preservation devotion integrity

This inaugural email update is a dedication. To my father Art Wegweiser.

Among my father’s hobbies: Decimating the bivalve population of Planet Earth.

My father was always a car person. Growing up in the 40s and 50s a string of “not normal” cars threaded throughout his life. From Willys Jeepsters (upon which he could change a head gasket in about 20 minutes during a date, he’d tell me) to gorgeous Studebaker Golden and Silver Hawks, a brief trist with a Fiat 124 coupe, and finally culminating in a love affair with BMWs that would last the remaining 50 years of his life. The 1972 3.0CSi he drove until his death at age 84, in 2019 seems a quite fitting automotive apogee, given the roofline and proportions of the vehicles he owned, leading up to it. This week marks the fourth anniversary of his passing, but I have decided to forget the actual date he passed from this world. Instead I want to focus on his life. He was born February 20, 1934.

My parents, Art and Helen were both born in New York City. While pursuing his PhD at Washington University, my mother worked her tail off. Raising us kids and instilling in us the importance of creativity, humor, empathy, and focus. Like many women of the era, she forfeited a career (in fashion design and her education at FIT) to handle the responsibilities. She too turned out to be a “car person” and piloted her 1977 320i at warp speeds throughout the late 1970s. Both of them attended multiple BMW CCA Nürburgring driving schools in Germany, and both were accomplished behind the wheel on the track, at autocrosses, and on the highway. They taught me the difference between being a driver and not a mere “motorist”.

BMW Club Oktoberfests and road trips in the back seat of our orange 2002 were part of my childhood. I even got to play with Matchbox cars in the paddock of The Green Hell as a child. I think there’s a Pat Benatar song about this.

My Dad was a scientist and a professor. Decades later I still run into people in their 50s and 60s that speak about how much they loved his classes. and that he left them with a love of learning. He was a Paleontologist, an Oceanographer (even working at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute) and even late in life, loved teaching others. My father was proof that it was possible to be passionate …about rocks.

In 1972 my parents replaced their (already rotting) Fiat 124 coupe with a 1972 Colorado orange 2002. That car evolved and changed in phases along with the fashions of the time… from orange to silver…. with blacked out trim… sport suspension, Weber carb, CB antennae, and an appropriately sportier steering wheel. Sadly I have no photographs of that car during its original orange phase. Here we see it being flogged mercilessly at a BMW Club event circa 1981.

My father also instilled in me a love of food, art, natural beauty, an appreciation for the environment, other cultures, the importance of civil liberties, and the joys of learning. He taught me how to make Clams Casino, how to properly prepare a rare steak, and to appreciate delicate things like jellyfish and wild flowers. The love of old BMWs just transferred genetically.

I still own his beloved coupe. A car that at one point I perhaps resented. As my father aged and his health deteriorated, he seemed to take more pride in his car than in his life accomplishments. Here was a man that had traveled Europe, Mexico, and the Caribbean, taught and influenced thousands of students, excelled in his field, and yet…an object was the focus of his greatest pride. This saddened me as an adult and I once vowed that when he was gone, I would sell the car. The week after he passed, I took his ashes and those of my late mother for a drive out in the country in his coupe. The car has over 300,000 miles but still drove like an absolute thoroughbred. I was thoroughly absorbed in the car and how it felt and responded and though I had driven this car many times over the last 35 years, I finally came to realize why he so loved this machine. The car holds a place of honor in the shop and though it doesn’t get driven as much as it should - it is a part of me and a reminder of just what kind of giant my father was.