Intermittent Wiper Story: Timothy Kearns on Automotive Engineering History 🌨️🔧

Automotive engineering history and the intermittent wiper invention. The legal war between Kearns and the Big Three...

In this episode, we go behind the scenes of the intermittent windshield wiper patent battle with Timothy Kearns, son of the legendary inventor Dr. Robert Kearns. Tim reveals the true story behind the movie Flash of Genius (starring Greg Kinnear), explaining how a champagne cork accident on his father's wedding night led to an invention that changed every modern vehicle—and sparked a 20-year fight against the Big Three (Ford, GM, and Chrysler).

We also dive into Tim's own automotive history, including his first car (a Ford Mustang Mach 1 featured in the movie) and a terrifying near-miss in a rare Bricklin SV-1 with dry-rotted tires.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• 💡 The "Flash of Genius": How an eye injury inspired Dr. Robert Kearns to invent the intermittent wiper circuit in just a few days.
• ⚖️ The Legal War: The grueling 30-year battle against Ford and Chrysler that the Kearns children (the "Board of Directors") helped fight.
• 🎬 Movie vs. Reality: What Hollywood got right (and wrong) about the family's struggle and the eventual victory.
• 🏎️ First Car Stories: Tim's memories of his 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and trading it for a Ford Pinto during the gas crisis.
• ⚠️ The Bricklin Incident: A harrowing story of driving his brother's serial #13 Bricklin SV-1 when all four tires blew out on an off-ramp.

🎧 If you loved this, check out Tim's friend's episode: Mastering the Porsche 911: Track Instructor Dirk Dekker on Watkins Glen & Jim Clark: https://buzzsprout.com/2316026/episodes/17927079

Whether you're an inventor, a history buff, or just love a David vs. Goliath story, this episode offers a fascinating look at the family behind one of the most important automotive innovations of all time.

🔗 Links & Resources:

• Visit Tim's design firm: tbkearnsdesign.com
• Visit our LinkTree for all of our content and episodes: 🔗🌲https://linktr.ee/carsloved

📢 Join the Conversation: Did you know the story behind your windshield wipers? Let us know on Instagram @toallthecarsivelovedbefore

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Transcript

Introduction and Family Updates

Christian 0:07

Welcome back to All the Cars I've Loved Before, your authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia, where our guests are unique, each auto has an era and every car tells a story. So you know it's time to plug in, get a little grease under the fingernails maybe even your toenails, depending upon how you change your oil and slip onto that favorite T-shirt, car-themed T-shirt, hat or jacket. How you doing, partner? What's going on over there in these mid-Atlantic United States?

Doug 0:43

Doing great. My daughter just graduated high school. That was a big deal. Another weekend had some family in town Fantastic. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you, thank you.

Christian 0:52

So family was in town.

Doug 0:54

Yeah.

Christian 0:55

Hijinks and meals ensued yeah.

Doug 0:58

Overeating and yes, yeah, good to have my sister and my niece in town and my brother-in-law. My mom was very happy to have two-thirds of her grandchildren and two-thirds of her kids.

Christian 1:13

You had the whole crew. That's a good showing.

Doug 1:16

Sorry, three-fourths of her grandchildren and two-thirds of her children.

Christian 1:20

Three-quarters of them showed up. Nobody was cutting halves or quartered right. You're just saying fractionallyally entire family being one over one, I see Beautiful, wonderful, well represented, beautiful. Ok, and so there were no. Were there any car projects, any, any, any garage related, garage related fun, or was it all about family?

Doug 1:48

garage related fun? Or was it all about family? Uh, mostly family. I snuck in a little work um. I was waiting for a delivery, of course for some parts and I did over the weekend order a uh, I think it's by a company called quick jack um because I have a low. My garage roof is not as high as I would like, because I wanted to hold an apartment above it, as you know. So QuickJack will raise my cars about two to three feet off the ground. There you go, which?

Doug 2:16

is a lot better than what I'm doing right now, which is crawling underneath of them or riding up a little ramp.

Christian 2:24

So I think it's going gonna only improve my mechanical abilities yeah, I think you should stop buying cars that are so low to the ground. If you would just buy monster trucks, you could just walk around underneath them. I think you might have the problem solved. What do you think?

Doug 2:37

well, maybe we could talk to nicole johnson about what monster truck to drive maybe let's do aigger is available.

