. Calhoun Drive, Dennis picks a car from the stable and moseys on to work. It's the older cars he drives on a regular basis.

Of the five cars he and his wife own, the Wildcat, with bench seats perhaps large enough to sleep a family of four comfortably and its 430 cubic-inch V-8 engine fed by a four-barrel carburetor, is currently his favorite.

Take a drive with Mac Dennis in his Wildcat

"It's heavy and it's fast," Dennis said with a slightly mischievous grin. "I've had it happen that I stop at a stop light and the wheels sit there spinning when I take off."

A member of the Garden City Antique Car Club, and with more than 40 years experience collecting cars, Dennis said he's probably seen all the cars he'll ever own. He doesn't reckon he'll actively seek another horse for the stable.

"Don't have any room," he said. "Barn's full."



T&D Staff Writer Richard Walker can be reached by e-mail at rwalker@timesanddemocrat.com or by telephone at 803-533-5516. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

You must be logged in to comment.