To Duellman, cars were more than a business, more than a way to get from here to there.

He and Bernadette celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in a 1958 Chevrolet Delray, the same car he proposed in.

Duellman used to work long hours in the salvage yard, but on Sundays when the weather was nice, he and the rest of the family would pile into one of his classic cars and make their way to church.

On the way back, when he felt a touch adventurous or just had time to kill, Duellman would stop at intersections and ask his kids: “Left? Right? Or straight?”

“Sometimes we drove in a big circle and ended up in the same spot,” Baker said. “And sometimes we would end up somewhere way out there, and Dad would have to figure out how to get us back home.”

When he was alone, Duellman would stomp on the gas pedal and take off in a whirl of dust. His penchant for racing earned him a flurry of traffic tickets and multiple trips to the hospital, though there was no convincing him to consistently follow the speed limit.

“He liked anything that could go fast,” said Eric Duellman, one of his sons. “It had to go fast.”