Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2019 i Hemmings Classic Car

German Iconography Underfoot INFO@HEELTREAD.COM  • WWW.HEELTREAD.COM $12/PAIR (REGULAR MID-CALF); $10/PAIR (LOW) Are you a hot shoe driver with a lead foot? Or simply an enthusiast who’s keyed in enough to recognize and respect the colors, patterns, and textures that make our favorite classic road and race cars distinctive? If you answered in the affirmative to either, you’re who Heel Tread socks are made for. This company’s Petrolhead Collection uses color and design to honor iconic high-performance automobiles. These premium socks come from Portugal, a country famed for quality hosiery, and they’re seamlessly knitted in a blend of 80-percent combed cotton, 17-percent Polyamide, and 3-percent Elastane. Their German Perfection series includes the pictured “GTI” (this plaid, a nod to the VW’s famed seat upholstery) and “Quattro” (sporting 1980s Audi Sport rally team colors),…

ONCE VOLKSWAGEN OPENED THE doors, Nash soon followed with its Metropolitan, manufactured in partnership with Austin. Proof of its fine engineering is evident in the number of Metropolitans still on the road, and proof of its appeal are the prices bidders are willing to pay to drive home in a Met today. Soon, the Renault Dauphine would arrive and become the bestselling four-door import in America. GM took notice and brought over Vauxhalls and Opels. Chrysler bought an interest in Simca and imported the Simca 1000. And Ford? Ford had a well-established presence in England and Germany, so it had a few models from which to choose, and the Anglia turned out to be a good choice. I remember seeing a few on the road when I was kid, and…

Ford’s Falcon Ranchero had many forebearers.The first Model T and Model A pickups consisted of a shortened car body with a separate bed mounted in the rear; a rare domestic 1931 Model A Deluxe pickup had smooth bed sides.The Australian market saw Ford launch a coupe utility, or “ute,” with integrated bed as early as 1934. Car-based trucks were far more refined than a standard truck, but in an era before our current pickup-as-fashion-statement environment, they simply cost too much for a self-employed working man who needed a work truck. Australia loved car-based haulers, but the concept didn’t initially fly in the States: Studebaker’s Coupe Express lasted from 1937 to ’39, while Hudson’s “Big Boy” pickups launched in 1939 and ceased production in 1947. Another American-built coupe utility didn’t show…

When competing against General Motors and Ford, offering styling and engineering that entices buyers is imperative. A high-compression straight-six engine and four-wheel hydraulic brakes aided the sales of Walter P. Chrysler’s namesake 1924 car that was developed while he headed the Maxwell Motor Company. In 1925, he founded the Chrysler Corporation, which took over Maxwell. Success followed but Chrysler wasn’t infallible. The revolutionary Airflows of the mid-1930s were shunned by a public unwilling to embrace their radical styling. With Plymouth, Dodge, De Soto, Chrysler, and Imperial catering to markets in ascending order of price and equipment from pennywise to prestigious for a good portion of the 20th century, the Corporation offered vehicles for every budget. When rival automakers built their OHV V-8s with easy-to-package-and-produce wedge chamber heads, Chrysler, De Soto,…

Chrysler’s intrepid V-8s featured hemispherical, poly-spherical, or wedge heads, and some were equipped with multiple carburetors on inline or ram-type intake manifolds, as well as having sweeping exhaust manifolds. Though several were powerhouses for their eras, other engines simply got the day-to-day jobs done, and a few were among the most enduring. For instance, the L-head six-cylinder’s basic design remained from the Great Depression to nearly the end of the Eisenhower era, and the Slant Six introduced for 1960 wasn’t phased out until after 1983 in cars. B-and RB-series big-block wedge engines arrived in the late 1950s and were used through the twilight of the 1970s. The LA-series small-block debuted for 1964, and late 20th-century modernized V-8s still retained some of its DNA. Adapting to changing markets and regulations ensured…

