SIA Flashback - Harley Earl’s Scrapbooks

How long do you suppose it took Special Interest Autos to dig into Harley Earl’s sketches and renderings? Well, if you’ve been paying attention to our SIA Flashbacks, you’ll see we’re up to SIA #34, May-June 1976, published nearly six years after SIA began its historic run. But time is no obstacle to us, looking back, so rather than lambaste Michael Lamm for taking so long, we can enjoy Lamm’s diligent research and Earl’s (and his staff’s)...

16/11/2008

Suzuki. A man’s machine.

I didn’t take any pics because I was hanging on for dear life, but I rode one of these the other day: Two hundred and fifty ccs of two-stroke power. Sure, it’s only 18hp, but snap that throttle wide open and the front wheel comes up in an instant. I’ve got a real thing for vintage trials bikes. They’re light (comparatively - it’s still 200 pounds) and agile and you can have a blast with them riding up and down picnic tables and junk cars in your yard. Put one in...

12/11/2008

SIA Flashback - General MacArthur’s 1942 Packard and See-Through Pontiac

No, that 1939 Pontiac isn’t a trick, an optical illusion. It’s genuinely see-through, one of two that GM built for the 1939 and 1940 World’s Fairs. Or, at least, two that are known to have been built at the time of this article’s publication in SIA #34, May-June 1976. And, fitting for that bicentennial year, the same issue also featured a three-pager on a 1942 Packard Clipper Custom that Douglas MacArthur originally owned and that narrowly escaped a pancake fate...

09/11/2008

SIA Flashback - Rumbleseats: The View From Behind

Though less a Half-Hour History and more a simple pictorial tour of rumbleseats throughout the years, Bill Williams’s article from SIA #33, March-April 1976, includes some interesting historical tidbits, such as the photos of the mini convertible tops used at the time to shield rumbleseat passengers from the elements (why not just get a touring?) and photos of the late 1950s early 1960s revival of the rumbleseat via dealer and aftermarket conversions. And, of course, no such article...

02/11/2008

save these cars - Denton, North Carolina

Just came across mention that Richard’s Auto Sales and Salvage in Denton, North Carolina, is going out of business at the end of the year and plans on crushing all unsold inventory starting December 1. It’s a shame when any junkyard closes, but this is compounded by Richard’s old-car inventory, judging from the company’s website. For example, the 1966 Rambler Classic four-door above is on the site for sale at just $575. And he has a whole row of 1949-1951 Fords ripe...

30/10/2008

Soviet Samurai?

Believe it or not, I photographed this thing on a street along the harbor in Monaco, as a Rolls Corniche, Bentley Azure and a rent-a-lap Ferrari F430 Spyder rolled past behind me. This is a Perestroika Special, a VAZ 2121 Lada Niva, with selectable four-wheel drive, which probably dates from a little before 1985. The Niva first appeared in its native Soviet Union in 1980, with 1,600cc power, and eventually made it to the liberated side of the Berlin Wall. In the U.K., for instance, it was sold...

29/10/2008

SIA Flashback - Around the World in a 1926 Chevy Truck and Japan’s Baby Cord

Who among us hasn’t fantasized of just taking off, leaving our worldly possessions behind, and driving to wherever we felt like, for however long we felt like? Well, Tony Collins and his wife Sue did just that, traveling 20,000 miles over the course of 3-1/2 years in a 1926 Chevrolet truck. It’s a good thing he didn’t let the pessimists and bears get to him; it’s a bad thing we only heard the condensed version of his story in SIA #33, March-April 1976. As a bonus, the...

26/10/2008

so Ford did consider a Mustang station wagon, among other body styles

So while we were discussing the reality and the aesthetics of the Mustang station wagon recently, the folks at motorpasión, with the help of the Mustang Club of Spain, turned up a photo of one of the prototypes that Ford had already developed in 1966 when the Intermeccanica wagon showed up. As motorpasión pointed out, even though Ford scrapped the above idea, and probably rightfully so, they seemed to already have the beltline for later (circa 1971) Mustangs figured out, so the concept...

