Innholdsfortegnelse for October 2016 i Hemmings Classic Car

Still in Service READER STEVE JENNINGS RECENTLY SENT US A photo of a Checker Aerobus that he spotted in front of the lodge at Montana’s Glacier Park: “Currently licensed and still in service,” Steve wrote. Makes us wonder exactly how many other Checkers remain in livery service today, 34 years after they were last built? And what exactly the folks at Glacier Park have had to do to keep this one running? Pushmepullyu Two WE SHOULD PROBABLY start a national registry for double-ender cars, given how many we’ve learned about through this department. The latest came to us from David Steiner of Rose-burg, Oregon, who sent photos of one employed by the local Masonic Hall for parades. According to information from the Rose-burg News-Review that David passed on, the car…

It’s Bowtie Time 800-423-5525 • WWW.CALCARCOVER.COM  • $34.99 Chevrolet’s unique emblem is one of the most recognizable and honored in the automotive industry, and true Chevy fans love to display it everywhere. Goboxes — the American company noted for creating practical, attractive toolboxes bearing officially-licensed logos — now offers a stylish, 1950s-style wall clock that will surely appeal to Bowtie fans. It’s made of durable powder-coated steel overlaid with a high-gloss decal; the quartz clock mechanism features metal hands and is powered by a single AA battery (not included). This clock is also available in the modern-style red-and-black coloring, without Chevrolet lettering. It measures 23.5 by 10 inches, and is one-inch deep. The Cars of Harley Earl 800-551-4154 • WWW.CARTECHBOOKS.COM $39.95, PLUS $6.95 SHIPPING When the topic of American automobile design is…

Building a race car is almost as much about what you remove as what you add.Take this 1915 Ford: The original builder, sometime in the 1920s or ’30s, got rid of the fenders, running boards, original body and several inches of the frame, paring away a considerable amount of weight and wind resistance.To that, he added a low, sleek body riveted together like a vintage aircraft fuselage; a Ruckstell two-speed rear axle; and a whole slew of engine modifications. The 176.7-cu.in. Ford Model T four-cylinder engine was officially rated at 20 horsepower for its entire existence, although even owners of restored and original cars will tell you that its real power output steadily declined over the course of its 1909 to 1927 production run. Whatever its original level, the Model…

Starting with the 1966 model year, a recurring magazine-ad motif for Ford’s personal-luxury Thunderbird centered on pilots, air travel, the freedom of the open sky, and endless possibilities ahead. Then for 1970, they dispensed with all subtlety and just placed a Thunderbird on the airport tarmac in front of a couple of Pan Am 747s, a pilot and flight attendant strolling toward the white coupe. Ford’s message was clear: Thunderbird was for people who liked to aim for the horizon and revel in wherever the journey took them. Never mind the more general metaphor of birds and flight: Anyone behind the wheel of a Thunderbird was automatically a pilot. Now, we can’t know for sure that this affected Bob Reandeau. But Bob, a truck driver and pilot who spent his…

Most car enthusiasts are familiar with the clay styling models that automobile manufacturers create in full scale and smaller, to have a three-dimensional object to be able to walk around and view. Today, most often a foam core is covered in clay, which is then sculpted, where just a short time ago, the clay was applied to a wood-block structure. Three-dimensional imaging on a computer has for the most part replaced the freehand drawings used by stylists of the past, but it wasn’t always a digital age. The use of clay for styling models after sketches on paper had been completed goes back much further than one may be aware of. Clay models were being created over wood bucks prior to World War I. By the mid 1920s, quarter-scale models…

MY AUTOMOTIVE CAREER BEGAN AT least in the late 1950s when I was in high school building and driving what could loosely be described as “hot rods.” My daily driver was a 1950 Oldsmobile that I transplanted a later-model engine and manual transmission into. In college, I did the same thing with a 1949 Oldsmobile. I was always a General Motors fan, although my family drove Studebakers and Packards. That early love of things mechanical led me to pursue a degree in mechanical engineering, which I received from the University of Wisconsin in 1966. At the time, the University had a professor with ties to the automotive industry and who offered courses in automotive testing. That also meant recruiters from the Big Three, and especially the General Motors Proving Ground,…

In New York City’s borough of Brooklyn, there was a massed area of old warehouses next to piers along the New York Bay. With growing frequency, they became obsolete as just-in-time deliveries (mostly by trucks) obviated the need for long-term stocking. Some of the temperature-controlled warehouses of the old days had their walls lined with cork that became tinder-dry. Occasionally, one of these behemoth buildings went up in a roaring column of flames. Who you gonna call? In the Big Apple, you ran to the nearest alarm box, pulled the handle and telegraphed the emergency to FDNY, the fabled New York Fire Department. And among the rigs that came racing to the blaze were the two totally distinctive pieces of fire apparatus that you see here. FDNY’s Super Pumper System,…

