Wheelman Dated cars are links to the past that Neil Martin is driven to preserve

Neil Martin remembers a time, not all that long ago, when cars meant much more than just generic transportation.

For Martin, when he was a student at Bangor High School in the late 1950s and early ’60s, a 1951 Ford was his ticket from his outer Essex Street home to the world at large.

“The Bangor school department abandoned kids at the end of ninth grade, with no [bus] transportation,” recalled Martin, 62. “So that car was not only a necessity, but it represented freedom, too.”

The way the Freeport resident waxes philosophically about cars, it’s little wonder that he makes his livelihood from them these days. He runs Goldenrod Garage, through which he buys and sells “interesting older autos,” he explained. “I don’t get caught by labels like ‘antique’ or ‘classic.’ I try to determine what would be collectible and marketable.”

Martin doesn’t restore the cars; rather, he and his crew work on the vehicles enough to help them run better. He gets parts from other old cars, from trade publications and from reproduction-parts companies.

“I’m just the custodian, the preserver of these cars,” he said. “Every single one of these was once brand new, and was someone’s pride and joy at one time. There’s a lot of human energy in every one of them. I’m saving them for someone who wants to resurrect them another day.”

Martin has been headed in this direction since years before he could drive. In June 1957, he bought a 1947 Pontiac station wagon for $25 from Inman Auto Sales, a part of the Inman Farm, then the only car dealer on Hogan Road in Bangor. After fixing it up, he sold the car in December of that year for $65.

“That’s when I decided: This is a path that it would be very difficult to turn back from,” he said.

This was in the days before most teens received a car as a matter of course.

“We’d work part-time jobs and buy our cars,” Martin said. “If it needed a new clutch, we’d put it in ourselves, so we could go to the Brewer record hop that night.”

After graduating from Bangor High in 1961, Martin went to Bowdoin College.After that, he moved to Boston, then New Hampshire, all the while dabbling in old cars. He set up his current operation at a former chicken farm on Wardtown Road in 1978.

Cars used to be held in a place of higher esteem, Martin said.

“When we were kids, they used to hype the arrival of new cars,” he reminisced. “They’d come in covered on transporters, so you couldn’t see them until a certain day. Many people knew every model and could tell them apart. There’s so much homogeneity today. I don’t see anything that’s going to have that kind of appeal.”

Martin argues that cars are an integral part of everyone’s lives.

“This fascination for cars is not exclusive to me,” he said. “Almost everyone relates to significant events in their lives in context of what car they, or their father, or their neighbor, were driving. There’s always cars around, which lends a universality to the interest in these cars.”

The nostalgia value is why Martin has seen interest in old cars grow over the more than a quarter-century that he’s been in business. He advertises and sells all over the world.

“The hobby isn’t as esoteric as it was 27 years ago,” he said. “As the popularity has grown, more and more are buying them because they’re neat. There’s a lot more in the hobby for the fun of it. There’s more demand for original parts, but they’re also making replacement parts.”

Martin isn’t exempt from the nostalgia either. Out in a backfield on his property, rusting in peace, is the black ’58 Ford that his neighbors, the Kellys, drove for years. He bought 17 Divco milk trucks formerly from the Grant’s Dairy fleet, partly because he thinks they’ll become collectible, but also because “I get a nostalgic twinge remembering them drive around the streets of Bangor.”

Martin has an “eclectic blend” of cars and trucks from the 1930s to the ’60s in his stock. Most are restorable, but “many wouldn’t be for the faint of heart.”

The cost to get started in the hobby: from $2,000-$3,000 for “something that runs but needs work” to about $10,000 for “something that looks halfway decent that will pass inspection.”

Martin feels that any vehicle of his lot could be sold; the question is when. A 1950 Mercury airport limousine, one of 12 ever made, sat there for 19 years before selling. A 1946 Chevrolet airport limousine went in six months.

“These cars are like friends of mine, so I don’t mind if they hang around for a while,” he said.

When someone says, “They don’t make them like they used to,” Martin agrees, to an extent: “I’m thinking, ‘And it’s a good thing, too.’ Cars today are so technologically advanced. But people don’t buy these for performance. They buy them for nostalgic reasons.”

One corner of one garage is committed to stock-car racing. Indulging an enthusiasm born at the dirt tracks in Exeter and Unity, Martin sponsors one car and drives another in the limited sportsman class at Oxford Plains Speedway. “It’s the last class where you can buy a car and use components of existing cars to race,” he explained.

Despite the emotional investment he puts into the cars at his operation, Martin has learned to let them go.

“That’s my least favorite part, selling them,” he said. “My most favorite part is going out to find some more.”

For information, call Neil Martin at Goldenrod Garage, 865-6269. Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028.