Mount Rainier motor coach returns home to park

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK —

A couple of guys work hard, take small businesses and make them successful, they've got a right to treat themselves.

That is how on Monday afternoon, park officials here were given the keys to a deco-style, canvas-topped, nearly 30-foot-long, 18-passenger, completely redone 1937 Kenworth Touring Motor Coach that used to take tourists to Mount Rainier.

The coach was returning home, courtesy of two Gig Harbor men:

Art Redford, 69, who founded Honey Bucket, the portable-toilet business with the instantly recognizable name; and Frank Pupo, 72, who owned the Northwest chain of Sam's Tire Service.

The coach had been a rust heap sitting under power lines in a Pierce County field just outside Tacoma, surrounded by weeds and blackberry bushes.

Sixty-thousand dollars later, the heap became a vehicle that onlookers can't help but ooh and ahh about.

Redford couldn't let this classic piece of machinery with its beautiful lines end up sold for scrap.

Only five or eight (the exact number is lost in history) had been built by Kenworth, the venerable Kirkland truck-building company.

In the early 1980s, Redford used to drive by the field and look at the dilapidated vehicle. It brought back memories of his Tacoma childhood.

"I grew up in Fern Hill, and in the 1940s and '50s, I'd ride my bike to Pacific Avenue, and I'd see it go up to the mountain, loaded with people," says Redford.

That memory never left him.

From the 1930s until 1962, the coaches were specially built for the Rainier National Park Company to take tourists from the Olympic Hotel in Seattle, and the now-closed Winthrop Hotel in Tacoma, to the mountain.

Only three of the coaches are known to have been restored — this one, one that's now in Montana, and another in Alaska.

Redford paid $350 for the coach in February 1984.

He figured it'd take maybe $15,000 to refurbish the vehicle, and recruited Pupo to help.

They had much in common. Both had taken over their father's small businesses and grown them into something big.

"It sounded intriguing to me," says Pupo.

But that $15,000 estimate soon was forgotten.

"The hood was missing, the wood on the floor was rotted, the engine wouldn't work, the headlights were gone, the running boards were rusted out, the bottoms of the doors were basically missing, the canvas roof had collapsed," remembers Redford.

It took three years to refurbish the old coach.

Then, Redford and Pupo used it for special trips with family and friends.

The coach went to Husky and Seahawks games; Redford's kids used it for their weddings; it was loaned out for charity events.

The coach can cruise on the freeway at 50 to 55 miles an hour. It has a 40-gallon tank, uses regular gas, and gets 5 miles per gallon.

Twenty-five years later, Redford and Pupo decided it was time to part with the coach.

So they gave it to the park, the only conditions being that it be used as a working vehicle and never be sold.

Monday, the park gladly accepted, although it's still figuring out just how to use the coach.

For now, it'll be displayed at the historic Longmire gas station at the park entrance.

Redford says he's sentimental about parting with the coach, "but I'm happy."

The coach has come home, ready to stoke a new generation's imaginations.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com