23/10/2008

SIA Flashback - Living With Style, Part II

Perhaps some of the most interesting comments from Holden Koto in this second part of a two-part story on his design career (missed the first part?), come at the end, when he reflects on more than a half-century in the automotive design business and compares how it changed from 1933, when he started, to 1968, when he retired. Perhaps his answer is a bit predictable, but his choice of his favorite design from those years is less so.

19/10/2008

SIA Flashback - Living With Style

Good designers didn’t necessarily churn out designs that constantly made production. Instead, they advanced new design ideas, they influenced other good designers and they apparently networked like crazy. Or so one believes after reading Holden Koto’s autobiographical article in SIA #32, January-February 1976, detailing the first half of his professional career, split among Briggs, Hudson and Raymond Loewy’s design group. The second half of his story we’ll present next...

12/10/2008

Saturday shoutout - allovertheInternetnow edition

Yes, it’s time for the Saturday shoutout again. Only this week’s been a little different. Instead of any one website providing a dumptruckload of traffic for us (other than Autoblog, which picked up on the General Lee CJ-7 and the Mustang station wagon posts), we saw several JeepComanche-sized loads of traffic, so we thought we’d highlight ‘em all. First up, and in no particular order, motorpasion.com, which seems to be one of the premier Spanish-language automotive...

11/10/2008

so where does the driver sit? Ten-foot-tall three-wheeler going up for auction

So among the lots at Barrett-Jackson’s inaugural Las Vegas auction later this month (aside from Carroll Shelby’s MG TC, his first race car), we spied lot 175, billed as the “Thunderous Cyclops.” Of course, with a name like that, we had to investigate. According to the auction description, it’s a to-scale 10-foot-tall Honda three-wheeler, created by a chap named Clifford Smith. We’re guessing Clifford’s from Texas. The three-wheeler uses two different...

07/10/2008

Save these microcars: Cranwell, Lincolnshire

First, a disclaimer: We are not selling these cars. Every time we post something like this, people come out of the woodwork asking us to call them. These cars are being auctioned. Go to England and buy them. Now that’s off my chest, what we’ve got here is the Bubblecar Museum, selling off their entire collection of little vehicles. Many are, if not unique, at least rare enough to be worth saving. Golding Young has the sale, which includes 80 cars and a mess of spares (Honestly,...

07/10/2008

SIA Flashback - The Prophet (1935 Stout Scarab)

Perhaps the most brilliant thing Bill Stout ever did, according to Rich Taylor’s account of the engineer’s life and career in SIA #32, January-February 1976, was not to design the Scarab for which he is most known, or to influence aviation history early on. Instead, the manner in which he raised funds to start his own aircraft company was a particular stroke of chutzpatic genius. Interestingly, his Scarab was never initially intended for production, just to show off his engineering...

05/10/2008

stolen car alert: 1956 Porsche 356A

With the dollar taking a plunge versus the Euro in the last couple years (and possibly worsening with the current economic meltdown), a lot of classic iron here in the States has shuffled over to Europe. We saw it happening big time at Hershey last year, with Europeans taking a huge discount that we Americans couldn’t. This 1956 Porsche 356A T1 Speedster was all set to take part in that shuffle last month when its seller in Sonoma, California, loaded it on to a trailer headed to...

30/09/2008

SIA Flashback - A Half-Hour History of Superchargers

According to Jan Norbye, writing in SIA #32, January-February 1976, the most successful OEM application of superchargers (at least to date) was the Graham-Paige’s in the 1930s, with more than 15,000 sold. Wethinks that may require some additional research, but the rest of the article holds up pretty well, with a brief but informative explanation of the different types of superchargers and how they actually stuff more air into a car’s engine.

28/09/2008

SIA Flashback - The People’s Car

Many people forget that Joseph Frazer had a long career in the automotive business before hooking up with Edgar Kaiser, and his brief stay at Willys-Overland shortly before World War II tends to fall under the radar. Yet he brought success to Toledo during his short stay there with the Americar, a low-priced conventional automobile that could conceivably be sold to any pocketbook. Ken Gross, writing in SIA #31, November-December 1975, recounts the story of the Americar and Frazer’s...

