Looking like a cross between the Headless Horseman’s ghost coach and a conveyance for Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show, George Skorohod’s 1922 Model T Ford tow truck coughed to life with a “putt, putt-putt, putt-putt-putt” rhythm, then took its place to receive a Yellow Ribbon award at the Milwaukee Masterpiece Concours d’Elegance.
The yellow ribbon stuck on the Ford’s tall, straight windshield indicated that Skorohod had won a Premier Award for the most original vehicle at the concours. So, he set the choke, worked the Flivver’s three pedals and got underway. Shaking and rattling like only a Model T can, the “rescue truck” moved a few more feet towards the announcer’s podium where the award was handed to Skorohod.
Skorohod and his Model T came all the way from Lincoln, Neb., to participate in the Milwaukee venue. As he approached the crowd at the trophy stand, Skorohod wondered what Tony Wirka would have thought about all the commotion.
Wirka had been a mechanic in Rescue, Neb., a village of tiny proportion that has since become a ghost town. From a one-pump filling station and repair shop, Wirka fixed broken-down cars, some of which were delivered via his homemade tow truck. Car shows were not on Wirka’s radar back then.
Skorohod purchased the truck 25 years ago at an estate auction. “It was a three-day auction and the truck was the last damn thing to sell,” Skorohod recalled. “I went there just to buy it and it took me three days to make the purchase. It was cold.” Skorohod got the truck running and decided to leave everything else just the way it was. “I kept it all original,” he noted. “I had other tow trucks, but I thought that this was an awful unique machine.”
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