In the 130-plus years of automotive production, few industry suppliers have endured for more than a century. Of those survivors, one family owned American firm remains a leader in its field, supplying interior components and the vast majority of weatherproof soft roof materials used on new cars today. The Haartz Corporation is the most respected name in convertible top material, and as it advances into the 21st century, it actively supports the past through leadership that’s personally engaged in the old-car hobby. Whether you’re researching historical information about convertible tops and vinyl roof coverings or looking for an accurate reproduction material for your classic car’s application, Haartz is the go-to source. It’s not a given that automotive executives are also enthusiasts, but in the case of this venerable Acton, Massachusetts,…

Decades before Triumph introduced its highly successful line of TR sports cars, it had been producing all sorts of automobiles — saloons, tourers, drophead-coupes, and roadsters. For a small car company, Triumph’s line of automobiles was quite extensive. Back in 1885, a young German businessman named Siegfried Bettmann, who had just emigrated to London at the age of 21, started a bicycle company; he named it Triumph. During the ensuing years, Bettmann’s Triumph Cycle Company went from manufacturing bicycles to producing motorcycles; one of the first was a motorized tricycle with a single-cylinder engine that dated back to 1903. Around 1911, Bettmann was appointed the chairman of the Standard Motor Company, yet it wasn’t until 1944 when Standard bought the Triumph Motor Company that Standard-Triumph was born. Since 1923, Triumph…

Lincoln Plus Party THE SIXTH ANNUAL LINCOLN HOMECOMING WILL BE HELD AT THE LINCOLN MOTOR Car Heritage Museum this August 8-11 on the campus of the Gilmore Car Museum in Hickory Corners, Michigan. It’s sponsored by the largest of the Lincoln clubs including the Road Race Lincoln Register, Lincoln Owners Club, Lincoln-Zephyr Owners Club, and the Lincoln & Continental Owners Club. As a bonus, this year’s show will also allow for all Ford Motor Company-built vehicles to join the event. The tagline is “See Ford Blue in Kalamazoo” as the weekend will include appearances by Gale Halderman, a retired Ford designer of Lincoln and Ford automobiles, as well as Andrew Layton, author of a biography of Ray Crawford, championship driver of the Lincoln Pan-American Road Race team. Other activities will…

Mecum in Texas MECUM ROLLED INTO HOUSTON THIS PAST APRIL AND SAW A 75-PERCENT SELL-THROUGH RATE as 767 cars changed hands, with overall sales eclipsing the $20-million mark. Among the classics being auctioned was this air-cooled 1925 Franklin 11-A runabout. Powered by a straight-six with three-speed manual transmission and finished in blue with black and tan interior, the CCCA Full Classic was part of the Mario Sueiras collection and found a new home with a final bid of $26,400. The collection featured 19 American cars ranging from early pickups to 1950s icons to some woodie wagons, and included a 1936 Ford pickup selling for $44,000, a 1927 Lincoln Model L coupe for $22,550, a 1955 Chrysler C-300 at $38,500, and a 1936 Ford woodie with fantastic timber throughout reaching a…

Manual Bushing R&R Set SP TOOLS • 714-693-7666 WWW.SPTOOL.COM  • $450 This manual bushing removal and installation kit allows you to service a wide range of bushings without removing items like control arms or suspension components from your vehicle. In many cases, a conventional press cannot handle different dimensions, but this kit will save you time and aggravation as it comes with 22 cups and receivers for hundreds of size combinations. Each kit also comes with four acme thread spindles — 10, 12, 14, and 16mm — featuring ball bearing thrust washers to insure smooth operation. Demonstration videos are available at SP Tools’ website. Continental Details STEELE RUBBER PRODUCTS • 800-230-8101 • WWW.STEELERUBBER.COM $291.90 ( WINDSHIELD GASKET ) ; $669.50/SET ( ROOF RAIL KIT ) Some new weatherstripping parts and gaskets are available for the…