Styling in Palm Springs GREAT AUTOS OF YESTERYEAR IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ITS PALM SPRINGS Casual Concours will take place October 15 at the Desert Princess Country Club. This extremely popular car show was last held on the spectacular grounds of the Country Club located in Cathedral City, California, with a dramatic backdrop of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountains just a few miles away. Last year’s show saw over 125 high quality original and restored automobiles spanning many different eras and brands. All proceeds go to Angel View, an organization that benefits children and adults with disabilities. For more information about the show, please visit www.greatautos.org. Fall Pennsylvania CARLISLE AND HERSHEY ARE THE CENTER of the collector car universe, with Fall Carlisle taking place September 28 to October…

October Classic THE FALL MEET AT HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA, is always a huge show, and RM Sotheby’s will be putting on its annual auction at The Hershey Lodge on October 6-7. Consignments are still being accepted for this sale, and among the highlights is this century-old Pierce-Arrow Model 66 Seven-Passenger Touring Sedan, powered by a mammoth six-cylinder engine. Last year’s event saw a 1913 Pierce-Arrow 66 sell for $830,500, so it will be interesting to see where this one shakes out. For an updated list of consignments and other upcoming auctions, visit www.rmsothebys.com. Santa Monica Sales AUCTIONS AMERICA CONCLUDED ITS SANTA MONICA AUCTION with its impressive selection reining in over $14.2 million. The auction saw a sell-through rate of 65 percent, with supercars filling the top sales spots. There were options,…

Love them or laugh at them—the 1961-’63 Rambler Americans are now a kitsch classic. An evolution of the original 1950 Nash Rambler, America’s first successful compact car, the 1961 Rambler American was an extensive reskinning of the “bathtub” Rambler American of 1958-’60. The first Rambler American, which was a revival of the discontinued 1955 two-door platform, was the brainchild of American Motors President George Romney to give dealers a car that served as the best alternative to the ever-growing import market, at the time dominated by the Europeans. The inexpensive car also broadened American Motors’ market coverage. Nash and Hudson had been laid to rest, and standard Ramblers, also compacts, were only available with four doors, including the wagons. The timing could not have been better. The first year, with…

In March of 1949, Mrs. Pauline Sordet of Meridian, Mississippi, drove her 1947 Nash 600 four-door sedan back to her local dealer, Hobbs Auto. Between her trade-in of the ’47 Nash and some cash, she was able to drive off in this oh-so-distinctive and highly optioned Ambassador Custom. It should be noted, however, that she did not tick the box for that most notable of Nash options — the seats that folded into a bed. Yes, those seats that gave the car quite the reputation back in the day. While Mrs. Sordet is no longer with us to verify the story, a subsequent owner once relayed her opinion. He asked why she had not gotten that option, and was met with what he called a “steely eyed stare,” from the…

“In one short decade a shrewd, farsighted young man has fought his way to the very forefront of the world’s greatest industry.” How one manages a defining moment in business, as in life, can plot a course to reverence or ruin. For John North Willys, an auto industry entrepreneur who made Willys-Overland a household name and built his own automotive-based empire, it was arguably, the instant that he realized his only way to avert a financial catastrophe was to take control of an ailing Overland in 1907. Willys had surmised early on that volume was required to make money in the automobile business, the same as the bicycle business in which he’d already been successful. To that end, in 1906 he created the American Motor Car Sales Co. of New…

FOLLOWING THE SUCCESSFUL FIRST wave downsizing of their full-size cars, it only made sense for General Motors to immediately downsize their mid-size models, which for their final year as Colonnades were a tad larger in exterior dimensions than Impalas and Caprices. The Malibu was the top seller in the Chevelle line-up, so the new mid-size Chevrolets were all Malibus for 1978, except for the one model that is not an underdog — the El Camino. The new Malibu was more than a foot shorter and more than 500 pounds lighter than its predecessor. However, trunk space, leg room, and head room were more plentiful on a trim new wheelbase of 108.1 inches, around the same as the first generation Big Three compacts of 1960 and ’61. Ford, Chrysler and American…

