Mac & Phyllis Take a Trip
Traveling the country in search of fond memories in a 1960 Mercedes-Benz 190b
ARTICLE GARY ANDERSON
PHOTOGRAPHY TOM MOREHOUSE
Life is a journey, or so it is often said. But as Tom Morehouse tells the story on the weblog he calls “NutmegFlyer.com,” the journey does not need to end with one life. The journey that started when Tom’s father and mother met in 1944 took him 7,300 miles around the United States in his restored 1960 Mercedes-Benz 190b in the fall of 2013 – and it hasn’t ended yet.
Tom Morehouse had planned to stop at most of the cities on the original 1959 promotional trip, but weather forced him to bypass the Pacific Northwest. Major destinations were Macungie, PA; Millfield, OH; Metamora, IL; Appleton, WI; LaCrescent, MN; Logan, UT; Palo Alto, CA; Tucson, AZ; Fort Worth, TX; Clarksville, TN; and Bedford, VA
The story begins during the last years of World War II, when Malcolm Morehouse of New York, an Army chief warrant officer who had served with the Signal Corps in Fiji and the Solomon Islands, was transferred to Southern California to teach the new technology of radar systems. There he met an independent young woman named Phyllis who had left a nursing position in Baltimore to move to the West Coast and was working as a draftsman for an aircraft company. They were married in May 1945, and as soon as the war ended, they headed back to the East Coast to build a new life near where they had grown up.
Mac and Phyllis were married in May 1945 just as the war ended.
But halfway through that journey, Malcolm was offered a position with the Sinclair Oil Corporation in Fort Worth. Given the uncertainties of a transitioning economy, Malcolm accepted the position and the young couple settled down in Texas, where they were to live for the rest of their lives.
Tom was born in Fort Worth in 1948, where he lived and graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970. Trained as an educator, Tom began teaching in south Texas but would eventually carry on the journey his parents began in 1946, moving to New England, and eventually retiring from the University of Connecticut in 2003.
A copy of the June 1959 Motor Trend magazine that Tom Morehouse found in his research produced an unexpected family connection.
Tom has always been interested in mechanical things, so after retiring he began restoring automobiles from the 1950s. One day while reading an old car magazine – the June 1959 issue of Motor Trend – he was brought up short. In that issue an article caught his eye because it pictured a Mercedes-Benz just like his parents had driven.
The article was titled, “Is the Diesel the coming economy car?” It described in words and pictures a promotional coast-to-coast trip by Mercedes-Benz in the 190D. Tom was dumbstruck by one of the pictures. A man in an overcoat, hands in pockets, fedora on his head, was inspecting the 190D with two little boys standing next to him.
The man was Tom’s father, and the two little boys were Tom and his brother Steve.
The photo of Mac Morehouse with sons Tom and Steve, inspecting the 190D as it passed through Texas in 1959.
Tom recalls that his father, working in the oil industry, was always fascinated by the latest developments in automobiles and often took his boys to see new cars and technologies when they arrived in Texas. The article started Tom thinking about his childhood and his parents.
The Mercedes-Benz brochure showing the original route.
After seeing that 190, his mother and father purchased a used 220S from the late 1950s, and then a 190b in the same ponton body style as the 190D they had been inspecting in the Motor Trend article. Tom remembered that his parents were very proud of those cars. They had always promised each other that when they retired, they would take a cross-country trip in the old Mercedes.
Unfortunately, cancer and a heart attack brought an unexpected end to their dreams. But his memories of them gave Tom a “kick in the head” to make his own journey without further delay. Why not restore a 190 like theirs and make the trip in their memory? In addition, he could plan the trip to visit all the students, friends, and family with whom he had stayed in touch over the years, making the journey a pilgrimage through his own memories, as well.
Picture of Tom with his 1960 190b ready to go, looking forward to his trip.
Having set his course, Tom located a 1960 190b, in the same medium blue color as his parents’ car. It was mechanically sound, but needed a lot of work to become roadworthy. Fortunately he only needed to share a link to his weblog with the International Ponton Owners Group and MBCA websites and he soon had as much assistance and advice as he could use. Local shops including Magno Restorations and Manny’s Imported Auto Service, and Tom Hanson of the Mercedes-Benz Classic Center were great sources for advice and repair parts.
The 90 horsepower 4-cylinder M-121 engine, cleaned up, tuned, and ready to go.
Rating himself as a “shade-tree mechanic,” Tom was able to rebuild the brake system, rebuild the carburetor, correct some lamp cord wiring patches, replace the heating system (which would come in handy on the northern leg of the route), and clean up the interior a bit. He had no intention of impressing anyone with the car’s appearance, and it wouldn’t be entering any concours events along the way, but safety and reliability would be critical on a trip that would traverse some lonely spots and cover an estimated 7,000 miles.
Tom will be the first to say that we have to take life as it comes, and so he was disappointed – but not dismayed – when he bumped into some medical problems of his own. However, these only increased his determination to make the trip. On September 23, 2013, he very carefully placed his parents’ wedding photo in the corner of the windshield where he could see it as he drove, and headed west.
Departure, 10 a.m. on September 23, 2013. Tom holds the “Good Luck” card from fellow volunteers at the New England Air Museum.
Over the first three weeks, Tom began to satisfy his promise to himself to visit the friends around the country with whom he had shared milestones in life. These visits would be the high points of his journey, surpassing even the most spectacular scenery in their emotional impact.
By the time Tom reached the Rockies, the car was running fine but weather and politics wouldn’t cooperate in helping him to stay on his itinerary. Early snow storms in South Dakota and Wyoming shut down the roads and waylaid him for a couple of days in Sioux Falls. Then storms in Congress closed the government and he had to skip his planned visits to Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks because they were closed.
A stop in Appleton, Wisconsin, to visit former student Paul Wilke, his wife Jill, and sons Tom and Matt.
Tom with fellow British Car Forum member Keith Mott and his excellent Austin-Healey BT7, on the road to Beaver Mountain near Logan, Utah.
Heading southwest through Nevada, Tom noticed on his usual morning flight check that his fan belt needed tightening, so he pulled in at a Ford dealer in Elko. Driving into the service area, he brought work to a halt as a dozen young mechanics came out to look at the “old car.” Looking under the hood, one young man asked, “What’s the round thing with all the wires sticking out of it?” Tom had to explain the function of a distributor to him. Only one of the mechanics had ever even seen a carburetor, and that only because he had once worked at a restoration shop near Reno.
Filling up with Dino Supreme near Salt Lake City; Dad worked for Sinclair for more than 20 years.
They did manage to diagnose an adjusting bolt on the generator that was too badly worn to hold fan-belt tension, and rigged a spacer to make use of the unstripped threads, but even with a fully equipped garage behind them, they had to use the 17mm open-end wrench from the 190’s original tool kit because it was the only way to reach the bolt.
