102-year-old woman maintains 82-year-old car

By Nadine Bells, Good News

Margaret Dunning, 2012

 Margaret Dunning is making headlines following her appearance at a classic car show in Canton, Ohio, over the weekend.

The 102-year-old Plymouth, Michigan, woman attended the show with her prized possession: a 1930 Packard 740 Roadster that she purchased in 1949 and restored to mint condition.

(It became the first vehicle to be awarded a perfect 100-point score by the Classic Car Club of America.)

She still changes her own oil and spark plugs.

“I love the old cars,” Dunning, who learned to drive at the age of 8 and secured her first driver’s license at the age of 12, told the Akron Beacon Journal. “I love the smell of gasoline. It runs in my veins.”

Dunning owns a number of classic cars, but considers the Packard her favourite by far.

1943

“The lines of a Packard car are very artistic as far as I’m concerned. My family drove Packards, and I was very proud of the fact. I guess I got indoctrinated,” she said.

The Akron Beacon Journal called Dunning “a hoot. A regal-looking woman with thick white hair and penetrating eyes, she is witty, engaging and razor sharp.”

At the 2012 Pebble Beach Concours de Elegance this August, Dunning won the 2012 Classic Car Club of America Trophy:

“I’m just a farm girl, and my dad had a lot of machinery, and I adored my dad,” she said at Pebble Beach, recalling the early days of her car obsession. “I became familiar with the tools, because the minute I said I didn’t know what I was looking for, he’d say, ‘Go back to the house.’”

With 94 years’ experience behind the wheel—90 of them licensed—Dunning still occasionally struggles with one rule of the road: speed limits.

“I have lead in my feet,” she joked. “It disturbs the policemen very badly, but it doesn’t bother me at all.”