John & Janice Jackson

Even cars have dreams!

Da Hutch

A lifetime ago, I used to live in Ridgecrest and belonged to the High Desert Roadrunners Car Club. My oldest son Josh

and I were the "proud" owners of a 1960 International Metro (you can see it still sitting behind the Hutch in the above

picture) when I met Jerry Effle from the Over the Hill Gang of Victorville. Jerry was the equivalent of our own Hoot

Gibson, he found deals everywhere he looked. When I met Jerry, Jerry had a 56 Chevy sedan delivery for sale. I

promised that when I got the money together, I would buy the delivery off of him. But you know the story, life has other plans.

In the meantime I received an inheritance from my parents and married Janice. It just so happens that Janice loves cars

as much as I do and so with a very gentle push (it didn't take much!!) Janice suggested a visit with Jerry to see what goodies

he had. The delivery was gone by then and Jerry had 2 suburbans available, a 57 and a 58. I'm not a big fan of the quad head

lights so we chose the 57! When Janice and I drove to Victorville to pick up our prize Jerry told us the history of "Da Hutch".

Jerry had purchased the suburban from an Idaho forest ranger he knows who happened across the suburban in the forest

being used as something I don't think Chevrolet had ever intended or imagined. It seems that the owners were using the sub as

a rabbit hutch! Well the ranger bought the sub, sold it to Jerry, who sold it to us. It now sits in a storage yard in Ridgecrest.

We have a lot of mementos of it's previous enterprise though; besides a few spare parts we have rabbit turds, hay and at

least one carcass!

Progress on Da Hutch

This is as far as we have gotten as of 10/13/06. Now I have a small other project

I have to finish before I can get back to the Hutch...my son-in-law blew up the trans

in the Honda CRX he just bought from me so I'm helping him change that out!!

The next step on Da Hutch will be welding in the TCI independent front suspension!!

All I need is some gas for my new MIG welder so I can do some practicing before that

goes in.