SPECIFICATIONS PROS & CONS + Useful + Peppy + Gets regular exercise – Buckets in name only – Not quite factory original anymore – Good luck finding another 66H WHAT TO PAY LOW $15,000 – $17,000 AVERAGE $28,000 – $32,000 HIGH $60,000 – $65,000 PRODUCTION 66A Ranchero 10,539 66B Deluxe 7,734 66H Deluxe 990 CLUB CORNER FALCON CLUB OF AMERICA P.O. Box 113 Jacksonville, Arkansas 72078 www.falconclub.comDues: $30 Membership: 3,000…

The legacy of Chrysler as one of the premier makes of prewar automobiles sometimes gets overshadowed by Packard, Cadillac, Pierce-Arrow, and the like. But, make no mistake, Chrysler Corporation was at the forefront of engineering in the industry at a time when advances came at a rapid pace. When it comes to recognition as a Full Classic, the Classic Car Club of America generally defines the designation as a “fine” or “distinctive” automobile, built from 1915 through 1948, with consideration for limited production and a high price when new. And Chrysler, despite being a volume-production make, has quite a few models that make the CCCA’s list, owing largely to its combination of those engineering advances and the distinctive style it developed with coachbuilder LeBaron. Walter P. Chrysler combined his experience…

Some people just know what they want. Tempt them with bright, shiny things, powerful objects and they can resist, while the rest of us might not be so strong. Jerry Davis knows exactly what he wants. Born in 1947, Jerry was raised on a steady diet of Mopars. “When I was a youngster and beginning to get into cars,” Jerry recalls, “I could never afford the Chevrolets or the Fords. I could always afford the beat-up, old Chrysler products. So, I’ve been a fan of Chryslers ever since.” More recently, Jerry set out looking for a highly original Mopar from his birth year. “It could have been a Plymouth, or a Dodge, or a Chrysler, or a De Soto—I wasn’t picky about that,” Jerry says. “The only thing I was…

Sugar beets were once big business in Northern California. Among the region’s sweetest spots for beet farming was King Island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The island’s soft loamy peat soil could produce 20-25 tons of beets per acre annually, yielding about 2,500 pounds of sugar. After picking and processing, the leafy tops of the plant, the pulp remaining after pressing, and the beet molasses produced during refining were used to feed livestock, so nothing went to waste. But sugar beets are perishable, meaning they need to be trucked to the factory immediately after harvesting. In the late 1920s, that job required an uncommon hauler: one that could negotiate soft terrain in the beet fields while loading up, then hit the road and run along at a good clip…

Alfa Romeo was in an unfamiliar place after World War II. This small but prestigious firm had long enjoyed a reputation as a builder of world-class competition and touring cars, the latter often bodied by Italy’s best coachbuilders. To remain viable in that new age, Alfa had to adapt to mass-production with its monocoqueconstructed 1900 model range. This modern building method made fitting custom coachwork a challenge, but the famous design houses persisted, and gems like this unique, Swiss-bodied 1955 1900C SS came to represent the twilight of a glamorous era. The prewar 6C 2500 was the model with which the Milanese automaker rejoined the automotive market in early 1946. That low-volume sports/luxury car was built by hand in the factory in two-door fastback berlina (sedan) form, as well as…

CAR 1956 Ford Fairlane Sunliner AUCTIONEER RM Sotheby’s LOCATION Fort Lauderdale, Florida DATE March 30, 2019 LOT NUMBER 1079 AVERAGE SELLING PRICE $60,000 SELLING PRICE $55,000 FORD’S TOP TRIM LEVEL CONTINUED TO BE the Fairlane in 1956, and the popular Sunliner convertibles saw a production run of 58,147 units. There were a few changes made this year to the exterior, and among them were larger taillamps with chrome bezels around the lenses. Interiors featured new instrument panels with added padding and the safety-inspired steering wheel with a recessed hub, along with optional seatbelts. Ford ads touted: “You’ll be safer in a ’56 Ford!” This Fairlane Sunliner was part of a private Swiss collection and was powered by the 292-cu.in. V-8 engine mated to the three-speed Ford-O-Matic transmission. The Sunliner had…

