The Spear Family Skylark

Back to Main Page

Next Page

The family stayed in Delaware for about a year until he was hired by Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in East Hartford, CT as an engineer.  He related that he, the Hudson and the Hupp almost ended up in a river along the way because the brakes began to fail while coming down a long hill on the Storm King Highway in New York.  It seems that even back then, the great state of New York did not allow cars to be towed over the interstate so he was forced to take a very hilly back road.   As dad said, the Hupp story almost ended too soon.

I entered the world shortly after my parent’s arrival in Connecticut.  I grew up playing in the Skylark in the basement of the barn.  The Hupp was always good for an adventure even if the headliner was falling down and the mice were making their homes in the seats. At some point during its stay in the basement of the barn my sister’s horse got out of it’s stall and wandered to the side of the barn where the floor was not reinforced.  You guessed it; the horse went through the floor and landed on top of the old Hupp.  Apparently the critter bounced off the corner of the roof, off the fender and onto the floor.   Mom told me that the next morning she saw my sister go into and then came out of the top of the barn at warp speed.  At that moment she knew what had happened and prayed that the horse was not in the past tense.  As luck would have it, the horse was standing in the basement, none the worse for wear other than a few scrapes.  The car, upon inspection, had a dent in the roof and one in the fender but otherwise seemed undamaged.  It was not until many years later that I discovered what that horse’s rear end had actually done.  Just imagine a 2,000-pound posterior hitting one corner of the roof creating a rippling effect, not unlike the waves of a pond set off by a rock being tossed in.  Oh yeah, it was that bad!

Fast-forward to 1986 and my mother and father have decided to retire, sell the house and move to Vermont.  Dad asked me if I had any interest in the car otherwise the rusty old beast was headed to the scrap heap.  Had I known then what I know now I should have accepted that verdict.  I did not so with a lot of understanding by my wife Cindy we brought the old girl home.  As you can see by the picture, the car was really a mess and was to be become a very long project.  Here is a test for you Skylark aficionados out there.   How many things on the car are wrong?  You will probably run out of fingers and toes for this count.  Anyway, when it arrived I was able to clean out enough room in my garage at the house to put the Hupp away.