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Tara Garber has had vehicles on the mind for a long time.
Since she started drag racing at 18 and learned to fix her car when it didn’t run right, to her time in Iraq as a military mechanic and recovery specialist, Garber knows her way around an engine and then some.
Now, Garber’s dream car is almost ready to hit the road.
Xena, Garber’s restored 1934 Plymouth, was about ready to debut at the Bear River Young Life Car Show the weekend of June 26-27.
“The warrior princess,” Garber said of the name of her deep purple project. “Because I was a warrior when I bought her, and now she’s my princess.”
Garber has wanted this specific car for years. She first came across one at a car show in 1999 and immediately took to the vehicle.
“It’s what I’d consider to be sexy,” she said.
As luck would have it, a friend and fellow car junkie just happened to own a ’34 in a barn in North Carolina.
“I told him, ‘I’ll buy it from you,’ but no, not for sale,” Garber said. “I’d ask him every year, is it for sale? Always no.”
Then, at long last, the Plymouth got loose. But Garber was a world away.
“I got an email from him: ‘Car is for sale,’” Garber remembers. “His daughter wanted a ‘57 Chevy. I said, ‘How much? I’ll write you a check right now.’”
One minor detail: Garber was in Iraq at the time.
“I did it all over the internet,” she said. “I’d never seen the car. I’d heard about it, but went ahead and bought it. No interior, no motor, no transmission, nothing. Just a rolling chassis with a steel body on it, but all original. I bought it.”
Garber got back stateside in the spring of 2005 and a couple months later was driving down from her then-home in Ohio to North Carolina to pick up her baby.
Garber, now a social worker at a hospice in town, realizes it’s not particularly common to see a woman
with this particular hobby, but, she said, it’s just always fit her.
“I was a nurse, and vehicles are like bodies,” she said. “They have breathing apparatuses, they have fluids. If it’s not right, you fix it.”
In 2019, Garber’s son graduated from high school, and five days later, she and her husband packed their lives up and moved to Craig, CO.
“He’s a disabled vet, and he’s been out here skiing,” Garber said. “He always said ‘We’ve gotta get there, gotta get there.’ So, we came.”
Xena came with.
“At that point it was painted, had a motor, transmission―brake lines weren’t connected though,” Garber said. “Engine had some repairs needed done, transmission needed rebuilt. Just what I’d consider ‘finishing.’ You couldn’t steer it either.”
In Craig, Garber took it to a local mechanic, Larry Kunkle at Elkhead Collision, to get the last little bit completed.
“It’s still under construction, but it’ll drive,” Garber said. “All that’s left is the interior.”
Now she’s ready to show off Xena for the first time.
“It’s always been a dream car,” Garber said. “To see a dream finally come true after 16 years―my husband and I, I have three daughters, he has three sons, and we’ve adopted our grandson, 9 years old, so between money at some point and time at some other, and hardly ever having both at the same time, getting it to where it’s almost done is just unbelievable.”
www.autobodynews.com
Shift Now Selling Cars to Customers in Dallas-Fort Worth Area
Leading used car ecommerce platform Shift has launched two new markets for consumers to buy its cars in Texas.
With this launch, consumers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region can now buy and sell vehicles directly with Shift, using the company’s unique direct-to-consumer, at-home service.
Dallas and Fort Worth are the third and fourth full-service markets in Texas where consumers can purchase cars from Shift, with this launch coming on the heels of Shift’s recent launch of its first two full-service Texas markets in the Austin and San Antonio regions.
“We are excited to continue expanding our product offering to car buyers in the Texas market,” said Shift Co-CEO Toby Russell. “We believe that the Dallas-Fort Worth region is a natural complement to our current Texas coverage area and are looking forward to bringing the full Shift experience to customers across the state.”
Car shoppers across the state can access Shift’s online purchase process, and those in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area can take advantage of its unique at-home test drive service as well.
Through the shift.com website, customers can shop cars in the local area and schedule a test drive. A Shift concierge will then drive the car to the customer’s location and allow the customer to test drive it in a socially distanced way. To purchase, they’ll complete the transaction on the spot through an iPad, including optional financing and vehicle protection plans. The test drive-purchase process is approximately one hour start to finish.
With this newest addition, Shift now provides its in-person buyer experience from eight hubs across the western states of California, Texas, Washington and Oregon.
Source: Shift
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