Classic car enthusiasts remember man who died driving classic Model T as 'true gentleman'

ST. GEORGE — Thursday's gentlemen's breakfast at Denny's was canceled in remembrance of their friend, Dennis Rutkoskie, 84, who died Wednesday when his vintage Ford Model T collided with a pickup truck on Rio Virgin Drive and Washington Dam Road.

Police say Rutkoskie was thrown from his vehicle while attempting a U-turn, which resulted in a collision in a "head-on, sideswipe manner" near their front driver-side fenders.

According to friends, Rutkoskie was on his way home from a "HotRod Hangout" at Cracker Barrel when the incident happened, and they said, "He was the kind of guy that made the rest of us reflect on ways to be better men."

"I'll always remember Dennis as an absolute gentleman," said Tony Lonnett, president of Desert Rodders Car Club of Southwest Utah. "He was a very likable guy. Very personable, never negative. Never heard him say anything negative about anybody, and I've never heard anything negative about him."

Rutkoskie was a retired insurance salesman who spent what some might call an entire lifetime collecting cars ranging from Ford Model Ts to a Rolls-Royce. According to an online post, he sold his insurance company in 1999 and moved to St. George with his family, where he eventually became the owner of John Oreno's Garage in Washington.

Lonnett said the Model T Rutkoskie was driving at the time of the accident had special features of its own.

"It was called a Model T Ford Mother-in-law Roadster," he said. "There was a seat behind the passenger compartment out in the open for your mother-in-law.

"He was in his early 80s and extremely sharp," he added. "He drove all these old cars, and each has little idiosyncrasies that you have to drive each differently and he never faltered. I followed him many times."

Rutkoskie stored his many classic cars at his shop and was very much a part of the model car community. Lonnett said that they hope to have a procession for him with date and time yet to be determined. Friends are saying his was a "life well-driven," and that he "went doing what he loved — behind the wheel of his Model T."

A friend wrote a poem that was published in the group's weekly newsletter and shared with KSL. In part, it reads:

He believed old cars were meant to roam,

Not still forgotten, still as stone.

So Dennis drove them far and free

The way the old world used to be.

And though today the road fell still,

His spirit rides the desert hills.

In every engine's gentle hum,

In every friend and car club run.

For some leave quietly with time,

But others roll beyond the line.

And Dennis — "Deny" to those who knew —

Went doing what he loved most to do.

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