Christian 2:44

Yeah, absolutely, I could totally see you in that. It's a great, great family car. From what I hear it is Geographically speaking over the past week. I want to welcome back our listeners around the world. Yes, we are heard around the world. Welcome back to our listeners in Israel, germany, canada and, more closely in these United States, portland Oregon at the top of the list. Why are we so popular in Portland Oregon? Any ideas?

Doug 3:11

I know why. Why, because it's somewhere near Nigel Tunnicliffe lives.

Christian 3:17

Oh bang, there you go. I think he's in.

Doug 3:19

Washington State, but pretty close right.

Christian 3:21

Fantastic Coastline Academy Driving School, yes, yeah yeah, yeah, I love how you can see the big bump in in in membership, in the numbers and in these blips are fun to watch. The magic of reporting and analytics, okay, so we said portland, oregon, tuckerton, new jersey, philadelphia, pennsylvania, washington, dc, chicago, det. Big cities, the capitals are well represented. A lot of times some weeks, it's just small towns all over the country, but big cities as well, mixed in here Detroit, how about Markham, ontario, and Montreal, quebec, for our friends north of the border, welcome, you're always welcome here, yeah.

Christian 4:03

So one other thing is that we continue to get pictures for our the new feature on the website. Really, one of my most favorite parts about the website is let's see. I said hey, doug, how about the Memory Mary go-round or the carousel of cars? This is where you go to the website and you have pictures of the cars. Scroll by and in website parlance that's called a carousel because they go around. Remember, like slides on the old carousel that we had as kids, your folks had little slides and you'd project the image onto the wall. So I said you know, it's called the memory merry-go-round or the carousel of cars. But then Doug took the cake by calling it the carousel of cars. But then Doug took the cake by calling it the carousel no car-o-cell the Cars.

Christian 4:49

Loved carousel. I love it. Cars Loved carousel yeah, carslovedcom. Carslovedcom. Slash photos. Slash photos will get you there. Please join us. Visit If you like what you hear. Review you can write a review on the website or on your podcast streaming platform of choice. Other than that, anything new with the website or our outreach? Anything worth mentioning? Doug, or should we press on to today's guest, who is really exciting because we have a fantastic guest today?

Doug 5:21

What do you think? Let's press on. This is a very special and unique guest.

Christian 5:25

Let's make it happen. So I have to ask you, doug, the world-famous prompt, how did today's guest find his way to your virtual garage?

Doug 5:36

Yeah. So today's guest was brought to us by the gift that keeps giving indirectly. So our wonderful guest, james McRae from Eastern Shore of Maryland, who I went to high school with, referred me to a gentleman named Dirk Decker a wonderful person we have his podcast out there who was a helicopter pilot, as you know, and very big in the Porsche community, and Dirk. We had a great time with Dirk and he did a referral to Mr Timothy Kearns, who we have, who is also a Porsche fanatic but has a very unique tie to the automotive industry.

Tim Kearns' Automotive Family Legacy

Christian 6:19

Tim, welcome to the show. How are you this fine afternoon? Wonderful fellas, nice to talk to you. Hey, thanks for making some time in your schedule today and you have a unique. You're an interesting guy in your own but some very storied family history around the automotive industry arena. So can you tell us your familial tie to the automotive industry, us your familial tie to the automotive industry?

Tim 6:44

well, I was a little kid growing up in the city of detroit and my dad being uh part of the automotive uh culture there, um heard that they were trying to improve the mileage on cars. This was way back in 1963. And they were having a hard time with vacuum carburation. So they wanted to make some electronic components and he developed the intermittent windshield wiper, electronic control.

Christian 7:24

So interesting, and it's one of these things that's so brilliantly integrated into everyone's life. Right now. You can't think of a machine without that. But you know, 50, 60, 70 years ago things didn't work that way, and so how did this flash of inspiration come to him?

Tim 7:54

Well, um, he on his wedding night. Uh, he was opening the obligatory bottle of champagne and it whacked him in the eye when it popped open. And uh, my mom says she knew it was all downhill from there. But he got blinded in his left eye and as part of the recuperation he would blink and it would hurt when he blinked. And then he began to wonder how come windshield wipers can't blink the the way my eyes blink because we're he's looking through the windshield, you know that that okay.

