Pat O'Connell's Service
(and car collection)
41500 Sierra Drive, Three Rivers, CA

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Pat O'Connell and his current tow truck.
His "retired" tow trucks are strewn around his property.
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Who is this guy?
What is he doing in Three Rivers, CA?
How did we meet him?
Why do we care?
Why is this web site here?

These questions and more are answered below and on linked pages.

Who is this guy?
Pat is a 79-year-old service station and towing business owner, and full-time gardener, who has been running Pat O'Connell's Service in Three Rivers since he moved there and bought the business in 1964. He'll turn 80 shortly. His fitness and energy level would put most 50-year-olds to shame. If you're under 40 you might keep up.

More about the gardening later, but for now suffice it to say, it has been for 40 years and still is nothing short of an entire parallel career.

What is he doing in Three Rivers, CA?
Well, it's pretty simple. Pat owned three different service stations in the LA area, the last one being a Mobil station on the corner of Slauson and La Brea in Inglewood, CA. He was looking to leave because, frankly, he was sick of LA and thought there must be a better place to live and raise kids. Try to remember (those of you who were here at the time) what LA was like in the early '60's: most days the smog was so bad you could barely see one block, and breathing was a life-threatening experience. Only we older guys know: it's actually a LOT better now.

Pat researched opportunities as far away as the Four Corners area and was close to making an offer on a station in Kaibab, AZ, north of the Grand Canyon, when he learned that the average snowfall there in winter is eight feet. This put him off, so he kept looking, with a preference for mountainous areas. He found what he wanted in Three Rivers, which, if you look on a map (or Google Earth) is about the same size as Kaibab, and I mean small. He and his wife sold the Inglewood station in 1964 and came the 225 miles north to move into a house on the property that was built in 1946. His wife died in 2005 after a long battle with cancer, and Pat has carried on alone. He told me that he never realized until after she died how much work women do to keep a house!

How did we meet him?
Completely by accident, of course. My wife Lynn and I were on a three-day drive through some back roads that involved the Southern Sierra in our heavily used 1996 Chrysler Sebring convertible (close to 150,000 on the odo right now) when I realized I really didn't know when the last time was that its oil had been changed! Lynn looked in the record book in the glove box and the nauseating answer was: 13,000 miles earlier. We searched for a Jiffy Lube or other service facility in the small agricultural town of Exeter, CA, found nothing with less than a two-hour wait, and so proceeded on to Three Rivers where . . . um . . . we came upon this amazing old garage surrounded by a couple dozen 50's and 60's cars sitting in the weeds. When I saw the two (count 'em) forward-controlled ("cab-over-engine") Jeep tow trucks I had to stop. Pat answered my prayers when he found he had the right oil filter for my car in his stock, raised the Sebring's front end on a floor jack (the lift having long since died), crawled under it with a plastic pan just like you or me in our own garages, and changed my oil and filter. His total charge was $19.17. I gave him thirty bucks and said "Keep the change, Pat. It's still less than I'd have paid Jiffy Lube!"

We didn't leave until we toured his garden. Notice that the garden came first on the tour of his property, not the couple of acres of old cars. What we saw was simply jaw-dropping. Pat by himself had excavated an acre or so of steep Sierra foothills down to bedrock by hand with nothing but a shovel and wheelbarrow, and landscaped it into a series of rocky nooks full of flowers and leafy plants, connected by flagstone paths through lawn-covered, tree-shaded arbors. The rocks he added were collected one by one from neighboring hills, often requiring the use of a tow truck, they were so heavy. Plainly Pat, sort of in the way of Archimedes ("Give me a lever and a place to stand . . . "), thinks of the world as something he should have no trouble moving, given enough time and a sturdy truck.

Last I looked it up, a cubic yard of dirt weighed 3375 pounds. That's 1.7 tons. Pat has excavated hundreds of cubic yards, revealing folded volcanic rocks that now serve to form pools of water with reeds and lilies growing in them, the dirt having been used to fill in other areas to create flats for lawn. All by hand. Some areas have been excavated down ten or twelve feet. He still works in his garden two hours every day, from 6am to 8 am, before the heat of the day, and his plans for it go on into an endless future.

