With 'Boatcar,' Va. Shore man makes waves on the roads
It’s summer on the Eastern Shore, and plenty of cars are on the highway. Plenty of boats are on the local waterways.
But there are not plenty of “Boatcars” on either land or sea. In fact, there’s only one such vehicle around, and Reid Diggs is the man behind the wheel.
Polished cream with oversized tires and gleaming rims, and a purple Barbie mermaid for a figurehead, the 1988 Stingray Super Sport boat on a 1973 Pontiac Le Mans drivetrain makes waves on the highway.
It’s a real looker.
“It attracts attention,” Diggs says. “(Other drivers) don’t want to pass you.
“They want to pull up alongside of you and take your picture.”
Sure enough, Diggs pulls the Boatcar onto the highway with a roar from the original LeMans engine.
He drives the speed limit though. Moments later the driver of a New York sedan pulls into the passing lane, pausing at 55 mph to snap a photo of Diggs and his machine.
Next, nearing a stoplight, a woman and her preteen son watch Diggs pass. The woman laughs and waves. The boy just stares.
Clearly, Diggs, 52, relishes the car and the reactions. Not long ago, he spiked his hair, dyed it red-white-and-blue, and drove the car through a Maryland bayside resort town. He told his girlfriend, Liz Haley of Atlantic, he was about to embarrass her.
Then he blasted “God Bless the USA” from a kids' collection of patriotic music as they drove the main street at slow speed. People lined the street to watch, he says.
“She thinks it’s hysterical,” says Diggs of Haley. “It’s a one-car parade.”
‘Other’
It’s been tough for officials to classify his vehicle, Diggs says.
At car shows, the Boatcar has been a “street rod.” The state police gave it a brand-new vehicle identification number. The local inspection station just wrote “Other.”
“They don’t know what category to put it in,” says Diggs.
No matter the category, people like it. Of three car shows, the Boatcar has won four trophies. At the Cruisin’ Ocean City 2016 car show, Diggs’ Boatcar won two trophies. He said the event photographer chose its picture for next year’s program booklet. At the Southern Delaware Street Rod Association show in Harrington it placed in the top ten of 1,000 cars. It also won at the Bloxom car show.
Everywhere it goes, it seems, the Boatcar gets attention.
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Of course, Diggs isn’t shy about blowing the air horn commandeered from a New York City sanitation dump truck. He uses a polished boat oar to prop the hood. He’s got a few more bells and whistles planned for the engine, he says.
At car shows, he makes sure his Boatcar stands out in an ocean of vehicles. Diggs mounts a tall fishing rod on the hot-rod boat. At the top of the pole, 20 feet in the air, he hangs a four-foot purple shark windsock. A good way to get seen, he says.
There’s even a plan in the event of a flat tire. Diggs digs out a wind-up tin boat – on the box he’s printed “The Spare” – and he places it on the back of the boat with a laugh.
With his dark tan and tattoos, Diggs looks a bit like a modern-day pirate, even without the Boatcar.
He is, in fact, something of a holdout from days gone by – perhaps in more ways than one. Once there were dozens of full-service gas stops on the Virginia Shore, but Diggs’s Weirwood service station is the last one operating, he says.
Too, he is a trained carpenter-turned-auto-mechanic-“turned McGyver,” he admits, referencing the late-‘80’s TV show character who brokers national peace, not with weapons, but with gadgets he creates with odd pieces and parts.
It seems a fair comparison. Between photos and questions, Diggs dashes to the gas pumps to help a customer. Then he hops into the Boatcar – it’s necessary to jump into the Boatcar unless he pulls out a stepladder – and he roars onto the highway with his passengers. All of them are strapped in, courtesy of the Dodge Caravan seats given to Diggs by his friend, Butch Bailey, whom Diggs especially wants to thank.
It’s hardly the first cool car Diggs has restored. He’s owned seven Corvettes, a ’68 Camaro convertible and a “bunch of other old convertibles,” he says. But the Boatcar is special.
“So far, this one has been by far the most fun.”
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‘No rules’
It’s a mad, mad world, but most people get the joke. Not everyone does, however. Diggs pulls the Boatcar near the gas pumps of a modern highway convenience store. He asks a 30-ish customer the location of the nearest boat ramp. The man shrugs and gets into his van.
Then Diggs asks a 20-something local man the same question. The young man politely gives directions to a local boat ramp.
Diggs is undeterred by a generation of people who can pump their own gas but who don’t understand the Boatcar. It’s likely the same wit and tenacity that kept a 15-year dream alive, and then brought it to fruition in just nine months, sometimes with Diggs putting chainsaw to fiberglass with only an eyeballing for measurement.
“There were no rules,” says Diggs. “In between tires and oil changes, I piddled with the car.”
“I do have copies (of the original design plans) available for 20 bucks,” he says, probably not kidding, though Diggs is such a character it’s sometimes hard to tell.
When the Boatcar was road-ready, he asked his father, Reid Diggs Jr., if he could name it “Happy Days III.” It was a nod to the family’s seafaring heritage. The first Reid Diggs was a tugboat captain on New York’s Hudson River, piloting “Happy Days” before the family moved back to Virginia, where Diggs’ father owned a Sears 14-foot outboard called “Happy Days II.”
Most people do recognize the brilliance of Diggs’ Boatcar. There’s a long list of people who want to ride in it. People have followed him dozens of miles to his back-roads driveway — once, a couple trailed him through his bank’s drive-through towing a boat on a trailer — to talk to Diggs about the Boatcar.
He’s been offered a pretty penny to sell it, he says. Though he’s already planning his next project, a Bo-vertible (boat-convertible), he’s pretty happy with the Boatcar for now.
“Right now it’s priceless because it’s way too much fun.”