Christian 8:30

So that's such an interesting. So did he ever regain sight in that eye? Was it temporary blindness, permanent blind? Was he all the way blind or?

Tim 8:40

he was um. It was permanent, but he had peripheral vision, got it out of the side so he wasn't fully legally blind.

Christian 8:50

He could drive okay, and so it struck. It struck him that, hey, so this is, this is, if we could it cause it to go more slowly. It's so much less wear and tear on the mechanicals, on the, on the blade itself, and a better experience all the way around. So how quickly? From when that happened, did he have some sort of prototype to show? I would assume there's a lot of uh, a lot of testing well, it took him.

Tim 9:21

it took him really just a couple of days to create a circuit Fantastic. Because, he was one of the few people at the time who was working with transistors. He worked with Bendix, so he knew what they were and that's what is the on-off switch that created the delay. So it's a very simple circuit, so simple that it began to haunt. The simplicity haunted him later in his life.

Christian 9:55

Interesting, interesting. And so he comes up with a prototype. Now, how did the patent part of this work? So not to skip ahead too far, but someone took his idea. So what was his flag in the dirt or flag in the sand? Was there a patent, that sort of predated, when other people began to come and take this idea that you? Were visited in the future.

Tim 10:23

How did that work? He had an initial patent. With that, he began to look for an initial manufacturer to offer this product to, and eventually he ended up with 30-some patents. Eventually he ended up with 30 some patents. But it also got into a lot of litigation because, yes, the automotives in Detroit heard about it. As a matter of fact, his brother was a vice president of one of the divisions of Ford and he he managed to present it to Ford through communications offered by his brother.

Christian 11:12

Gotcha, gotcha. So, guessing, I'm sure Doug wants to hop in here, being the being the car nut that he is. So his idea was presented and they said oh no, no, no, we have no interest in that. But then they now that they have the idea. Right, he? He wasn't aware that it had even been integrated until later on, and then he came back and said hey, wait a minute, this was my idea.

Tim 11:34

Well, yeah, it was a sort of sort of like that when you try to distill it down into a few sentences, you're taking a lot of uh, events that happen really indeed, sure you know. But but basically, yeah, he presented it to to ford. Ford said, hey, come on in and show us how it works. And then they were always trying to see the circuit itself. And he always had that very well hidden, smart, yeah. And then they, they tried to trick him into showing him what the circuit was. Eventually you have to watch the movie and then you'll, uh, you'll end up seeing all the details that we're talking about now, yeah, gotcha gotcha.

Christian 12:15

And the movie doug was called flash of genius, yeah, and. And his father was portrayed by, was it it? Greg Kinnear? Greg Kinnear, so interesting, and I know Doug wants to get in here. But the thing I find so interesting is to find an audience with the executives of a company. Whether your idea is good or bad is really quite an amazing and striking thing. That in itself was an incredible stroke of luck. You know, everything that happened afterwards was a bit of a bit of a domino effect, but just to be in front of them, I don't know, maybe it happens all the time. I haven't worked in the automotive industry, but that struck me. What do you think, doug?

Doug 12:54

Uh, you know, I uh, I had watched parts of the movie and then I watched it last night, just preparation. And uh, of course, one of my questions for Tim was how how accurate.

Tim 13:07

Um, yeah, yeah oh yeah, well, uh, the you're not supposed to watch your life flash before your eyes maybe just once good point, yeah, good point. But that that's what it felt like when I saw it for the first time. It was wow, it was uh moving, to say the least and, and the movie came out in 2008, correct?

Doug 13:39

yeah, and um, when, when did they approach your family about it?

Tim 13:44

I I think it was timed with the patent lawsuits which or some some win, in 1990 perhaps yeah, it was 90, I think 90 for ford, um, then chrysler followed that, and then there was a third case that was going to be called the world class or world case. Right, and it was everybody else beyond that. But yeah, there was, we were approached for rights to the story and to make a movie, even while we were just beginning movie, um, even while we were just beginning, um, so every year they would send us this little teeny check and, uh, they kept the rights going, but then finally they came across, and they came across big in my opinion yeah, yeah, yeah, for all our listeners if you haven't seen the movie or it's been a while, watch it.

