I had a history lesson last week, and the catalyst was a badly damaged Mercedes Benz lying in state on our block while caught in insurance settlement limbo. I walk past the remains every day but have avoided asking questions. In turns out the eggshell blue vintage car, rusting at the point of impact, was the beginning of a history lesson on Ballard and Seattle, leading me to the woman born in 1892 who built a broadcasting empire.

Dorothy Stimson Bullitt was the daughter of C.D. Stimson who owned two of the earliest lumber mills in Ballard. Her mother founded the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Their early homes still stand; Stimson Green Mansion on First Hill and family homes in The Highlands. In addition to the Bullitt Foundation, which is dedicated to environmental causes in the Northwest, Dorothy Stimson Bullitt influenced her children to create another legacy in the form of one of the few remaining commercial classical stations in the United States. But unknown to her family, Dorothy left Ballard its own legacy - because on this block we have her car.

I've never had a "love affair with cars" but I know it happens. There are people who restore vintage automobiles only to show them to others equally obsessed. My neighbor Billy may have loved the 1967 Mercedes Benz originally owned by Dorothy Bullitt, but for him it was an everyday car, a car that toted children and real estate clients; a true working car until last May.

Billy came to enjoy the stares generated by the car, and acknowledged them with waves. When Billy pulled alongside in his six cylinder Fin Body Mercedes, you hopped in. Riding in the classic Mercedes was always grand, until the afternoon I turned the corner to see the Mercedes with her front passenger side flattened as though a wrecking ball had dropped from above.

Billy hadn't considered himself a car person until he bought a 1961 Mercedes from a neighbor, but in hindsight his father's old Rambler and his mother's old Volvo must have inspired him. In restoring the 1961 four cylinder he came to appreciate the engineering and details of the German-made car. Unfortunately that car was struck by another driver and totaled. He began shopping for another vintage Mercedes; in 1998 Billy purchased the 1967 Fin Body, replete with KING No. 1 parking spot decal in the rear window. Billy had found Dorothy Stimson Bullitt's car, reputedly the last one she drove even after her family insisted on hiring a driver.

Details of nine years of painstaking restoration fill 30 pages - engine, transmission, carburetor, brakes, seals, windshields, seat belts, all replaced. The car had been repainted with such detail that it took over a month. Billy personally taped off the trademark Benz chrome on the hubcaps before they were painted. Billy didn't talk about the car; he was too busy with his family, work, their old house, coaching softball, volunteering at school, driving carpool, remodeling the property one street south, but never too busy to lend a tool or chat.

Billy recalls that he was having a really nice day before the accident. He'd done errands and was on his way home, headed west on 85th street. Just before Greenwood, a late model SUV pulled out of a parking lot and made an illegal left across two lanes of traffic to head east. The vehicle plowed into the front of the passenger side of the 1967 Mercedes Benz.

Billy went into shock; the impact had been enormous. A firefighter counseled him to stay put as long as he needed, still buckled into the driver's seat. After 20 minutes he was able to get out walk around to the front. He remembers thinking, maybe this won't be bad. Maybe my car can be fixed - until he rounded the front and saw the damage that had flattened the grill, bent the engine. The other driver cried on his shoulder.

Eight months later Billy is near the end of therapy appointments for physical injuries but finds a daily reminder of the accident "rusting and moldering" by his front steps. The special plates ordered to celebrate the completed restoration arrived a few days after the accident. When the insurance is finally settled and the car heads to auction he'll hang the 67 BENZ plates in his garage. Other cars on the street are dusty and marked by birds but the undamaged body of the blue car gleams; its paint job magically impeccable, chrome resplendent.

Billy showed me the decal and told me the story of how Dorothy's sapphire ring had scratched paint near the ignition. I went home to read about the Stimsons and Bullitts on www.historylink.org and curled up with the Delphine Haley's biography, "Dorothy Stimson Bullitt: An Uncommon Woman." As a child she heard Teddy Roosevelt campaign for president, as a widow she was thrust into the Democratic Convention that nominated Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and then there was her ascendance in business and broadcasting. The book said that in her mid 80's she'd used a hidden set of keys to drive her self to KING Broadcasting on a weekend, appearing to be, "just a cleaning woman in a Mercedes."

The other drivers' insurance company has been slow to accept the car's vintage appraisal; the matter is headed for a third party mediator. Meanwhile the car is a daily reminder of how abruptly our lives can change.

"My love affair with old Mercedes is coming to an end," Billy told me as the rising moon cast a glow on its beautiful lines. "I drove these old cars for 20 years and I really loved them, look at the three-sixty windshield, seats that fit the natural curve of the back...but I can't bear the idea of restoring another one only to lose it. My next car will be whatever helps my family leave the smallest footprint." Behind him the magnolia tree looked ready to winter bloom in front of his Craftsman house. "I like to restore things," he said, "it's very satisfying."

We'll miss seeing Billy cruising Ballard in his big, old car but nonetheless he restored more than an automobile. He restored a missing piece of history and gave me a three-sixty view into Seattle's past while we stood at dusk by the damaged car.

Peggy can be reached atlargeinballard@yahoo.com. She writes additional pieces at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/ballard.