Media | Articles
Meet the 1961 Lancer That Always Came Home

At first glance, there’s nothing extraordinary about this old car. Though it is well maintained, and the sheetmetal is original, it is regularly driven and far from cosmetically perfect. If you know your old cars, you know this model isn’t unique—the ‘61–62 Dodge Lancer was essentially a badge-engineered Valiant, a compact car designed as cheap, reliable transportation. But if you happen to see this one at a gas station out West, and if you strike up a conversation with its owner, a 30-year-old artist from Montana, you’ll hear a story that’s far from ordinary.
For years, this Lancer kept coming back to the same family, no matter how many times they gave it away. In the ’80s, Dennis Teske decided to get out of the trucking business and run a gas station with his family—first, in Casper, Wyoming, and then in Bellevue, Washington, about 10 miles east of Seattle. Since this was the era of “full service” stations, he and his three sons pumped gas, checked tire pressures, changed oil, and cleaned windows on every customer’s car.

One day, a young man walked into the station and handed Dennis a set of keys. Did he need his car serviced? No, the young man said. He told Dennis that his mother used to frequent the Teske’s station, and Dennis and his boys had treated her so well that she wanted them to have her car, a 1961 Dodge Lancer. Dennis tried to hand the keys back to the young man, but he insisted—giving the car to the Teskes had been his mother’s last wish. Dennis didn’t really need the Lancer, so he parked it where he could keep an eye on it.

A spirit of serendipity seemed to hang over the Bellevue gas station with the old Lancer parked out front. One day in 1992, a girl from New Jersey walked into the station and bought a newspaper. The girl left, then came back and bought a second newspaper. That was strange, thought Dennis’ wife, Rita. She walked over and asked the girl if she was looking for a job. Yes, said the girl, whose name was Janine. She had just arrived in Seattle after sailing around the world. She had walked into the gas station to look at the classifieds and left because she had a job interview in Bellevue, but she turned around because she felt like God was telling her to get a job at the gas station. Dennis and Rita interviewed her on the spot and hired her that day as the manager of the coffee kiosk.
Janine soon hired two other women to help her run the kiosk, and each of the three women would end up falling in love with one of the Teskes’ sons. A year after she turned around and walked back into the station, Janine married Jody Teske. Before long, they had a daughter, Mary Kate.

A few years later, an elderly lady—another regular customer named Louise—drove up to the station in a 1970s Ford Maverick, with her husband beside her in the passenger seat. After filling up the tank, she tried to start the car, and . . . nothing. Dennis and Jody popped the hood and inspected the engine. It had blown a rod. I’m so sorry, Dennis told her. There’s nothing we can do.
Louise burst into tears. She told Dennis that she had just been diagnosed with cancer. She had been taking her husband to a nursing home, because their son had disabilities, and she could no longer care for both of them full-time. She didn’t know what she was going to do. Let’s trade, said Dennis, and he handed her the keys to the Lancer parked out front.
On her way back from the nursing home, Louise came back to the gas station and tried to return the Lancer. Dennis wouldn’t let her. Go to your doctor’s appointments, he said, get your groceries, do whatever you need to do with that car—it’s yours. So she kept it.
In the mid ’90s, the peaceful rhythm of the station was disturbed by a series of break-ins. One of the Teske sons was even held at gunpoint. Dennis and Rita wanted to be somewhere safer for their growing brood of grandkids, and in 1996 the Teske clan decided they would become farmers. None of them had ever farmed before, but after looking at 150 parcels for sale, they settled on one in Nebraska. The week before the deal went through, however, the owner passed away, and the land was deeded to his children, so the Teskes fell back on their second choice, a farm in Terry, Montana. Everyone moved to Terry except for Scott, the middle son, and his wife, who stayed behind in Bellevue. Keep an eye on the Lancer for that old lady, Dennis instructed them.