Doug 14:42

It is really good. It was good to see the young Tim portrayed in there. Timmy, oh yeah. But he taught me to solder. And why did he do it? I watched him soldering. I saw the smoke. I thought it was cool. I burned my hand trying to do it behind his back and he's like no, I'm going to teach you. He gave me my first soldering iron and I still use it on. Well, not that one, but I still solder for my car projects.

Tim 15:17

Yeah, and it teaches you all kinds of life lessons like patience Yep, absolutely. And.

Doug 15:25

I've gotten better over the years, actually since I started using it. But, yeah, just seeing your family come together with your dad including, I think, you and your older brother, at least as portrayed in the movie, soldering some parts while your dad was getting the concept together, oh yeah, it was great.

Doug 15:44

Yep, it really was, and inspiring, and we could go on and on about the movie. I think kind of real quick, it's one of the. Correct me or help me get this right In terms of patent law or patent lawsuits right, it was a very long and well documented lawsuit or set of lawsuits, or just maybe some reform in patent law as a result. Tim, I said a lot there.

Tim 16:21

Oh yeah, no, is it's uh, it's uh seminal to modern, um patent law? Yeah, and he, he truly did uh change the, the, the patent law for all the inventors that are coming in the future. And you know, they they minimized maybe not so much minimized, but they certainly had representation of the inventors in the movie too, and he did it for the inventors, he didn't do it for the money. That was always yeah.

Christian 17:15

And really it seems to me and I know Doug wants to get to your origin story of these cars, but the arc years of you know his sticking to his guns, knowing that he's right, holding feet to the fire. I can't think of anything more daunting than entering the legal system, which is Byzantine to begin with, and then going up against just the big three yeah, yeah, just phalanxes of corporate lawyers Can you think of anything more stacked against you. Yet he was right. Yet he persisted, he won in the end, blazed a trail for inventors and changed the system that we know today and that's really so beautiful and profound. Do you ever reflect on that, tim?

The Intermittent Wiper Invention Story

Tim 18:01

Yeah, every day. Yeah, I love it. It was 30 years, but it changed the world, so it didn't seem that way at the time. It was a real pain, but we always had the dream that and he would instill it in us that no, no, no, you got to pay attention to this because it's going to make a difference. And he got us all to participate a hundred percent, even after we all had careers. We left our careers to to assist him, um, during the Ford case and the Chrysler case. Wow, Wow.

Tim 18:41

Yeah, and each of those was five-year, golly.

Christian 18:46

Yeah, yeah, sure, and it would have been so easy to give up, it would have been so easy to throw in the towel, but you didn't, you didn't, and that's such a victory, or take the settlement right, and his dad wouldn't do it, correct.

Tim 19:02

We had a lot of discussions around the family table.

Christian 19:05

I bet you did, I bet, you did.

Doug 19:08

And Tim, you are one of six children, right that Dr Kearns had?

Tim 19:12

Yes, there are six of us. And he had us because he needed a corporation to do exactly what we did, which is to undeniably help him. Yep, yep, fantastic.

Doug 19:24

Irreverently spoken of as the Kearns Corporation, and you were all the board of directors, as he spoke in the movie. He did indeed, yeah.

Tim 19:33

And that's true, yeah.

Doug 19:35

And I'll throw this in, hopefully Christian won't mind. Christian won't mind.

Tim 19:46

Did any of your siblings become lawyers, maybe as a result, or it led them in that direction, of course. Well, it's funny. Each one of us is sort of a piece of a lawyer.

Christian 19:54

Yeah, as is your father.

Doug 19:56

As is him?

Tim 19:57

Yeah, because we were all sitting there when my dad was learning from the real law professors that he hired to help him learn how to be a lawyer.

Doug 20:08

Yep.

Tim 20:08

And there's a whole long story of why that had to happen. But yeah, so Dennis is actually a private detective, which is close to being a lawyer. You learn about what it is you need to defend and where does the evidence come from.

Doug 20:26

Yeah and yeah. I was encouraging Christian and Christian hopefully you won't mind me saying it as we recorded this Christian's son, middle son. It was his first day of an internship at a law firm.

Tim 20:41

Today.

Doug 20:42

Yeah, just today.

Christian 20:43

A paid internship at that. So as soon as we're done recording this interview, I can't wait to go. Yeah, yeah, he's a junior in high school, but on his mock trial team Great guy Did very well at that, enjoyed it, and he. So as soon as it's done, our conversation here is done we're going to go have dinner and chat about his first day.

