Ha! I found it. I got so excited that I pushed enter by mistake.

It is called "A visit from Whitebeard" and you can find the words at www.angelfire.com/biz/argonnehotel/cbook386.html and the guys name is Cap'n Clark Cable. I used Excite as a search engine and looked for "the rusty old cutlass" (of course, I also got a web site with story about someone's beat up car)