PERHAPS NOBODY BETTER illustrates the overlap between early aviation and the automobile like Malcolm Loughead and his younger brother, Allan. Nor the variety of circumstance from which talent could arise in the early 20th century. Malcolm was born in 1886 to writer and newspaperwoman Flora Haines Loughead and her second husband, John Loughead. Allan was born three years later. Neither Loughead brother attended school beyond the elementary level. After Flora separated from John, she and her children, including their older half-brother Victor, moved to Santa Barbara, California. In lieu of a formal education, the boys plunged themselves into a life of practical experimentation, including kites, gliders, and, in Malcolm’s case, automobile brakes. It was Victor who set the stage for Malcolm and Allan when he moved to Chicago to become…

They made less expensive 1950 Pontiacs than this one, but not many. A Chieftain Six two-door sedan like our feature car had a base price of $1,694. Only the three-passenger Business Coupe came cheaper, at $1,571. Somehow the original buyer of this car managed to avoid most of the myriad temptations in the Pontiac order book that year, including De Luxe trim (which would have bumped the base price up to $1,789), Hydra-Matic Drive ($159), or the 108- or 113-hp straight-eight engines. It’s enticing to speculate just why the first owner opted for this car. Was it a loss-leader ordered by a dealer to lure in cheapskate customers in the hopes of an upsell? Often those cars lingered on lots for a long time until finally finding a home at…

Have you ever wondered what Chrysler Corporation’s bestselling postwar model lines were? Wonder no more. None of the models listed here sold fewer than 330,000 copies in a single season. That’s a thousand cars a day built and sold across the country, give or take a state with blue laws that mandate no car-buying business on Sunday (we’re looking at you, New Jersey). Among the multiple body styles available within each model name, four-door sedans were generally the overwhelming sales winners; outliers will be called out. Our sales numbers have come from J. Kelly Flory Jr.’s comprehensive trio of reference tomes: American Cars, 1946 to 1959; American Cars, 1960 to 1972; and American Cars, 1973 to 1980. The ebb and flow of product planning and marketing and the magic of…

American Motors produced a variety of AMX models from 1968 to 1981, but the most noteworthy are the 1968-’70 two-seaters. As the only mainstream Corvette challenger in the 1960s, the AMX is not just a beautiful automobile, it’s historically significant. AMX was designed to be a “halo car,” to cast an aura of goodness over AMC’s entire lineup. It would also serve as a rallying point for the discouraged corporate troops, a shining banner to gather around. AMX helped restore the public’s faith in the company and American Motors’ confidence in itself. Conceived at a time when AMC was facing bankruptcy, the AMX was nearly its last bullet. The company’s troubles began after CEO George Romney left to pursue a career in politics. Successor Roy Abernethy decided to compete head-on…

Like most New England communities, Woodbury, Connecticut, is steeped in history. Founded in 1673, its proximity to the Housatonic River spurred the growth of an agriculture-based economy and, by the mid-19th century, Woodbury was a melting pot of industry while retaining its rural charm. Naturally, much-needed services followed, such as a volunteer fire department. The first to be organized in 1896 was Orenaug that served the Main Street district. Hotchkissville followed in 1924, to serve the village of the same name. Just three years later, initial meetings occurred that led to the ultimate June 1928 merger of both departments. One of the first new vehicles purchased by the newly formed Woodbury Fire Department is this 1927 Seagrave Suburbanite. Seagrave was the brainchild of Massachusetts native Frederic Seagrave. Born in 1849,…

I BEGAN WORKING AT GENERAL Motors’ Rochester Products Division located in Rochester, New York, as a “probationary” United Automobile Workers’ member on February 2, 1967, when I was 18. I was assigned to the second-shift Quadrajet Set and Pack line. The setup man quickly taught me the basic carburetor setting process. He then assigned me to another worker to further learn how to set the choke, fast idle, vacuum break, and wide open. Quadrajet carburetors were heavy, and I was one of five mechanical settings operators. Each one of us lifted and set about 500 carbs per shift. In addition to the weight, there was Stoddard fluid used for flow test that would leak out onto your hands, frequently causing your skin to peel. Each unit was flow tested in…