CityView Magazine

14 | July/August 2016 ART FILLYAW signed cars, made motor scooters and refrigerators. at's where he got the idea for the front door. "is year," Diehl said, "it won e Most Unusual at e Dogwood Festival. Everybody who sees it smiles." It doesn't go very far, nor does it go very fast, but this is the same car that Diehl's father had bought for his mother about 25 years ago. She only drove it twice and got tired of it. So it sat. Aer Diehl's father passed away, Diehl had the privilege of getting it back up and running. e cars are the majority of Diehl's soul in his garage, but you can tell the artwork on the wall, posters of the Monaco Grand Prix race, an outline of the track itself, Chrysler snapshots and historical records he deems important too. Indeed, an olive-drab tire-less bicycle hangs upon the wall and catches my eye. I learn it was a gi to Diehl back in the '60s from a friend of his father's. "is is a British WWII Commandos bicycle. e bike folds in half. ey'd parachute in with a bike on their back, undo it and ride into battle. ey could get to the fight quicker." It is a BSA brand, a company that now makes mo- torcycles. e bike was blue when Diehl received it as a kid (they found the original color on the inside of the tire rim and had it painted) and he remembers actually riding it, but now it still hangs tire-less. e only tires Diehl can find are from a Japanese or German company and he just doesn't feel right using those tires for a British WWII bicycle. e hobby of collecting cars started years ago. "When the kids le, we had to do something so we started playing with cars." What speaks most to Diehl about cars is the way they were made: the engineering. "e beauty of some cars. ey're unique—it's almost like an art form. When you take something like the Ferrari, the lines are just amazing." He also says, "I've just always been a car nut, ever since I was a kid." is passion of his may actually run in his blood. Even his grandson who lives in California loves cars. "Diehl is normally a German surname […] and the Diehl family is from Munich and were in the carriage industry for a long time. When cars came along, they got into the car industry, so there's a reason there somewhere." In the garage, wires trail from the cars to the wall. "ey're on life support," he tells me. "If you have a car you don't drive regularly, the battery will go dead." e wires themselves carry a trickle of battery charge to keep each car's battery topped off, so when Diehl and Pat are ready to go for a drive, their rides will always be ready.

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