Soon, Dennis got a phone call from Bellevue. It was Louise. Her cancer had progressed, and she was about to die. She wanted the Lancer to go back to Dennis, so he brought the Lancer to the farm and tucked it safely away in a barn. Years passed.
While the family was taking a lunch break from farm work one day, Dennis noticed his 15-year-old granddaughter, Mary Kate, reading a driver’s ed manual. “You’re going to need a car, aren’t you?” He said.
The two of them walked out to the barn where Dennis had stored the Lancer. “Have I ever told you about how your mom and dad fell in love?” he asked her. No, he hadn’t. “Well, have I ever told you about these two old ladies who willed me this car?”
“I was like, no,” says Mary Kate. “And he looks at me—I’m a 15 year old girl—and he says, ‘I think you’re the third old lady to own this car’.”
Dennis offered to help Mary Kate restore the car over the summer. After 11-hour days in the field, the whole family would spend an hour before dinner working on the car—Dennis, Mary Kate, siblings, her cousins, and her uncle. When summer was over, her grandfather gave her the keys to the Lancer. It had 36,000 miles.
“It was pretty much a brand new car,” Mary Kate says. “Those old ladies kind of just took it around town to get their groceries.”



Dennis had so much fun rebuilding the car for Mary Kate that he continued the tradition. Amanda, Mary Kate’s young sister, was next. Dennis, the sisters, the cousins, and an uncle restored a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air for her. They did a 1950 DeSoto for Mary Kate’s brother, a 1970 Thunderbird for cousin, Clair, and a 1980 Lincoln for cousin Wyatt. The same family crew even helped Jody, Mary Kate’s dad, restore the car he has been driving since high school: a 1931 Plymouth.


Meanwhile, Mary Kate did what anyone would do with a new car—she drove the Lancer everywhere. After enrolling in two different colleges and three different majors (psychology, literature, mechanical engineering) and dropping out of each, she decided she just couldn’t sit inside at a desk doing office work the rest of her life. She loved being outside—she had grown up working a farm, after all—and she’d always carried around a camera. To solidify her new direction and build her portfolio, she decided to take a road trip. She packed her camera gear and camping supplies into the Lancer and set out from Terry. Her goal: the Mexico border.




Mary Kate and the Lancer drove through Idaho, through Washington, Oregon, down Highway 1 in California, and all the way down to the Salton Sea. They swung out through Arizona and New Mexico and aimed north once more—up through Utah, Wyoming, and back to Montana. The trip took about a month and a half, and Mary Kate slept in the backseat of the Lancer the whole way. She tackled any mechanical mishaps with her own two hands: When the Lancer broke down, she’d find her way to the nearest NAPA store, buy the parts, and fix whatever needed fixing, whether that was replacing the alternator, the starter, or a tire. She credits her grandfather for her DIY skills: “It was just super empowering to know what to do and be able to change parts and stuff myself. I can be anywhere, and if the parts are accessible, I can pretty much fix the thing.”
I think you’re the third old lady to own this car.
Living on the road with a family car from the ’60s includes a thousand inconveniences that we’re protected from in a modern car. The Lancer has no air conditioning or automatic transmission. It has no cruise control, either: “Those springs for the gas pedal are not very easy to push,” says Mary Kate, “and after about an hour on the road, your foot goes numb and your thigh starts to burn. And having the windows rolled down . . . it’s like you’re in an oven sometimes. It’s comparable almost to be on a motorcycle—at the end of a five- or six-hour road trip in that car, your body is sore.”

The Lancer isn’t self-monitoring, like many cars of today. Every day, Mary Kate checks the transmission fluid, oil, and coolant. When on the road, she listens to the car, notices how it’s driving and whether anything is off or abnormal. “It’s really helped hone in my awareness,” she says.
Parts for the slant-six engine are easy enough to find, she says, but parts unique to the Lancer—body parts, chrome trim, that sort of thing—are getting harder and harder to find. She lost a hood emblem to a hailstorm and scoured the country for years looking for a replacement; finally, one of her Instagram followers turned one up on eBay—for $300.
“That car has just really taught me some spiritual lessons, as crazy as that sounds,” says Mary Kate. “It’s shown me how to be patient, and it’s shown me how to use my brain and just work—in this way of patience and resilience and just continuing to keep going.”




