Out there on U.S. Highway 36, about 25 miles from the Indiana
state line, is the small town of Newman, Illinois. You've
probably never been there, but maybe you can picture whitewashed
front porches, flagpoles, a water tower with the town name
painted on it, and at least a few garages or pole barns with
some kind of cool old car inside.  Mike Dillon grew up there and
lives there today. When he was a kid, the cool old car at his
house was a ragtop '47 Plymouth his dad was storing for Mike's
uncle, who had hauled it from Florida in 1966. After several
years, Mike's dad bought the car for himself with the intention
of someday restoring it.  As a kid, Mike loved the Plymouth.
"Growing up in the early 1960s, before video games and multi-
channel television, I sometimes found myself playing in the car,
pretending to be driving it to places only my imagination would
take me-which was just as well, because there was so much dust
on the windshield that I couldn't see through it."  To that kid
behind the steering wheel,