Ridin’ Shotgun: How ‘An Atlantan on Wheels’ Got Rolling
When Ron Hudspeth called me into his office and asked if I’d like to write about a guy who’d restored a classic car, I immediately said yes — just like I did with the first assignment he ever gave me for the hudspeth report: a profile on my fellow Warner Robins native, Bobbie Eakes, who’d made it all the way to Hollywood and The Bold & The Beautiful. All five of the Eakes girls were stunning — Bobbie had been Miss Warner Robins when it was her turn, and she sang her way to Miss Georgia.
Writing about Bobbie must’ve shown Ron I was serious about being a journalist. Looking back, when he suggested that first car story and then turned it into a series for me to write, he must have trusted I could do it — because most of the people I’d be writing about ran in his Buckhead circle. I did not.
I was a 24-year-old single mother with two kids, a hard worker, the one opening the hudspeth report office every day, answering phones, designing ads, helping Cathy — Ron’s business partner and my sister — lay out the paper. We were a media outlet at the center of Buckhead’s social swirl, but I went home every night to cook dinner for my kids. I rarely hit the bars, and when I did, it was for the live music. Atlanta was covered up with musical talent in the ‘80s and ‘90s!
Cindi Brown (Me) in my office at the hudspeth report: keeping our fingers on Atlanta’s pulse.
When Ron offered me the monthly column, An Atlantan on Wheels, he’d already decided on the scope, the name, and even the source: John Swann, owner of a Buckhead car detailing shop whose clients trusted him with their prized rides. John loved cars as much as they did. He’d send a driver to pick up the car, give it a meticulous once-over, and return it gleaming. He only trusted a special leather cleaner from England — his clients stuck with him because of that fastidiousness and because he cared for their cars like his own.
Calling John every month was always a treat. He had stories — so many stories — and he knew how to tell them. In fact, I featured John himself as An Atlantan on Wheels!
Most of the car owners I wrote about were men — only two women made it in: Bella Shaw from CNN and Carolyn Ford who owned Fayetteville Ford dealership at the time.
The best part of writing a column? Getting out around Atlanta to meet these folks face-to-face: at their homes, businesses, garages, or Buckhead high-rises. Riding in their cars with the tops down, sitting in rumble seats on Peachtree Street, or climbing into the passenger seat of a bright yellow cloth bi-plane — you can’t get that from a phone interview. Sometimes I shot the photos myself; sometimes we’d send one of the hudspeth report’s two Phils.
I see now, nearly 40 years later, how valuable those assignments were. At 24-26, I was navigating Atlanta’s sprawl, meeting people older and wiser than me, learning about engines and industries, honing my writing, and best of all, getting comfortable talking with people of all kinds — while witnessing the joy they felt for a car… or many cars… or antique jukeboxes, or motorcycles, or even Jimmy Buffett!
Over those two years, I proved to Ron — as my boss and editor — that I could handle any assignment, deal with any kind of character, and most importantly, get the story right. I don’t recall Ron ever changing my words — and if he did, it was so minor I never felt it. That should have told me I was already on the road to becoming the writer I’d dreamed of being since I was eight.
So why share these car stories again, all these decades later?
Because I know what it’s like for a story to get tossed out with old papers when a loved one passes — for a grandchild to have no clue their grandfather once set a record at Bonneville, or that their dad’s best memory was wind-whipped hair in a rumble seat on Peachtree Street.
I want these stories to live again — so the people can live again. So their families can see them young and grinning, wild for the road. So the rest of us can remember that every old car carries more than pistons and chrome — it carries secrets, frustrations, little triumphs and big ones, miles shared and miles left behind.
This is my aim: to keep the motor running on these moments. To honor the men and women who opened their garages, their glove boxes, their Buckhead decks, and their backyards to me — and maybe to hand a piece of them back to their people, wherever they are now.
Ron’s gone now — he passed this year. I’m grateful for him. We didn’t always see eye to eye — I was the prudish, rule-following single mom; his morals were loser than mine but his words were much more brilliant. I don’t think he ever really understood me as a young woman. But he knew me as a writer. And he gave me the opportunity to write for the public. That’s a gift. A gift nobody else ever offered me. Just Ron.
Thanks, Ron.
And thanks to you for ridin’ shotgun with me. Let’s take another lap.
About the Author
Cindi Brown is a Georgia-born writer, porch-sitter, and teller of truths — even the ones her mama once pinched her for saying out loud. She runs Porchlight Press from her 1895 house with creaking floorboards and an open door for stories with soul. When she’s not scribbling about Southern music, small towns, stray cats, places she loves, and the wild gospel that hums in red clay soil, you’ll find her out listening for the next thing worth saying.