Christian 21:04

So, yeah, at this point I think it would be proper to hop in the time machine go 88 miles an hour go back in history and, as Doug was saying, there's an interesting tie in between the car scene with intermittent wipers and his first car. So tell us a little about that if you can.

Tim 21:26

Well, the first car was actually a 67 Cougar that my dad bought. There's a whole long story about where that came from, but the first car that I felt was my car that I paid for was a 71, was a 71 Mach 1. Oh wow, um, I bought it from a guy down the street. My grandfather lent me two thousand dollars to buy it. Uh, this was probably two-year-old car at the time sure 351, cleveland, uh.

Patent Battles Against Ford and Chrysler

Tim 21:56

T10 four-speed hearse shifter, all the drag package. I didn't know it had a drag package until after I got it. It was an amazing car.

Christian 22:09

Just a beast of a car. I mean just big and beefy and wide and angular, just a menacing looking thing. Yeah, how long did you have that car for?

Tim 22:21

I had it for about uh three, three, four years um, and it got 10 miles a gallon, 780, 780, uh. Dual pumper, vacuum secondaries yeah, it was um. Vacuum secondaries yeah, it was um. Suck it down yeah. And even a jet engine yeah, yeah, at 35 cents a gallon it was still a lot of gas.

Christian 22:50

And a lot of money, yeah, so now that's very interesting. You mentioned that last part because something happened in the 70s that made it very disad disadvantageous to say the least to own a car like that. What happened in the 70s to cause you to move into your next car?

Tim 23:11

Oh well, that was the I don't know what. Was it a shortage? You got it? Yeah, I forget exactly what caused it, but the end result was you couldn't get any gas.

Doug 23:21

yeah, exactly so the gas crisis right yeah yeah and what year was that about 75?

Tim 23:33

yeah, 75, 67. Yeah, yeah, I think they were actually.

Christian 23:38

Well, it's opec opec just tightening right because although there's so much refining, we have all the refining capacity we'll ever need in this country. At the time we didn't have the crude oil. So all OPEC had to do Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. All they had to do was kind of rein in and tighten in, just supplying them in 101. When they do that, what happens to the price of oil? Boom. So all the oil came here was just so expensive so we could refine it. It's just the feedstock was so expensive.

Christian 24:07

And yeah, and we were chatting about this before the show and we've had all of these, we've had several guests on and I just find this fascinating that when I go to a gasoline station now I don't think anything of it. In fact, oil, gasoline is so plentiful here. Well, oil in this country now, due to fracking technological advantages, is also in refining too that you can find gasoline anywhere. I mean it's 10 cents, it's 2 cents over here, cheaper you go, do that, you know it's so plentiful, but to have I just can't wrap my head around what it must have been like in the 70s. I've seen, even heard of cars running dry and had to be pushed into the gasoline station, long lines, like you were saying even in odd numbers on the license plate or on the day, that's just incredible. So that had a big impact on you. Because the Mach 1 wasn't, you decided to trade that in, get something more economical. Oh yeah, I had like 25 miles to drive to the University of get something more economical.

Tim 25:05

Oh yeah, I had like 25 miles to drive to the University of Maryland to go to school and I needed something that was a little more efficient. So it became a Pinto.

Doug 25:19

Yeah, before we, and there's obviously lots of good stories about Pintos in the news, right, and the gas crisis and that's yeah, the Pinto was kind of ready to go. That's a success story for the most part. You did tell us thinking about the Mustang and I love this song that you picked out, thinking back what was a favorite song of yours that makes you, if you hear it on the radio, you think about the mustang. If you think about the mustang, you probably think about this song.

Tim 25:53

Oh, yeah, I think that was uh. Was it steppenwolf? I think yes, yes, sir, born to be wild, born to be wild.

Doug 26:00

Yeah, and I, I can just imagine you in the mustang mach one just burying the needle watching the gas gauge literally move to the left and listening to that song.

Tim 26:14

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Doug 26:15

Yeah, no, what a wonderful story. And obviously you became a car guy at some point. Maybe it was because of your father, maybe it was because growing up in Detroit, for however long you lived there, but certainly the Mustang was key, probably.