Like that gas station in Bellevue, the Lancer builds community wherever it goes. “People just come up to me and want to start talking to me about the car, and by the end of our conversation we’re friends,” she says. Everywhere she goes, Mary Kate tells the story of how she got the car—beginning, of course, with the story of how her grandfather got the car (both times) and how it is intertwined with their family history. In return, the people she meets will tell her about themselves and their families. “I don’t feel like with a modern car I would ever have those conversations. On a personal level, those connections are invaluable. It’s been such a light that’s been shined into my life—people are just people, and at a human level, we’re kind of all basically the same.” She sees the Lancer as a “beacon,” a “testament to time.”
“The story resonates with so many people, and everybody that I tell it to, they’re like, ‘Wow, that could be a movie.’ And I’m like, you know what? It actually could be!”
She may have told the story of her Lancer to thousands of people, but it only makes her want to share it with more. In 2019, in between photography gigs and working on the farm, Mary Kate began writing a screenplay. Over the last five years, she’s revised it again and again, interviewing her grandparents, her uncles, aunts, and parents. “Every draft I’ll take to my family and be like, is this accurate? How is this?” Finally, the script is ready to go. “It’s going to kind of be like a timepiece,” she says. “It’ll be set in 1989 as we open, and then it’ll slowly progress to present day.” Half of the movie will be filmed at the Teske farm, the other half at a gas station. She’s assembled a full crew, and the next step to making the movie reality is funding. In the meantime, she and her crew shot a short film to advertise the car’s story and the upcoming movie—you can watch it in full at the bottom of this article.

“With the movie, I really want to open the door to tell more stories. Especially being raised in Eastern Montana—there’s not a lot of stories coming out of that part of the world.” Her homeland and the people in it are the throughline not only for the Lancer film but for her photography and for her songwriting, both of which focus on the agricultural and the rural community of the region. “I feel so motivated to tell these stories because I just don’t think the visibility is there.”
I don’t feel like with a modern car I would ever have those conversations.
What does the future hold for the Lancer? “If I’m blessed to become an elderly lady myself, I would love to continue the tradition and give it away to somebody else who can keep it going,” says Mary Kate. When she pictures that person, she imagines someone like herself, an artist with a love of history. “I see somebody that would keep the history and the story going, because everything I do with my art is all about stories . . . [I see] somebody that loves stories as much as I do, and the oral tradition of keeping stories going.”
All old cars have stories to tell. Few are lucky enough to have a steward committed to keeping their story alive—not just in the digital realm, but in conversations at gas stations everywhere they go.
To learn more about The Lancer film, or to donate to the project, click here.


















