- I had always been told,
and I've looked for 40 years for this car.
(gentle piano music)
- [Narrator] We are in the west central section of Michigan
where the Sleeping Bear sand dunes
form a unique setting for Glen Lake,
toward which the sands are creeping
at the rate of six feet a year,
burying trees and every unmoving object
in their glacier-like path.
- Louis started renting horses,
buying and renting horses over the dunes in the late '20s,
and '34 or '35 he started experimenting
with the balloon tires to run over the dunes.
Eventually the dune car
replaced the horse rentals over the dunes.
Sleeping Bear Dunes became a destination attraction
with the advent of the dune cars.
Everybody come up, took a dune ride,
that was the thing to do.
This whole area, say western Michigan,
it's certainly a lot of the influence up in Chicago,
and of course eventually
from Detroit got to just as popular,
from the southeast coming up here.
- [Narrator] The native Indians name this picturesque region
Leelanau, or Land of Delight,
and the true meaning of its name
has become significant to the thousands of visitors
who come here for their summer holidays.
But for a most unusual thrill,
we suggest a ride over the sand dunes
in these so-called Dunesmobiles,
which are appropriately equipped with balloon tires
and other accessories for desert travel.
(gentle music)
- My first memory of the dune rides,
I rode in the generation before the 1948 Fords,
and then the '48s, my father
always took me for rides.
- [Dave] I remember it being a thrill ride type thing
even though it wasn't billed as that.
- [Frank] It was a thrill, because they were going fast,
particularly before the roads,
and they also, you'd catch air.
You knew you were in the air with these things.
That was a thrill, just in its own right.
- [Dave] It was a very pleasant ride,
everybody had the same canned speech, I think,
all the drivers.
- And at every stop you had to give a spiel,
tell them what was there.
You'd enter the dunes, you'd come around,
and you could see the two islands.
You went up the gravel hill to the top,
and then that'd give you a nice view,
you could look back and see the islands
or look ahead and see the mother bear.
- The awesome view of Glen Lake that you get
when they came around the other side where you walk up,
that view in itself was just breathtaking.
And then when they would stop long the cliff
that goes down to Lake Michigan,
they were right on the edge, they weren't somewheres back.
When they'd stop and you were sitting there,
you'd look down and you were looking down over the edge.
At that time, they also would go over to
where Windoga Lake, Michigan,
and park so you could get out and throw stones down,
and that kinda thing.
- The customers, they always wanted to get out the car
and run down to the lake,
just 400 or 500 feet down it.
And on each trip I would take a round rock
and put it in the trunk of the car
to demonstrate to these people
I would roll the rock off of the side of the bank
and told them to, "Keep your eye on the rock."
That was always good for a $5 tip at the end of the ride.
- [Dave] As far as the drivers go,
that was every young guy, most everybody.
It was a good job for a lot of people for a lot of years.
School teachers in the summer,
young people outta high school.
- [Frank] There was a lot of hype, if you will,
about being able to drive one of those things.
It was difficult to get the jobs
because everybody wanted to do it.
- That was the best job I ever had.
- I've got a list of over 115 drivers
that we've learned,
and most all of them are 18 to 24.
- I always dreamed about driving one of the Dunesmobiles,
and had a job for a very short period of time.
And I got the job to drive this particular year,
and I had driven a week,
and the gentleman owned the dunes ride
asked me if I had a chauffeur's license, and I did not,
I wasn't old enough.
So, I could no longer drive it,
it wasn't that I did anything wrong.
And that was a real put-down for me
to not be able to do that.
So, I mowed lawns for the summer.
(gentle music)
- [Dave] The '34 Ford, a '35 Ford,
four '37 Fords, a '39,
and then a '41 Mercury, that was his first fleet
was a hodge-podge of several different cars.
Then the next fleet was a complete fleet of '48 Fords.
Later the fleets were '56 Oldsmobiles,
and then '65 Fords.
But his first complete fleet with the decals on the side
claiming to be Sleeping Bear Dunesmobiles and all decked out
was the fleet of '48s.
- He traded the Fords in on '56 Oldsmobile convertibles
here in Traverse City.
And I didn't have the wherewithal,
I had the interest, but not the money.
They quickly sold.
By the time I got really interested,
which was several years later,
they were just missing, they were gone.
Something had happened, they'd ended up as junk.
This one always kind of surfaced,
but nobody seemed to know where it was.
- [Dave] Number nine has been around here,
different people had owned it.
I'm not sure who bought it from Loius
I think it just happened to be number nine,
the one that was photographed by Fred Dickenson.
It certainly is the poster board
car of the fleet, I think you could say.
- It was sold in a used car lot,
and it was sold out of some place
like in Benzie County or wherever.
It was just a '48 Ford convertible.
- I knew that Frank J. Paulus had taken in
some of them.
- [Frank] Trail seemed to get hot and cold.
- This car number nine was, I think,
the Van Pelt family outta Northport,
then it was passed on down to the son.
- Mike May ended up with it,
loaned it to our museum for a couple of years,
we had it on display in our lower level.
- I really thought it was gone.
I just, I tried so many different avenues,
and I'm just going up the wrong avenue,
because it just kinda disappeared.
I ran into a lady last year
who's on the Historical Society for Leelanau County.
She asked me about if I would help her
with some cars, and boats, and things
that they didn't know about.
So, I did, and I said,
"I have one thing to ask you."
I said, "I'm looking for one of the Ford Dunesmobiles."
She said, "I know where it is."
And I almost fell over, really.
- [Dave] It was purchased through Carl Andreeson
to the J&R Museum
out in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
- [Frank] He didn't own the car, he kind of
worked for a guy who was gonna own it and restore it.
- We let it sit for a couple of years.
When it came time to do a restoration on it,
we did a body off total restoration.
Joiner said,
"This car has turned out to be
"a little bit more of a sentimental thing for you, Carl,
"so I'm going to back away from it
"and I'm going to let you take over restoration."
And then
the entire conversation started with the fact that
the car really did not belong in New Mexico.
Once Gab and Evonna Joiner
realized how much this car meant to
the area up here,
they thoroughly realized
that they did not want to drive it,
that it should be,
it should go back into northern Michigan.
- I was just astounded,
and I went and looked for
two things.
It has no radio, and it has no heater, and never did.
And I knew that it was original.
- That's right.
- Because they wouldn't be ordered that way if it was...
This car never had a radio or a heater.
- This is one of 10.
Nine of them are gone, and this is the only one.
It happens to be the one that you really remember,
but that was just the case.
When he traded these in on the newer cars,
the cars that looked more current,
they all went away
and that's just kinda what happened
with a lot of things like this.
(gentle music)
- To see that car restored,
and then come back to Traverse City,
I think that's a wonderful thing.
- The car came back,
and if there was a place to reveal it to the public
it would be in a Fourth of July parade
in Glen Arbor, Michigan.
And so, we kept it somewhat under wraps
until that time came.
And that was the first time that anybody had really seen it.
- I think, from what I saw on the Fourth of July,
the oohs and the ahs of seeing the car back up here.
I had put two years of my life
into the restoration of the vehicle.
Gab Joiner had put quite a bit of his money
into the restoration of the vehicle.
It made everything worthwhile.
Everything, the money and time, worthwhile.
- In the parade so many people shouted at me,
and just saying comments about
what a wonderful thing to have back.
(gentle music)
I drove the car to Glen Haven.
I didn't do it.
I'm in my late 70s,
to think that I was able to drive this again.
Never give up.
(gentle piano music)