Brief by Central Staff
Local lore – October 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
A piece of Salida lore, a fixture in local parades for nearly two decades, is now rusting in an impound lot in New York City. The “Doommobile” made it across the continent, and to the Republican National conventions in 1988 and 2000 – but it didn’t survive the 2004 convention and the intense security.
The bus’s owner and creator is Ralph “R.T.” Taylor, long-time resident who served a term as mayor of Salida from 1998 to 2000. The bus started in 1986, when R.T. went to work with a welding torch to convert a 1966 Chevrolet school bus into a mobile sculpture that could serve as a stage, as well as an anti-war statement with its military aura and rocket-launcher on top.
The bus left Salida on Aug. 21. Manhattan police pulled it over on Aug. 28. “A stretch of highway coming in from New Jersey was really rough,” R.T. recalled, “and I think that shook the ground wires loose, because we didn’t have any lights – no brake lights, turn signals, anything like that.”
But what might have been a ticket turned into an intense search. “I offered to show them anything they wanted to see,” he said, “but they insisted on tearing it apart themselves.”
After that, the bus wouldn’t move on its own, and it was towed away to an impound lot. “I tried to give them the title so it would be their bus, but they wouldn’t take it.”
So now he’s getting charged $50 a day for storage, and there was a fine on the ticket. “This is really turning into a financial headache,” Taylor told us on Sept. 10, “and I’d sure hoped for a better ending than this.”
Taylor had advertised the bus on E-Bay, hoping to get at least $3,000 for it. “I wanted to sell it because my kids were scared they’d inherit it,” he joked. But now that the Doommobile is in police custody, “It’s impossible to sell, and I can’t even give it away.”
The bills are mounting, and Taylor is worried. So if anyone happens to know of a good lawyer who believes in civil rights. . . .