Thanks for the great story that gives me poignant pangs of reminiscence.
My ever-optimistic late wife drove her unusually-styled white ’61 Valiant through her undergrad years (early ’80’s), until she went out-of-state to earn her Master’s degree. It was heartbreaking to her, the poor old Valiant languished, with no one to even air up tires, let alone top off engine oil that had leaked-out, which soon killed that indestructible slant six, when she returned and began to drive it again.
She was so fond of its odd pushbutton transmission, and especially how unique and recognizable it was among her friends, who drove more-current, ordinary, plainly-styled small economy cars of the mid-to-late ’70’s.
It’s coincidental she had family in Montana, also, and my late mom’s uncle also owned an early Valiant, in black, that he and his wife road-tripped for a few weeks, accumulating over couple of thousand miles, to Mexico, back when times and technology were much simpler, in the mid-’60’s.
Wow great story. My first real car. LOL was a hand me down, 62 Valiant 4 Door in white. This was like in 65 or 66, 170 slant six with “3 on the tree”. I drove that car all over, through high school then community college. My friends liked it because it was a 4 door and was quite roomy for a “small” car. While still in high school I bought a 4 speed transmission off of a newer dart and installed it. In the winter I ran snow tires. I built a 225 High Performance Slant Six for it in college. But something happened to the 170 , I dont remember what it was, and I had the hots for a newer car and bought a year old 69 Z/28. So the car ended up not being driven and sat at my grandmothers place where I stayed while going to college. A few years later it ended up at my cousins out in the country and I had plans of getting it going. But got married and years later my cousin moved an hour and a half away. Well the car went up north with him , but years later the township didnt like all the cars he had out back so he had to thin them down. I sold the High per 225 and never really had a chanc to drive it. I did a lot to it in college. Bored it out 100 thousands, special pistons, cam, intake, rods, 4bbl carb, etc. When I see a nice Valiant or Dart at a car show or event I stop and look it all over. It brings back great memories.
Thanks for this story. I love the 1961 Lancers. I think the front end is beautiful. We had a used ’61 Lancer wagon in the mid 60s. Great car. Manual transmission. The manuals were all three speed floor shifts. So cool. Was rock solid and not an ounce of rust. Never knew if it was the 170 or 225 displacement slant six. Either way there was plenty of power. Amazing young woman to make that cross country trip by her self.
Great little cars, those and their Valiant cousins. Better yet, great story; that’s the thing about old cars – the best people will bond to at least some degree in their presence. May Mary Kate and her Lancer live forever.
This car has such a great story with really great people. Thank you for putting this one out for us to read and see.
Great and heartfelt story Grace. I always thought those were just plain ugly cars (WHAT is with those fenders?) but that story deserves to be told. Thanks for a good read.
I love this story and the Lancer. I own the ’62 Fury my grandparents bought new, and we have grown old together. I had a ’62 Lancer that provided many stories for me as well.
Fabulous story Grace, and terrific photos. Your articles always take the reader on a journey that feels real.
I’ve been to most of the locations where those shots were taken, over numerous trips to the US, and living in Sydney Australia it’s great to revisit them again.
We had this car here too, sold as the Chrysler Valiant. Chrysler made and sold Valiants here from 1961 to about 1981, at which point the company was sold to Mitsubishi and then it all got pretty boring.
thanks again for a great read
MAKE THE MOVIE!!!!! What a great story!!!!
I had a 61 Lancer Station Wagon, called a Suburban. I took it in trade for a 55 Ford pickup I got from Lightning Hopkins manager. I drove the Lancer daily for a few years as I was going to graduate school and teaching. Eventually, after finding a job at a start up private high school, and getting to know some extraordinary kids, I loaned the car to one student who was without transportation. He gave it back when he graduated, and I drove it for another year or so, then sold it to a young couple fixing to move out of town and needing a cheap and reliable car. I’ve lost touch with them and would love to give the owner one of the hubcaps I found in my car stuff collection.
This Dodge Lancer reminds me of my ‘63 Dodge Dart ….. same colour with 4 doors, slant 6 and push button auto trans. Paid $330 CDN in 1971. Today that will get you an oil change, tire rotation, power steering flush and new wiper blades lol.
The very first car I ever drove (13 years old) was a 1961 Mercury Comet. The cousin of the Lancer/Valiant/Falcon. I felt like Mario Andretti. Solid, simple cars.
Great story!
What a story!
At a house a block from me sits a (I think) 63 Valiant convertible. It’s never moved…no idea if it runs. If I was a few years younger, I’d fee if they were interested in selling. But I just had my 5th spine surgery,…this one a HUGE one…so my days o crawling under cars are over.
This Lancer, a 1964 Mustang, a 1955 Bel Air and hundreds of other old cars and trucks always have stories to tell. Everyone remembers their neighbor’s red 1965 Corvette convertible, the other neighbor’s green Catalina and their best friend’s blue GTX. It’s all about the smiles from our memories when spotting these old cars. Fantastic story!
Great story. Truly hideous car.