Why do we care?
Well, partly because we love old cars, and partly because everyone knows, not least of all Pat, that a man's future is not endless. He already has chosen the place where his first tow truck, a 1946 GMC short-chassis cab-over, will reside after his death: the Three Rivers Museum. Because Pat's an icon in that town. We care because Pat is a cool guy, outgoing, honest and straightforward, full of energy and knowledge, a man who has lived his life well and ain't done yet by a long shot. And finally, we care because Pat would like to find homes for these cars that he's had for half his life, and we think we might be able to help. That's where you come in.

Pat O'Connell and his first tow truck

Why is this web site here?
To sell the cars. That's the truth. As Lynn and I drove on that day, I found myself ruminating about what a thousand or two stone car junkies in SoCal might be able to do with these cars. So I contacted Dick Croxall and Jerry Mull, both of whom jumped at the chance to spend a long, sweltering day driving 450 miles round trip in my non-air-conditioned 1965 Checker station wagon to go up there and photograph and catalog the cars - and the garden. Dick was called away on business, and a couple other folks chimed in but in the end couldn't make it, so Jerry and I went by ourselves. It took us 186 pictures, about three hours, and several pounds of sweat. Going home, it was about 102 in Bakersfield. We ended up closing the windows to stay cooler!

The cars
You can go up and meet Pat any time, and see his cars. (You have to see the garden too. That's required.) The rest of this site is intended to give you a sneak peek at the opportunities that exist there.

Some of these are restorable and some are nothing more than parts cars. Some could be bought in pairs: two cars to make one. Most are in rough condition, having sat outdoors for a couple of decades.

The paragraphs below each describe a single car. The paragraph title is a link to a folder containing photos of that car. After that I've added a folder with the rest of the car photos, so you can see for yourself what else there is. I've also added a folder with photos inside his garage, and of course a folder for the garden.

1951 Muntz Road Jet
One of 194 built. Original '51 Cadillac engine. Parked in 1966. Missing Muntz logos. Damaged dash plastic (glows with back lighting). Body parts are aluminum & steel. Some came with fiberglass fenders and some had Lincoln V8 engines.

See Hemmings article here: http://www.hemmings.com/hmn/stories/2007/06/01/hmn_feature25.html. I agree with this article. Restoring a Muntz Jet would be a big undertaking, not for the faint at heart. There aren't that many left to get parts from. On the other hand, there aren't that many left to compete with. Rarity is a double-edged sword.

Check out this site too: http://www.americansportscars.com/muntz.html

1962 Lincoln Continental Convertible
4-door. Parked in 2000. Cracked exhaust manifold. This car is *not* for sale -- it is promised to someone already.

1960 Lincoln Mark IV
CA license IIB086, reverse slant window, 2-door. For sale, price not given.

1956 Lincoln
4-door Sedan, Coral in color. For sale, price not given.

1957 Lincoln
4-door Sedan, Peach in color. Rusted body, good interior. For sale, price not given.

1963 Lincoln Continental
4-door Sedan, beige, '64 grille, parts car.

1971 Lincoln Mark III
2-door, church-keyed Brown paint, no smog equipment. Under house, in garage (no garage door). For sale, price not given.

1978 Lincoln Towncar
4-door. In under-house carport, (enclosed except no garage door). For sale, price not given.

1968 Oldsmobile Toronado
Blown head gasket, parked 1977. Interior trashed. Some rust on dash area, leaded body seam needs work. Minor dents. Fairly complete. For sale, price not given.

WWII GMCs
World War II GMC Artillery Trucks converted to Tow Trucks. Two available, not running. Both need complete restorations or good for parts. For sale but no price specified.

In Jerry Mull's opinion, the others were strictly parts cars, at best. That includes the '58 and '59 T-Birds, and the two Studebakers there. Jerry thinks the white Studebaker 4-door Sedan was a '65 (final year). It has the same grille as the Studebaker Wagon at the Automotive Driving Museum. The other Studey was a Lark, missing the front clip. In the remaining photos (below), if you see any of a blue Lark, that car is owned by a friend of Pat's, and is being stored there. Not for sale.

The other cars

More photos of Pat's first tow truck, 1946 GMC

The shop

The garden
Tell you what, I got to thinking. Truth is, you can only appreciate what Pat's done by seeing it in person. And you deserve to. Photos just don't do it justice. So if you decide to go up there and shop around through these cars, see the shop, and talk to Pat, you'll see a 40 year slice of life that's still alive but won't be much longer. The garden tour is part of that package. I've been there twice and it was worth the trip both times. That's the way it should remain.