From back issue 25
Text: Wooley // Photos: Matthew Jones
There oughta be a word for a car like this. Or a phrase. Or a term. Hell – maybe there is a word/phrase/term for a car like this – and I just don’t know it. But… as a true car guy and culture guy, we all feel the same things when we see this. Run your hands over it, and there is an unspoken shared understanding. It seems to me, like there is just too much going on here… not to have a ‘word’ to define it all.
I guess Wabi Sabi is close… but that’s not it. Because Wabi Sabi is a beauty that can only be earned through age and time… like an old barn that hasn’t been restored, wrinkles on the skin, an autumn leaf, or a rusting old Mercury that was long abandoned. But to use the term Wabi Sabi here, isn’t quite on point… because this truck has been modified along the way. It has been preserved, to a certain extent. It has had human hands on it, keeping it from its 100% natural decay. But – every aspect of how this truck has been touched, has been done in a way, to exude hardship.
A rough life. Dusty. Beaten and battered. Coarse skin. The hood is reminiscent of an animal, a tortoise or a giraffe, under the hot sun in a dry, dusty plain. The DTA grill looks older than DTA itself, and it seems as if it’s been on that truck for three decades… getting eaten up by gravel and sand. The boards in the bed that cover the compressor have gaps. They are unfinished in the corners, and are ever-aging by the California sun & salt air. It looks almost like if you lifted up the wooden planks, you would find stashes of dingy old moonshine mason jars – or something…
Purchase Back Issue 25 here to read the rest of this story