THE PLYMOUTH VOLARÉ RETURNS with its isolated transverse suspension system providing you with a smooth ride. The 1976 Motor Trend Car of the year is powered by a 225-cu.in. Slant-Six, optional 225-cu.in. two-barrel Super Six or 318-cu.in. V-8. You’ll also have plenty of headroom, legroom and a full range of options. You’ll see why it’s “the small car with the accent on comfort.” Starting at $3,180 at a Chrysler dealer near you. CHEVROLET’S MONTE CARLO IS BACK with a restyled grille and is available with seven different interior fabrics and vinyl tops. The improved suspension featured new front springs providing a softer ride as well as front and rear anti-roll bars to hold the car flat on curves. With the 305-cu.in. V-8 or the optional 350, the Monte Carlo is…

Sept. 28-Oct. 2 • Fall Carlisle Cars at Carlisle • 717-243-7855 www.carsatcarlisle.com 1-2 • Michigan Antique Festival Davisburg, Michigan • 989-687-9001 www.facebook.com/antiquefestival 2 • All Ohio Parts Spectacular Randolph, Ohio • 800-533-8745 www.allohioparts.com 2 • Sumter Swap Meet Bushnell, Florida • 727-848-7171 http://198.49.74.114/~floridaswapmeets 5-8 • AACA Fall Eastern Meet Hershey, Pennsylvania • 717-534-1910 www.aaca.org 8-10 • HCCA Hershey Hangover Tour Lancaster, Pennsylvania • 626-287-4222 www.hcca.org 13-15 • Fall Swap Meet Chickasha, Oklahoma • 405-224-6552 www.chickashaautoswapmeet.com 15-16 • The Race of Gentlemen West Grover Beach (Pismo), California www.theraceofgentlemen.com 15 • Palm Springs Casual Concours Cathedral City, California • www.greatautos.org 20-22 • Norman Swap Meet Norman, Oklahoma • 405-651-7927 www.normanswapmeet.com 28-29 • DFW Swap Meet Grand Prairie, Texas • 254-751-7958 www.earhartproductions.com…

Briny breezes brush your hair backward as you amble along. Plymouth Rock is a stone’s throw away. A little bit farther is the gateway to Cape Cod. A laser-like sun barely reflects off your ride’s ancient enameling.The thoroughly used-up muffler blats defiantly, especially upon deceleration. People are probably looking at the spectacle of your passage.Then again, they may not be.This scene’s been repeated on a daily basis for, oh, 60-something years already. It’s a normal sight in Middleboro, Massachusetts, to spot a 1931 Franklin Model 151 Pursuit puttering around town, running errands, doing all the same mundane everyday stuff that you’d expect an F-series pickup or a Malibu to handle. And there’s more to it than that. An essential element of the image is Ron Andrew working the steering and…

    As many restorers can attest, most projects suffer a completion date delay due to any number of foreseen or unforeseen problems. Mechanical repairs and correcting body corrosion are just part of the process that — on their own — can set a project back days, perhaps weeks, and sometimes months. However, they pale in comparison to having to reconfigure a replacement frame, a process that, by itself, took André Fitzback, a mechanic living in Saint-Hyacinthe in the Québec province of Canada, a year to complete. That frame was supposed to have fit under the body of his GM of Canada-built 1953 Pontiac Pathfinder De Luxe — a car he purchased in 1995 and began restoring in 2006 — but the combination of a print error in a factory manual…

WHEN CHET KRAUSE PASSED AWAY on June 25, the event that made him most famous was just about to come off. And it did, right on schedule. The big car show at Iola, Wisconsin, nearly dead center in the state in Waupaca County, happened without a hitch, though not without a little sorrow. Iola’s a small place with maybe 1,100 people, and Chet’s big shindig for gearheads put it firmly on the national map. He was a lifelong resident and indisputably Iola’s favorite native son. Chester Lee Krause was born in late 1923. He grew up studying in a one-room schoolhouse that his father, a locally famous stonemason, had erected next to the family farm. As a boy, he learned the building trades in hand-me-down fashion directly from his father.…

In Mexico, Ford’s best-selling F-150 is called “Lobo ” — the Spanish word for wolf. For enthusiasts north of the boarder, those Lobo badges can be a little startling, like meeting an old friend’s twin for the first time. From 2005 to 2014, the F-150 series pickups were even disguised as Lincolns and sold in the U.S. and Canada (2005-2008) as well as in Mexico (2005-2014) as the “Mark LT.” This fooled absolutely no one, of course, and quite possibly caused Edsel Ford to spin in his grave. Prior to that, the Lincoln Blackwood grew roots on Lincoln dealer lots around the U.S. until it was felled after one model year — 2002. Turns out not many truck buyers wanted a $50,000 two-wheel-drive-only pickup with a carpeted, stainless steel-lined bed…