Smoke rings certainly hovered over the little hillsides surrounding Coolspring this June 25 and 26, where the Coolspring Hit and Miss Engine Society hosted their first flywheel spin at the home of the Harvey/Wilcox engine collection.
Paul Harvey and John Wilcox have gathered together some beautiful iron-if names like Foos, Otto, Miller, Kline, Callahan, and Lambert cause a little surge of excitement in your spine-and we’re talking about 20-40-150-300 horsepower. There are 150-200 goodies included in this collection already. Then add an interested group of engine nuts, and you have just the ignition it took to get the pistons movin’ – the flywheels turnin’ – the valves clickety-clackin’ and the governors spinnin’.
That’s what happened here at Coolspring. Everyone did it in their own way, whether farm engines, oil field equipment, LaFrance pumper, a Model T Ford or an Overland Roadster. And with the ‘Puff, Chug, and Wheeze’ steam train and the old John Deere tractors putt-putting around the grounds, the activity was continuous–the crowd was constant.
At night when everyone settled down around a nice old wood fire with music from an old victorola in the background, we knew this show would always be a success-for it brought people closer together in an environment where they could learn and enjoy each other.