Stories About Our Objects

Champ's 1924 Hupmobile

The car that wouldn't quit.

By WAAAM Volunteer Roy Pettit.

My uncle bought this Hupmobile in 1929, when he was 16. His name was “Champ Bond,” and he had the reputation of being a real character. Considered a “mechanical genius” by many, he invented a “solution” for every problem. Sometimes he invented a solution looking for a problem!

He used the Hupmobile for a long while as any regular person would, and he especially liked to drive it whenever he went on his camping expeditions. He found that the running boards were a particularly good place to strap on camping and fishing equipment.

Then, in the 1950s, Champ got a 99-year lease from the Forest Service for a ski operation in Haines, Oregon, near a place called Anthony Lake. Haines was a very small town in Baker County, located roughly between Baker and La Grande. Even today, the population of Haines is only about 1,600 people. Anyway, Champ set up his ski operations there, and decided to use the Hupmobile’s engine to power the ski lift.

You had to be really creative back then, and pretty handy with tools and such, because you couldn’t just order the things that you might have needed. Many things … like Champ’s ski lift… were just never going to happen without a person taking things into their own hands.

Champ’s solution was to bury the car body, and to use the frame, the motor, and the back wheel to power a rope tow. The ski lift remained in operation in this manner for 25 years, until a big company finally came into the area and Champ decided to shut down Little Alps.

In the early 90’s, Champ thought it would be a good idea to put the Hupmobile back together again. Fortunately, he had kept the front of the body stored away someplace, and the engine of course was still running after all those years. (It’s true when they say they don’t build things like they used to.) But, he had one big problem, and that was, he didn’t have the body any longer. Once again, it was time for an ingenious solution.

So Champ decided that the next best thing would be to use a Dodge body, which was quite similar to the body of the Hupmobile. That’s why when you look at the back end of the car, the body is a little rough around the edges, because what he ended up doing is literally bolting a Dodge body onto a Hupmobile frame.

The newly recreated Hupmobile (or more appropriately “Champmobile”) made its debut at the Haines parade in 1995, when the family piled in, and Champ drove it once again after all those years!