After a two-year pandemic-related absence from Art-a-Whirl®, Turbo Tim’s Anything Automotive returned to show the neighborhood that anything goes. Once again, the repair bays were opened up for 17 vendors’ tables for everything from chair massages to jewelry to paintings, and an indoor trailer stage was set up for the three bands that performed throughout the afternoon. The shop, closed on Saturdays, makes spaces available without charge for artists during the annual event.
But the main event was “Crush-a-Whirl,” the wanton destruction of innocent cars whose only sin was their need for repairs that far exceeded their worth. This is a shop tradition going back to 2015, and co-owner Rachel Grewell noted that Saturday, May 21’s 200-plus turnout at the shop’s parking lot was the largest ever.
One of the trickiest parts of the set-up for the day’s action was stashing the full complement of cars waiting for repair in the lot; one of the mechanics said they were all moved to nearby residential streets (no easy feat as the already large number of attendees were making their way to the neighborhood).
At precisely 4 p.m., co-owner “Turbo” Tim Suggs mounted the “loaner car,” an Oshkosh M35A3 military 6×6 truck (whose tires come up to your shoulder) and took the first run at the line of six side-by-side autos. The noise of the truck’s diesel and the shattering of windshields was matched by the crowd’s cheers, and the roofs of a black Cadillac and a tan Mazda were the first to be flattened before the big truck got hung up on the Mazda’s jagged roof and listed precariously sideways.
Shop foreman Dave Carlson came to the rescue with his forklift, lifting some of the injured cars and freeing the truck to back up and make another attempt, the second of several. The third time the truck was stuck, someone in the crowd shouted, “Spray water on ‘em!” During the pauses, MC Tracy Molm told the audience they should feel free to salvage “souvenirs” (broken car parts), but there were few if any takers.
Tim kept a smile on his face throughout the event, once pausing to climb under the truck to remove its shattered power-steering unit, a casualty of a Honda Accord’s protruding metal. The forklift got a workout throughout the afternoon as the aroma of diesel smoke and burning tire rubber hung in the still air.
As the crushing moved into hour two, some of the crowd began to drift into the building to line up for vodka cocktails from the Twin Spirits Distillery table, as the band Soctopus (with Turbo Tim’s mechanic Joe Wieber on bass) began their set. The four shop cats, who had remained calm during the car-crushing, weren’t quite as happy with the music. The chickens in the parking lot coop seemed unfazed by it all.
Below: Tim Suggs, co-owner of Turbo Tim’s, makes his first run at the cars. Massage therapist Rachel McIntosh works on a patient in the garage. Shop foreman Dave Carlson frees up a crushed Mazda. (Photos by Mark Peterson)