Tim 26:35

Oh, yeah, well, Dad had a lot of interaction with Ford. Yes, and, of course, growing up in Detroit, uh, woodward avenue was not far away, so we would hit, we would hitchhike three or four miles away to on a friday or a saturday to watch what was happening on woodward avenue, um, and that was just uh, seminal to becoming the car guy, yeah, every every kid was yep, yep, yeah, if you're a detroit guy, detroit kid, right, how right you're not right.

Doug 27:10

Yeah, it's uh, my, uh. My niece, who is visiting, actually goes to university of michigan. So we were talking about I'm trying to get my daughter to go out there, but I selfishly to visit her, selfishly, I want to go and see all the car museums while I'm out there. So oh, yeah, and uh, even visit John DeLorean's grave. So there you go, which has a really wonderful tombstone of the DeLorean with the doors open. So it'd be great to see that.

Tim 27:37

Nice.

Doug 27:37

Yeah, so um, back to the Pinto. So tell us, tell us about the Pinto. And for people who don't know, the Pinto was infamous for somewhat cost-cutting that ended up making a very dangerous car, but at the time it got, what was the gas mileage, tim, if you remember.

Tim 27:58

Oh, I think it had to be in the low 20s, which was pretty good. It was a four-cylinder, four small, three-speed floor shifter. Yep yeah. I mean it's a cool shape.

Doug 28:13

Yeah, yeah. And there were many right. There was the hatchback, there was a two-door, there was a four-door, there was a four-door hatchback. There were many different models right and a wagon.

Tim 28:28

Yep Wagon door hatchback. There were many different models right and a wagon, yep wagon, full wagon. Yeah, and it's always still fun to see the tubbed out pinto with the mnh race masters in the back and just this little ball of a differential left between them.

Doug 28:39

Yeah, it's cool yep, yep, yeah they. They get used for quarter mile drag cars, right.

Tim 28:45

Yeah.

Doug 28:46

For some reason they caught on as popular. I don't know. Maybe they're just easy to modify Right, yep, cool. And so after the Pinto, and maybe when gas prices got better, you moved on to a import car. Can you tell us a little bit about that car?

Tim 29:08

import car. Can you tell us a little bit about that car? Well, it was a. Yeah, import cars were cool and, being a young architect, you know everybody had their, uh, their import in mind and mine just happened to turn into a faster version of um, an import car. It was was a BMW 2002.

Doug 29:25

Yeah, and that was really like the first BM first kind of. Wasn't the first BMW in the U S, was it? But it was the first, like it was the car that made BMW in the U S.

Tim 29:38

I think it was. Yeah, I would say so.

Doug 29:40

Yeah, and they're, and they're still prized after Right.

Tim 29:44

Oh, very much yeah.

Doug 29:46

Yeah, and they're, and they're still prized after Right. Oh very much, yeah, yeah. And then the three series followed Right, which really is the one everybody else remembers.

Tim 29:52

But right, yeah, this was a precursor to the three.

Doug 29:56

So you went from like super fast not maybe the best brakes, not the best handling to slow brakes, not the best handling to slow, and none of those things. A BMW, which maybe wasn't fast, but it was a whole different experience, Right, Tim?

Tim 30:13

Oh yeah, I did hot rod it. I put a Weber 40 on it.

Christian 30:16

That helped.

Tim 30:17

You know that was kind of cool, nice, yeah, it was a nice car yeah.

Doug 30:23

Yeah, yeah, and you know, certainly not one of your, not the last of your German cars, right Because and this is our connection with Dirk and maybe how you met Dirk, right yeah?

Tim 30:38

very much.

Tim's Car History: Mustang to BMW

Doug 30:39

You were very involved with Porsche.

Tim 30:42

Yeah. So after the BMW started to rust out, I needed to find a dependable car. And this was at the time when Ford was just coming out with the Probe. And I thought, well, I'll buy a Probe. You know modern technology, all those things. And I went to get it and it was $25,000 or something like that.

Tim 31:09

And one of my friends said well, if you're going to spend that kind of money, why don't you get a Porsche? I said what's a Porsche? And they reminded me. So I went and, sure enough, I saw at the local dealership a 944, normally aspirated. I didn't know that at the time, but I drove it and I thought, well, this is a nice car, I like the way it is. And I ended up buying it the next day. And then, as I'm driving that car around Eastern Maryland, where I am, there was another 944. And my wife now saw it. She was my girlfriend at the time and she goes walking up to the guy and says, uh, my boyfriend has a 944 and he has a beard just like yours. And that's was the first time she met Dirk and she introduced me to.

