THE HOOD SCOOP: A peek under the hood
The author with her 1971 MGB. Photo courtesy of Ethan Yankura.
By Jenna Lookner
We’re a few weeks into this adventure—both The Hood Scoop and The Rising Tide itself—and I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a bit of the “scoop” on my passion for vintage vehicles.
I grew up right down the road in Camden, born to a former hippie mother and a slightly older gearhead father. Suffice it to say, cars and motorcycles provided a backdrop for my formative years. I can still hear my mom yelling from the front door of our farmhouse about motorcycle helmets. Dad didn’t wear one, but she was going to be damned if her kids went unprotected.
Still, those short rides on his late 1960s Triumph Bonnevilles were always exciting. I learned to be a “good passenger,” signalling manually and leaning into the turns with my arms firmly wrapped around my father during the duration of our rides.
At some point I alighted from the motorcycle and made the mistake I was always warned about: I carelessly let my bare leg skim the hot tail pipe. I still have the scar, and even though it’s only visible with a suntan, it makes me feel like a bit of a badass.
My dad was always coming home with a vehicle. At some point it dawned on me that his acquisition strategy, albeit chaotic, was really rather brilliant: He would look for a vehicle that was up for sale along the roadside and wait a few months, maybe a price reduction or two hastily drawn on the “for sale” sign in the window.
Finally, he would make his move. Offering cash, and significantly less than asking.
He was largely successful, though we ended up with quite a few oddities that seldom stayed in our family long.
There was a 1972 French Blue Porsche 911. When the Seinfeld collection commanded significant numbers at auction over a decade ago I commented to him that he should have kept the Porsche, he told me I was ridiculous.
Why?
Because he did not enjoy driving it. Only now, only after my own love of cars has formed and settled, do I fully understand his rationale.
See, it really doesn’t matter quite so much how “cool” or how valuable your hobby car is if you’re intending to use it, what matters is that you love to drive it and feel overjoyed doing so.
I was working as a reporter at The Camden Herald when someone sent me the job: The Owls Head Transportation Museum was hiring a public relations director. I loved my job, but I was freshly 30 and the idea of combining my communications background with my love for old cars, planes, and motorcycles was irresistible.
I showed up a week early for my job interview in the kind of gaffe that a person cannot invent. Lo and behold, they fit me in and within 10 days I was offered the position.
I worked at the museum for several years, spending as much time as possible in both the aircraft and auto shops. I wanted to learn as much as I could about the collection, and quickly became fixated on several pieces including a 1929 Springfield Rolls-Royce Phantom Derby Tourer that had originally belonged to Clara Bow. I drank information from a firehose and became so comfortable with the collection that I could give a pretty decent tour within months.
The museum operates about 90 percent of their collection, so I had opportunities to drive vehicles regularly. I’ll never forget the first collection car I drove: a 1939 Packard Super Eight Town Car with a custom body by Brunn. Provenance linked the car to an estate on MDI. It also had a 134-inch wheelbase. I tried to disguise my intimidation until muscle memory kicked in: three on the column, easy and forgiving. Within moments I was gliding around the tarmac at the wheel of this historic behemoth.
I would be remiss to bury the fact that I also began dating—and later married—the curator and education director of 18 years. Ethan is a wealth of knowledge and sharing it with me was among the greatest gifts of my life.
Jenna Lookner and her husband Ethan Yankura in a 1955 Jaguar XK140 at the Owls Head Transportation Museum. Photo courtesy of Jeff Larson.
When I was 34 I lost my dad unexpectedly. Cars had been among our “things” and I know he loved that I carried that with me, and that prior to his death he had seen me married to a man who would continue to nurture and encourage my love of automobiles. Each time I sit down in someone’s garage, I think of him. I hear his voice and commentary in each story I write, and on every vehicle I admire. I have been fortunate to receive tremendous support from both men and women in the auto world, with Ethan even bragging regularly about his one-time student becoming his teacher.
But really, he was among the legions of people who encouraged me and built me up. Who saw a (relatively) young woman with a passion for cars and wanted to nourish it.
In 2015 we purchased our 1971 MGB Roadster at the New England Auto Auction. It was purchased with a check specifically for an MGB, given to us as a wedding gift. I was bidding against one of our major buyers, and when he turned around and saw that I was the underbidder, he dropped his paddle and smiled.
It took us nearly two months to find what ailed our MGB, and we work with the same mechanic to this day: a museum volunteer and foreign car savant who operates a pristine but rustic shop out of his magnificent antique barn.
He can detect a wiring problem with his eyes closed. I’ve watched him.
In 2022 I went to work for Seal Cove Auto Museum where I had the opportunity to experience their truly eclectic, rather spectacular collection of obscure Brass Era automobiles. While their approach is different, the stories and displays at Seal Cove are masterful and the collection they display contains vehicles including one of the three remaining 1908 Stanley Model K semi-Racers. This vehicle—like their 1913 Peugeot Boattail Skiff—has seen the field at America’s most elite annual auto event: the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Monterey.
I have been to fundraising car shows, to elite auctions and conferences, I have contributed to concours magazines and interacted with people and automobiles that I still cannot quite grasp.
Among my favorites? A 1915 Duesenberg Indy Racer that won second place in the 1916 Indianapolis 500, a 1907 Renault Vanderbilt Racer, a 1913 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, and a 1930 Bentley Speed Six.
But the cars are nothing without their stories. They are nothing without the people that make these objects something more.
My mechanic has restored the 1956 Porsche 356 A that he was brought home from the hospital in as a baby. He still drives it today. A harbor master I used to work with has a 1962 MGB that he keeps on the road himself with a fascinating approach to sourcing parts and creating solutions.
Many don’t drive these cars because they are easy. We don’t only own them because they are “cool.”
There is almost always something more lurking under the literal and figurative hood, and I am grateful to have a platform to share “The Scoop.”
–Jenna Lookner is automobile enthusiast, collector and historian with an automobile museum and auction background. She tells the stories of special automobiles in the area on a regular basis through her column “The Hood Scoop.” If you have a special car you’d like to see profiled, drop her a line at jlookner@risingtide.media.