Gary Baldwin prefers to find parts for his teal 1953 Willys Jeep pickup truck rather than buying them. It shows when he pops the hood.
“There’s a lot of parts from different vehicles from the dump in here,” Baldwin said. “This air cleaner is out of a Toyota. The cable for the throttle is a Subaru cable. The gas pedal is a Chevy truck.”
Baldwin showed off his truck at Bethel’s first-ever car show, held over the weekend. The Southwest Alaska community is off the U.S. road system, and cars must be shipped in on barges, for a higher price, or flown in.
Baldwin’s classic was the car of a former principal in the Lower Kuskokwim School District in the 1970s, who would drive it on the local trails when the snow wasn’t too deep. Baldwin inherited it in the ’90s.
“People tell me it was driven to Quinhagak, and I know it used to be driven back and forth between Nunapitchuk because he worked in both of those villages,” Baldwin said.
Baldwin, who was the LKSD superintendent, said that he drove it daily until he retired.
Henry Peter said that his wife learned to drive on that same model. Peter was born in a log cabin in Kasigluk, a village west of Bethel. He first saw more vehicles when he came to Bethel in 1966.
“When I grew up, there was hardly no drive, no cars,” Peter said. “And those old-time snowmachines.”
It takes a lot of work for a car lover to maintain a vehicle in Bethel, and that’s a big part of why Alaska State Trooper Zack Huckstep decided to organize the city’s first car show.
Huckstep showed up with his 1971 Toyota Brown, which is basically a Land Cruiser. On the morning of the show, he converted its flatbed into a temporary playpen so that he could keep his toddler under control while he did some last-minute polishing.
Visitors who peeked inside got to see its long leather seats — and a perfect LEGO replica of the vehicle.
“Did I tell you about the LEGO garage?” Huckstep asked. “So, I didn’t want to geek out too much, but I actually have, like, a LEGO garage with, like, all the tools, and a garage and a lift and everything for that LEGO truck.”
That LEGO garage is actually the only one Huckstep owns. He doesn’t have a life-size one in Bethel. And that has been a problem because Bethel’s dust storms can wreck a paint job. Replacement paint, like everything else that makes its way to town, isn’t cheap. Neither is getting these vehicles to Bethel.
“It was shipped from Australia all the way to, I believe, San Diego. And the funny thing was, it was actually cheaper to ship from Australia to America than it was to ship from Anchorage to Bethel,” Huckstep said.
NAPA Auto Parts, the only car parts shop in town, welcomed the car show. And it was a team effort. Alaska Commercial Company donated hot dogs and hamburgers, then NAPA employees grilled them for visitors.
It wasn’t just cars that showed up. There was a brand new four-wheeler, one of the more popular vehicles in the region, and a cherry-red Vespa.
Trooper Elondre Johnson entered his vehicle to support Huckstep. He had additions, including a panel of fluorescent lights for when he drives to villages on the frozen river in winter.
“Alaska is a dark place,” said Johnson. “And so anytime we get kind of get off-road, running down the river where things are really dark, it’s nice to have the extra lighting.”
Don Roberts brought arguably the most practical vehicle: a new Bobcat. For the show, he put a 6-foot long snowblower on the front of it, which he’s used to plow 20 feet of blown snow off friends’ houses along the tundra. But Roberts said that there are probably 75 different tools he can swap into that spot.
“God there’s so much. There’s numerous attachments,” said Roberts. “You can put grass cutters on here, posthole diggers, backhoes will go on it. Anything that will go on a tractor will go on the front of this. I can’t name all of them. There’s just so many things that will go on this.”
But it was Jimmy Guinn who brought the showstopper: A giant, shiny, sun-yellow truck from 1942. He said that it was a rare find because most of them were shipped off in WWII. He had it shipped up from Seattle. It rarely leaves the garage. It was easy to admire the inside, with its yellow and black stripes and a classic dashboard, but many were struck by how well-maintained it was.
“The reason why I like it is because it’s almost impossible to keep things clean,” said Ava, an 11-year-old spectator. “I wonder how they even got here without getting it dirty.”
“Yeah. This is beautiful,” agreed city mechanic Eddie Fenn. “Oh, this is beautiful. Like a Tonka toy.”
But as much as the Alaskans appreciated the sunny vintage vehicle’s uncanny shine, they’re suckers for trucks.
“The big yellow ’43 truck is by far, you know, the most spectacular,” said Iskandar Alexandar, who works in behavioral health at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation.
“But I actually feel the best in choice, I voted for this one more kind of conventional-looking guy. [Because] if you just had a suitcase full of money, you could go and buy that off the shelf yourself and imagine yourself driving it. And, you know, it’s Alaska,” Alexandar said. “Chicks dig trucks.”
In the end, when all of the votes were counted, Guinn’s truck won Best in Show.
“Don’t run away too far, Jimmy,” Huckstep said from the megaphone as Guinn collected a bucket of car repair goods donated by NAPA Auto Parts. “You also ended up with People’s Choice and first place.”
Still, Guinn said that the best part of the day was getting to hang out with all of the other gearheads in town.
“All these cars have just lots of love in them,” Guinn said. “Doesn’t matter if they’re beat up, or if they’re brand new or whatever, that owners really love every one of them. So that’s what makes owning a car like this fun, because everybody cares.”
Guinn didn’t even bring his favorite car. It’s metallic gold, with grills in the front and nuggets on the license plate. It seems like a strong contender for another set of awards next year, but who knows what other cars might roll up then.
