Company & Car Lore
Garrison Motors & The “Scourge” (1975)
Brand Heritage: Roots in the Grease and Grit
The outfit was founded back in the late 1950s by Arthur “Art” Garrison — a former WWII aircraft mechanic turned hard-nosed, hot-rod builder from deep in the heart of Texas. Garrison Motors quick made a name for itself as a mighty eccentric, low-volume shop. Their first big machine was a textbook slice of Americana: a no-nonsense, lightweight sports car built around a cast-iron V8 that became a flat-out legend across the Texas drag strips. Old Art stood by a simple, ironclad promise to his buyers: indestructible mechanics, affordable speed, zero compromises, and total freedom. Oh my gosh freedom!
The Crisis: 1973 and the Malaise Gut-Punch
Then came 1973, and the sky fell. The oil crisis and them new-fangled unleaded emissions laws hit the American auto industry like a runaway freight train. The big suits up in Detroit panicked. They neutered their legendary big-blocks and started churning out dull, unreliable plastic econo-boxes. Garrison Motors was staring right down the barrel of bankruptcy. Younger buyers were clean out of cash for gas-guzzling monsters, but y’all can bet they were still desperately hunting for that elusive ‘cool factor’.
Arthur Garrison sat in his Texas workshop, poured himself a stiff glass of whiskey, and made a radical call: ‘If Detroit won’t build an honest V8 sports car anymore, we’ll damn well do it ourselves. But we’re doing it by our rules.’
The Birth of the Scourge: The Texan Wedge
Garrison needed a machine that could bypass them strict government regulations, cost next to nothing to manufacture, but still have enough teeth to tear up the quarter-mile. The result was the 1975 Garrison Scourge.
With no money in the bank for a fancy, high-tech monocoque chassis, Art relied on what he knew best: an unkillable ladder frame forged from Texas steel. He paired it with a manual rack-and-pinion steering rack for razor-sharp turn-in, and slapped some honest, no-nonsense 200mm solid discs up front and a pair of 210mm drums in the back straight off the local parts shelf to make damn sure the thing actually stopped when you told it to.
For the power plant, Arthur stole Detroit’s favorite trick of displacement downsizing but refined it clean out-of-the-box, birthing the Garrison 195 ci (3.2L) ‘Long-Stroke’ V8. A pure, cast-iron engine tuned specifically for regular unleaded. Sure, it runs flat out of breath up top, but down low at a lazy 2,200 RPM, it hits the mechanical limited-slip differential with 229 Nm of torque. Art knows a thing or two about machinery: torque is what moves the soul, and horsepower is just for vanity. And if you´re to weak to steer without a Yankee hydraulic: go to the gym.
The Eccentric Space-Age Greenhouse
But the real showstopper of the Scourge was its looks. Now, Arthur Garrison was a man of pure, utilitarian function, so for the styling, he brought in an old friend: Julian “Jules” Vance. Vance was an eccentric, silver-haired Art Deco furniture designer and architect who was supposed to be enjoying retirement down on the Texas coast. Vance loathed the cheap, tacky plastic trends of the seventies. He took Garrison’s brutal, wedge-shaped front end and molded it into something else entirely.
Vance was the one who built the bridge between that rugged V8 ladder frame and the futuristic space-age zeitgeist. He penned the spectacular, elongated panoramic glass roof and shooting-brake rear end, complete with a pop-up sun-roof up front to flood the cabin with natural light. Now the Driver and the passenger not just feel the freedom, they can see it everywhere. He demanded the thin, beige trim line to slash a clean boundary between the glossy metallic copper of the roof and the satin-matte tobacco brown of the lower body. And he insisted on multi-spoke wheels machined from raw, brushed aluminum that looked like mathematical art pieces.
Since the car remained feather-light by throwing the idea of rear seats straight into the scrap pile, Vance upgraded the interior to match his eccentric vision: expensive sports seats wrapped in rich brown corduroy, a premium AM/FM radio for long desert highway hauls, and a cargo bay lined with a custom-designed, iconic Rain-Drop-Paisley carpet.
The Scourge was born—a purebred sports wagon draped in eccentric Art Deco sheets, sprinting from 0 to 60 in 9 seconds flat, packing over 2,200 liters of cargo room, and hitting that golden 20 MPG right on the nose.
THE 1975 GARRISON SCOURGE
God Created Texas. Art Garrison Built The Machine To Match.
The government wants you to slow down. Detroit wants you to buy plastic. We want you to be free again.
Stop crawling. The oil crisis is officially over the second you slide behind the wheel of the new Garrison Scourge! While them soft-handed suits up north are whining and neutering their engines, we did what we do best down here in Texas: We saved damn freedom baby, freedom!
Julian “Jules” Vance penned a wedge so sharp it cuts through the wind like a razor blade. And right on top, he slapped a glass greenhouse so majestic that you don’t just feel the sky when you slide that sun-roof open — you can breathe, touch and see undisputable freedom everywhere!
Garrison Motors don’t build transportation. We build rolling declarations of independence.
Why The Scourge Is The Only Machine On God’s Green Earth You Need Right Now:
The Undying Heartbeat: Under the hood hammers a true-blue, unkillable V8 forged from pure Texas cast-iron. No fragile, lightweight gimmicks, and zero electronics to freeze up when the weather turns sour. Pure, raw machinery for real men. 150 hp & 210 lb-ft (SAE Gross) to move just 2,284 lbs curb weight.
The Low-End Landslide: Forget them high-revving sewing machines. This V8 rams enough torque to the rear axle to bring tears of pure joy to your eyes — and then stream them horizontally back to your ears when you floor it. A gentle squeeze on the pedal, and the mechanical limited-slip differential claws into the asphalt. Because real power lives down in the basement!
The Luxury Living Room On Wheels: Sink right into expensive sports seats wrapped in rich brown corduroy. Crank up the premium AM/FM radio, rest your elbow on that bright, vintage armrest, and roll the window down by hand. No cheap plastic. Just pure, unadulterated style.
The Endless Horizon: Who needs a back seat when you can have absolute liberty? The rear opens up into a gigantic, downright luxurious cargo bay, fully lined with that custom, iconic Rain-Drop-Paisley carpet. It’s so massive you could haul half a steer or pack your entire life into the back and just disappear straight into the sunset.
The Flat-Out Insult To The Pumps: And the best part? This untamed V8 runs on cheap, honest regular unleaded straight from the local country pump—and it sips it so responsibly that them oil sheiks are gonna cry themselves to sleep. You’ll be running circles around the competition while your wallet laughs all the way to the bank!
Don’t Just Stand There Watching. Grab The Road By The Throat.
Let the other folks rot away in their dull, castrated econo-boxes. The Scourge gets you up to highway speeds in a heartbeat, brakes like a thoroughbred race car, and tracks so precise through the manual rack-and-pinion steering it feels like it’s welded straight to your thoughts. It runs absolutely neck-and-neck with the most expensive exotics out there — but it costs a mere fraction of the price.
Indestructible mechanics. Jaw-dropping design. Zero compromises. Freedom.
The Price of Independence: Only $6,195
Available starting today at your independent Garrison dealer across the great Southwest. Hand-built in Texas. Throw your sunglasses on, and hit the blacktop.
