2018 Visit to Alex Harwick’s Car & Plane Collection

Saturday morning, 21 April, I pulled up to the hangar at 0900 with coffee pot and breakfast snacks to set up for everyone’s arrival. The gang was supposed to leave Montgomery at that time, so I gave myself time to set up, do some final cleaning and conduct quality assurance testing on the coffee and snacks. But wait, there’s already someone here!

So we sat and talked to Alex while I brewed and sampled the coffee and set out Deborah’s sausage balls and mini blueberry muffins. They were good!

Soon five cars and nine people pulled in, followed by another car a few minutes later. We all hung out in the lounge and visited, talking about cars, cars, cars . . . good ones, bad ones, old favorites and more. We adjourned around the corner into the freshly-cleaned hangar to see the treasures that awaited us.

Alex has a varied collection, ranging from a prewar MG to an early 2000s Porsche Boxter, with 1960s Volvos, a Smart Car, a Jaguar XKE and more Mazda Miatas than you can shake a stick at. His scrapbooks were out, detailing every car that he has owned from his teenage years through his Air Force career in Europe right up to the most recent cars he has bought. Alex told many enchanting stories about his cars and the places he took them.

More people came in as lunch approached, and sixteen people including Alex adjourned to Acapulco Mexican Grille on the north side of Tallassee for lunch. From my perch at one end of the table, it seemed that everyone had a good time.

Hank

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