Granddad’s Legacy Endures

When it comes to antique gas engines, Dan Holicky doesn’t have to look very far to find a kindred spirit. His brother, Dean, and his cousin, Kevin Kriha, are avid engine enthusiasts. And he got his start in the hobby from his grandfather, the late Bob Riebel, a well-known engine collector.

“As kids and into our teens, in the mid-1990s, we were always at my granddad’s,” he says. “He would go around and purchase engines and show them at the nearby Le Sueur (Minnesota) County Pioneer Power Assn. for years.”

Dan, a trucker from Le Center, Minnesota, stayed involved in the hobby as he grew older. “Kevin and I have a lot of my granddad’s original engines, like Fairbanks-Morse and John Deere. About 10 years ago, I started collecting some of my own stuff. It was all because of my grandpa.”

Learning from an old hand

In those early