For the last 20 years of my 36 year teaching career I taught at Fillmore High School. I always taught in the shop programs since I always valued interaction with individual students. The challenge of fitting shop tasks with individual student interests and strengths while covering the prescribed curriculum was always fun and rewarding. I always loved my students and the shop environments in which we worked. After teaching many years in wood shop programs and metal/machine/welding shops, I was interested in giving auto shop a try since I’ve always loved restoring old cars. When the current auto shop instructor retired and the shop facility fell into disrepair, I approached the principal Mrs. Lynn Johnson, with my idea of teaching an auto restoration program which would include the teaching of skills found in all shop areas of study. Mrs. Johnson was enthused when I wrote up the ideas with the incentives for student learning and we began the Fillmore Auto Restoration Program in the 1998/99 school year. The incentives for students learning included the completion of required projects in welding, sheet metal fabrication, and many exercises in mechanical tasks prior to the students being allowed to work on the class car restoration project. The car was built from just pieces bought at swapmeets or contributed by our old car friends. The car for the 1999 school year was a 1930 Model “A” pickup. While the car was being built we entered it in the History Channel’s Great Race. “The Great Race” was an idea by a Mr. Tom McCrae, who was concerned about all the folks who had an old car languishing in their garage, and an itch to drive it somewhere in America in a timed-endurance rally-type contest.

Started in 1982, Tom ran these rallies across America each year on different courses so that the beauty of America would be fully enjoyed. In the 1999 race, we started in Marietta, Georgia and ended in Anaheim, California, traveling over beautiful two-lane roads often on Hwy 66, covering over 3,000 miles. I think we were 4th or 5th in our class (The X Cup), and the cash we earned by our placing so well went to scholarships for our team members. The hardest part of this whole effort was choosing five team members (students) form over 100 kids, who were in my classes both semesters and had a part in building the car. We built three different cars, one each year for the three years we competed and they are all three here today. The 1999 car was bought (after the race we had to sell each car to help raise funds to cover the $30,000 needed to finance each year) by a gentleman from the Topanga area. Since, however, we “put Fillmore on the map” it got a lot of folks excited and generated a lot of press, Mr. Scott Lee who has served on every BOARD, COMMITTEE, AND COUNCIL KNOWN TO MANKING IN Fillmore, asked who bought the car. Well, I don’t know what kind of song & dance Scott did, but he talked the gentleman into cutting his price for buying the car in half and donating the car back to the Fillmore Historical Society. Now the car that made Fillmore famous can be enjoyed by all of us and future generations as we relive its exploits while viewing it here in its new garage home thanks to the efforts of many supporters at the Fillmore Historical Society Museum.

[The car was dedicated on Saturday, May 15th, to the Fillmore Historical Museum]
Lin Thomas
Fillmore