It sounded like an urban legend. A myth fueled by muddled mis-understandings of foreign sailors speaking Spanish and Russian. The story goes like this:

During Tall Ships Tacoma 2005, a group of young sailors on shore leave from the Mexican sailing ship Cuauhtemoc or, perhaps, the Russian Pallada bumped into someone with a fancy car. Some versions of the story describe the car as a Jaguar. Some described it as a Mercedes. Others, a vintage roadster.

“Whatever kind of car it was, it was fabulous, and it was definitely a convertible,” said Clare Petrich, a Tall Ships festival chairwoman and Port of Tacoma commissioner.

The car owner, this stranger, according to the legend, tossed his keys to the sailors. Told them to take his car for a drive. Just bring it back when they’d had enough fun.

“It was the unknown myth of the unknown car owner,” Petrich said. “Who in the world would be insane enough to hand out their car keys to a group of young guys who may not even be able to drive?”

Meet Alan Gorsuch, author of a two-volume set of humorous memoirs titled, “All The Ways I Found To Hurt Myself.” He’s not insane, but if you read his book, you’ll find one of his key life learnings is, “Bolster your self-image by surrounding yourself with truly stupid people.”

Last week at his downtown Tacoma antique shop, Sanford & Son, I asked Gorsuch about the legend.

“It’s a true story,” he said. “And we have the pictures to prove it.”

On sunny days, the black and sunflower yellow 1955 Buick Century built on a Roadmaster chassis sits on Broadway in front of Sanford & Son, Gorsuch’s antique store.

He bought it 16 years ago from a friend, George Tart, for $13,000. Then Gorsuch signed the car over to his wife, Cheryl.

“We park it out front to stop traffic, and bring people into the store, and it does,” Alan Gorsuch said.

So during Tall Ships, when the first group of Russian sailors from the Pallada wandered down Broadway and started to ogle the Buick, “I told them, get in, start it up, go for a ride,” he said. “What are they going to do with it? Part it out and sell off the pieces?”

It didn’t take long for the word to spread among the sailors along the waterfront that an American couple up the hill would loan out their fancy car.

Over the course of the festival, Alan Gorsuch figures the sailors took 25 to 30 trips in groups of four or five. Cheryl figures she chauffeured about 10 groups of sailors around town. Some wanted to visit Hispanic businesses on the East Side. Others wanted to shop at Tacoma Mall.

“They all were so doggone cute in those uniforms,” she said.

And the car always came back.

“It was a lot more fun to let them take the car than telling them, ‘Don’t touch that! Don’t touch that!’ ” Alan Gorsuch said.

Five months after the ships had sailed out of Tacoma, the American Sail Training Association announced that Tacoma had won a coveted honor: Tall Ship Port of the Year, as voted by the visiting crews.

Tacoma outpolled Victoria, Vancouver and Port Alberni, B.C., Los Angeles, San Diego and Oxnard and the Channel Islands in California.

“In a year of exceptional tall-ship events that occurred all down the West Coast of North America, Tacoma’s generous spirit and warm welcome contributed to an extraordinarily successful event,” ASTA Executive Director Peter Mello said during the award ceremony.

Gorsuch has a valid theory about that award.

“I read in the paper that (Tall Ships) was coming back in a short, three-year period, because Tacoma was the most hospitable port in the world,” Gorsuch said. “I’m sure the Buick had something to do with it.”

Dan Voelpel: 253-597-8785

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