21/09/2008

SIA Flashback - It Roars Like a Caproni Biplane

When Ken Gross wrote of the 1930 Jordan Series Z Speedway Ace for SIA #31, November-December 1975, no known examples existed, but the CCCA had decided to grant any undiscovered examples Full Classic status regardless. As Gross describes the car, the CCCA made a wise decision. To complement his short article on the Series Z, Gross also wrote an article on Jordan advertising that relied heavily on excerpts from Ned Jordan’s “The Inside Story of Adam and Eve,” a book only nearly...

14/09/2008

SIA Flashback - America’s Most Needed Car

More than a few companies attempted to enter the post-war automobile seller’s market, and many of those simultaneously saw the need for a small car. Crosley, of course, succeeded in this venture, as did King Midget - for a while - and others, including Davis and Playboy, met with quick blows for grasping beyond their reach. But the Bobbi-Kar/Keller actually stood a chance, one that surpassed a criminal record, a cross-country move and SEC investigation. Only a cruel plug-pulling by fate,...

07/09/2008

Saturday shoutout - Autospies.com

We know that the Internet likes lists, so it came as no surprise when a number of major blogs picked up TA’s post on the Telegraph’s list of the 100 ugliest cars of all time. It also came as no surprise that the list spurred much debate on the cars that the Telegraph chose and on the definitions (and perceptions) of ugliness. What did surprise us is one of the sources of the response. Autospies.com never showed up on our radar before - likely because we’re not terribly...

06/09/2008

SIA Flashback - One-Day Wonder

More Brooks Stevens love, yes, but he whipped up so many unique and interesting designs, and if we had to choose one day to spend with him, it would likely be December 12, 1963, when he met with Charlie Sorensen to design an inexpensive, lightweight, all-fiberglass unit-body car that could theoretically save Studebaker’s automotive business. Stevens worked up the designs and Sorensen worked up the production methods and costs, but, of course, Studebaker shot the design down before it had...

31/08/2008

Saturday shoutout - Autoblog.com

As much as I’m not a fan of of AOL and its online empire, and as much grief that TTAC gives the site, I still read Autoblog daily for my dose of new car news, and anytime Autoblog links to one of our posts - as they did the other day when they were equally as puzzled by the shorty Voyager as we - we still get a ton of traffic. Thus they’ve earned this week’s shoutout. And lest you think them completely about new cars, consider their coverage of this year’s Woodward...

30/08/2008

SIA Flashback - From Blacksmith’s Shed to Lysicrates’ Tomb

Perhaps better described by the subtitle, “A short history of service station architecture,” Ray Scroggins’s article from SIA #30, September-October 1975, examines the look, purpose and practice of service station design, with a keen eye to the motivation behind the various designs over the years and to just how gasoline was made available to the average motorist over the years. Were it up to me, they’d all look like the Louisville, Kentucky, Standard Oil station. Oh,...

24/08/2008

Saturday shoutout - stumbleupon.com

Maybe this shoutout’s a little odd, but StumbleUpon did send a big wave of traffic our way this past week, specifically on the 376 mpg Opel post from more than a year ago. If you’re a web addict, then you likely already know all about StumbleUpon, the little add-on to your browser that tries to find sites you like based on which sites you’ve previously given a thumbs-up or thumbs-down to and based on what other people with similar interests have yayed or nayed. If...

23/08/2008

Stroller on slicks

What to do with your Fifties-era Webco Viking Craft quarter Midget? It’s always been in the family, but the years haven’t been kind and it needs restoration. The suburban glades of the Eisenhower years have passed, though, and the grandson isn’t in a position to enjoy it yet, anyway. Maybe…a chop here, a channel there, a set of go-kart slicks, and every time I saw Debbie MacGee pushing Callum around, he had an ear-to-ear grin (here, he’s enjoying a nice Camel...

22/08/2008

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