Tim 32:01

Dirk, and that's how that relationship.

Doug 32:06

Oh, oh wow. You've been friends with dirk for yeah, 30 plus years then yeah, it's, yeah, yeah.

Tim 32:13

So the two of us went off and took our 944s to the porsche club okay, yeah, nice and uh.

Doug 32:22

nowadays you have a 9 uh 93, 911 which is a 964 model which is air-cooled.

Tim 32:32

Very much Do you race that at Porsche events At the DEs yeah, with Potomac Region I'm the DE steward We've been doing that. We grew up through it.

Doug 32:51

Yeah, yep, yep, and we're going to have we're going to have Vu Vu Nguyen, who I met many years ago when I had a 996. Very briefly, but it'll be good to reconnect with him and Dirk. Help with that introduction reintroduction, if you will. Him and Dirk helped with that introduction reintroduction, if you will. So, yeah, so you're very involved in the weekend events and I guess you're considered a it's a high-performance driving event instructor. Would that be accurate?

Tim 33:20

Yeah, yeah, I'm a nationally rated instructor um, but I I choose not to instruct, I do the um. I'm the steward, I'm the essentially the policeman that puts uh cars on and off the track and and keeps track of them all yep and uh.

Doug 33:41

yeah, I think you said you're in the hot pit, is that the term? Oh yeah, yeah yeah, and we have a reference back to the carousel. We have a picture of Tim wearing a cone, like a cone costume in the hot pit.

Tim 33:58

Because there's a lot of fast-moving cars in the pit and the one thing every driver knows is never hit a cone. So that's why I became the cone.

Doug 34:09

Yep, smart, smart, and it hasn't failed you yet.

Tim 34:14

No.

Doug 34:16

So, portia, now we do like to ask I know we're running a little bit out of time here, but if you don't mind what was the most dangerous? And I know you have a great story with this and for some of our listeners they won't know what the car is but what was the most dangerous car you were in, and why?

Tim 34:36

The most dangerous car was my brother Dennis's, serial number 13, bricklin. Serial number 13, bricklin, and he asked me to help him renovate it. So we were driving. I was driving it on an off-ramp near Gaithersburg. Maybe I was experiencing it a little too much, but all four tires blew dry, rotted, and I'm counter-steering not to hit the guardrail.

Doug 35:12

Oh man, yeah, but you didn't hit the guardrail right.

Tim 35:17

No, no, not a bit, it was close.

Doug 35:20

Yep, and the irony right, the Goldwing, or sorry, the Bricklin Goldwing vehicle was designed as a safety vehicle. I think it was called the.

Tim 35:32

SV1.

Doug 35:33

Oh yeah, absolutely, and built with different materials, I think fiberglass and some other things, and real impact bumpers. And yeah, it was really designed to be a safety vehicle. Yeah, but it wasn't safe with dry, rotted tires.

Tim 35:55

No, not a bit.

Christian 35:56

So I don't know if you guys can hear me, but my Zoom glitched for about two or three minutes and y'all got into the Bricklin. So if you've already covered this, don't cover to get back. How did he come across a Bricklin, Was it? You've already covered this. Don't cover to get back. How did he come across a Bricklin? Was it a difficult vehicle to get?

Tim 36:12

He got it in Detroit somewhere. I'll have to ask him. But yeah, he lives still in Detroit, the suburbs of Detroit, so he picked it up there.

Doug 36:27

And does he still have it by chance?

Tim 36:32

I think he passed it on to somebody. Okay, gotcha yeah.

Doug 36:35

And you know, James had a Bricklin at his shop. I don't know if it belonged to somebody else. It was not your brother's, though, apparently.

Tim 36:45

No, no, no.

Doug 36:49

Yeah, man, there's so many, there's so many things I did want to ask. So you, you live on the Eastern shore in Maryland, you're an architect and for for a lot of people who also love movies besides watching flash of genius, you did some work on a home or homes. Uh, that was featured in the movie wedding crashers, which a lot of people don't realize. Uh, was taken in the eastern shore. I think it was on an island near oxford, is that correct?

