A one-of-a kind automobile is ready to return to Grinnell as an exhibit in the museum that once was the factory where the car was built nearly 100 years ago. The 1913 Spaulding was one of only about 1,500 that were made at the plant. Restoration expert Pat Brooks says the rusted, dismembered Spaulding arrived at his Marshalltown workshop in boxes.

Two key parts had emblems that confirmed its authenticity. “Because of the graphics on the transmission and the engine…. where it says “Spaulding, Grinnell Iowa,” eventually a car enthusiast identified it and said, ‘well that’s a rare car.’ Indeed, this is the only surviving chassis in the world,” Brooks explains.

A Missouri collector found the remnants of the car. The engine was being used as a power source at Colorado sawmill. Brooks and a team of volunteers worked two-and-a-half years cleaning it up, polishing the brass and aluminum, and tracking down missing parts. Some components, like the wood-spoke wheels, couldn’t be saved and were rebuilt.

It cost $7,000 to recreate the radiator. “We had only one original hubcap but weren’t we lucky to have a sample and so a wonderful machine shop took time to make these hubcaps and they are absolutely like diamonds, they’re beautiful,” Brooks says. The transmission, with the Spaulding insignia, has three forward speeds and reverse.

The four-cylinder, 40 horse power, Buda engine was rebuilt and it is started with a crank. The Iowa car will be going home to Grinnell in April, where the old Spaulding carriage and automobile factory is being transformed into the Iowa Transportation Museum.

Chuck Brook is the museum director. “I have lived in Grinnell all my life basically people are always looking for a Spaulding car,” Brook says. “Everybody says ‘well if you look in some old bar you’ll find it someday’. Well I know people that’s been lookin’ for over 50 years and I guess we haven’t found that old barn yet.”

The four-million-dollar renovation of the old factory is the first activity on the Spaulding campus in years. In the early 1900s it specialized in buggies, and switched to automobiles from 1910 to 1916. Spaulding’s were used in wild publicity stunts. It raced a non-stop mail train across the state, and won.

For now, there are no plans to replicate the car’s body and interior, which were never recovered. The star of the exhibit is the near-complete chassis, from the rear-end to the headlights, showing the original components that muscled Spaulding’s through Iowa’s muddy roads a century ago.

The Winter Dance Party opens tonight in Clear Lake with a new distinction. The legendary Surf Ballroom was added last year to the National Register of Historic Places.

 The Surf, which opened in 1948, is best known for hosting the final performances of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. “Big Bopper” Richardson.

They died in a plane crash shortly after the original Winter Dance Party in 1959. Jeff Nicholas is president of the Surf Ballroom and owns the cornfield where the three singers died in a plane crash.

“We have long felt that the Surf Ballroom truly is a national treasure. Our real impact and influence is on rock and roll. We’re very excited to welcome the world to Clear Lake every February to celebrate,” Nicholas said. The ballroom is part of rock and roll history and is lined with photos of legendary performers who have taken the Surf’s stage, including Buddy Holly, hours before his death.

“There are only seven pictures taken of the guys here at the Surf that have surfaced anywhere in the world. So we’re very proud and excited about having people, just during the day and during the week, exploring the early roots of rock and roll,” Nicholas said.

The big event for this year’s Winter Dance Party is sold out. It’s a Saturday concert with Pat Boone the Bobbettes and singer Tommy Allsup, who played lead guitar for Buddy Holly’s last performance back in 1959.

Photo courtesy of Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City