Porsche Passion and Modern Adventures

Tim 37:22

um, yeah, there's. Uh, the house is called Ellenborough and it's on the Tredavon River. It was a state home from the 20s and it's undergone a number of renovations. So I got involved on an early renovation to do a kitchen redo and of course those types of houses flip owners very often, so I ended up doing a full renovation of the caretaker's house on that same property for a different owner. It got subdivided off, so that's the way it goes here okay, gotcha.

Doug 38:12

Yeah, a lot of people don't know where that was filmed and I I just remember seeing the annapolis harbor I live in annapolis, of course and I saw the woodwind where they went on a on the. I guess it was after the wedding post wedding yeah yeah they. They went on a cruise on the wood wind to that island, to that home that you rebuilt, oh yeah yeah, so really all ties it together.

Tim 38:38

And, of course, uh, you lived in maryland for 35 years 1974 to 1970 to present, but on the eastern shore since 89 certainly Oxford's got some good history Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad yes beautiful place. Robert Morris was the signer of the Declaration of Independence. The original Naval Academy was here in Oxford and then it suffered a burn, and that's when it moved to Annapolis.

Doug 39:21

Oh wow, I didn't know that piece. Yep Wonderful.

Tim 39:25

Wow, yep wonderful wow, and of course we still have the oldest, uh, continually running car ferry is in easton. I'm sorry, oxford, and it goes.

Doug 39:36

It goes to bellevue, which is on the saint michael's neck okay, yeah, gotcha and there, and there's some great car shows in the Eastern Shore, east End, oxford area, correct?

Tim 39:50

And a wonderful museum in St.

Doug 39:52

Michael's yes.

Tim 39:53

And I've been lucky enough to do a few car garages for some of the bigger collectors here.

Doug 40:03

Yeah, okay, oh yeah, that's awesome. I know the museum just bought an old gas station. I don't know if you're involved in that renovation.

Tim 40:15

I got a Bob Kern story about that gas station. Awesome, yep, he rebuilt the motor of one of my dad's cars.

Doug 40:29

Okay, wow, yeah. What a tie-in, and it just makes me happy. I live in Maryland and try and get over the bridge whenever I can, except during summer.

Tim 40:44

Except on.

Doug 40:44

Thursday and Fridays.

Tim 40:45

That's right.

Doug 40:46

Yep, don't go anywhere. So, with all that, christian is having some technical problems, but he asked me to thank you, of course, and you know we're hoping to have you back and I just wanted to kind of close out the show with you know he was Timothy Kearns, wonderful man, architect, car aficionado, car industry veteran, via his father, featured in the movie Flash of Genius with Greg Kinnear. Wonderful movie really. Some great family values, family times, like growing up in a family of six children and doing all that, just incredible. And the things your dad did for inventors, to your point right, really changed the laws and, you know, helped keep companies honest. Right, it's probably the simple thing to say yes, yeah, there's probably better terms, but yeah, we'd love to have you back.

Doug 41:56

So this is Tim Kearns and you have just heard the high revving, low mileage, late model heard around the world authoritative podcast on automotive nostalgia. I'm Doug. You can reach me at Doug at Cars carslovecom. He is christian. You can meet him at christian at carslovecom. And tim, if people want to find you, what would be a good way for them to find you? Because I assume you may do some projects still from time to time?

Tim 42:25

oh, oh, I'm still working. Okay, Excellent, let's see tbkernsdesigncom. Okay, and yeah, tbkerns at iCloudcom.

Doug 42:38

Okay, yep, and we will put all that in the show notes when we post this episode. Wait a minute, I'm back.

Christian 42:44

He's back. All right, we're going to end this show the right way. You've just heard the high rev, low, minus late model heard around the world. Third favorite podcast on automotive nostalgia he's doug. Reach my doug at cars laptop. God, I'm christian. Reach me at christian at cars lovecom he's tim. You know how to get a hold of him. Please follow and tell a friend. If you like what you hear, go to your podcast streaming platform of choice and leave a review. Yes, my phone completely took a dump. I went to sos mode in the middle of an interview, but I am back.

Doug 43:11

I'm sure doug did great and troutcarslovecom or our link tree at linktree slash cars loved, which is our digital switchboard, as christian calls it I love it and if I got nothing out of this, you get some big laughs from Doug.

Christian 43:29

Thank you so much, Tim. Sorry about what just happened, but I'm sure we will see you at the next local car show, showroom, race show or concourse. We appreciate you taking a lap with us. We will see you next time.