Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2024 i Hemmings Classic Car

“The somewhat comedic scene that would have had safety engineers cringing went without a hitch…” THE PAST MONTH has been an exciting one for your HCC staff. As you’ll read in this issue, a relatively local subscriber and longtime friend of Hemmings reached out to offer us a Chevy 292-cu.in. straight-six he had stashed away in his barn years ago, provided we had not already found another worth pursuing. Between late-season snowstorms, we were able to retrieve the engine with the aid of an ancient beam in the barn, a cable come-along of questionable load capacity, brute determination, and our recently revived 1965 Dodge A100 cab-over pickup. The somewhat comedic scene that would have had safety engineers cringing went without a hitch, and within a couple days our master mechanic…

THE FEATURE ABOUT Frank and Cathy Stubbs’ 1957 Ford Country Sedan wagon in the March issue brought back fond memories. My father was not a car guy and was very frugal. He had three children and needed a station wagon, so he went to the local Ford dealership to look at the new 1958 models, but was instead shown a still-new, leftover ’57 wagon still on the lot. Suffice it to say, he purchased the car. It was the same color combination as the Stubbs’, and the only mechanical difference in my mind was that ours didn’t have the supercharger. That wagon created many great memories as a youngster. −TIM FORD Nipomo, California AS A RETIRED OFFICER, I really enjoyed the great story in the April issue about the restored 1958…

SPONSORED BY GULLWING MOTOR CARS Ever wonder when the earliest antique car show in the States was formally held? According to multiple sources, it could very well have been the First Antique Automobile Derby, which was organized by the Philadelphia Automobile Trade Association as the then-new 1931 models were about to be unveiled. The gathering of “early” automobiles, all of which had to be a minimum of 25 years old, was met with enthusiasm, and became an annual highlight of the Philadelphia Automobile Show for the next four years. That Derby also served as the cornerstone for the later-organized Antique Automobile Club of America. It’s an interesting story remembered by many, but what about the vehicles themselves? What kind of stories do they have to tell? Not the googleable particulars,…

Cuddly teddy bears sold well during the mid-1950s era. So did innocence. Marry the two and one has a perfect recipe for marketing safe automotive engineering. Ford did just that with its 1956 Lifeguard Design campaign, which promoted V-8 power in front of four components that were available in its passenger cars: deep-center steering wheels, “crash cushion” instrument panels, “double grip” door latches, and seat belts.…

MOST OF MY high school years, living in Montana, were spent driving a customized 1948 Chrysler. That ended in 1960 when I graduated, enlisted in the Army, and soon thereafter, was stationed in Germany. My first knowledge of Triumph sports cars developed there in 1963 when my good Army friend purchased a new Triumph TR4. It was painted red, had a black interior and top, and I remember it having an overdrive transmission. My friend had really wanted a TR3, but couldn’t get one due to Triumph transitioning to the new TR4 design. Regardless, what fun it was when we piled in his new Triumph and took off to visit small country towns or travel the roads along the Rhine River. Upon completing my three years of service, I returned…

AIR-COOLED FORD-O-MATIC Q: I recently purchased a 1952 Mercury with a two-speed Ford-O-Matic transmission. Can an external oil cooler be attached to these models, and if so, how would I find which ports to use? RAY KENT VIA HEMMINGS.COM A: The air-cooled Ford-O-Matic used a finned torque converter to provide cooling and the only access port we are aware of is on the passenger side front of the case below the first/reverse band adjustment screw. This port was used by technicians for diagnosis as a pressure test connection. Adding a cooler line there might result in insufficient operating pressure inside the valve body, given the additional plumbing and distance the fluid would have to travel out and back. There is a second hole on the rear of the case that simply…

ALTHOUGH I WAS BORN in 1927, I remember becoming a car enthusiast as early as 1930 or 1931 years old. My maternal grandparents lived in Chicago, Illinois, just a short walk from the Miller Sesler Ford dealership that we passed quite often on family trips to the department stores in our area. I loved stopping to look at whatever new Ford was sitting on the showroom floor. The real bug set in not long after. Recall that 1933-’34 were the years in which Chicago hosted the World’s Fair. My grandparents’ neighbors offered to drive us to the fair, and I made sure I didn’t miss out on the opportunity. One of the displays that captivated me was Ford Motor Company’s final assembly line that we could tour. It wasn’t long…

THE SLANG TERM “It’s a ‘doozy’” is supposedly related to Duesenberg automobiles, though some etymologists disagree, citing earlier instances of its usage. Whatever the case, Duesenbergs are simply magnificent, the best cars of their era, and in my opinion the greatest automobiles of all time. For years I avoided writing about them because I wasn’t sure I could supply prose sufficiently soaring enough to describe them. Duesenbergs were more than merely great; they were so far advanced from their contemporaries it seemed as if the engineers had gotten a glimpse of the future. Brothers Fred and Augie Duesenberg founded the company that bore their surname in 1913 primarily as an engine firm. The first Duesenbergdesigned car raced in the 1914 Indianapolis 500, with driver Eddie Rickenbacker, and placed 10th. During…

“The idea is to sensitively update an old car so it can still perform its original mission on modern roads, without sacrificing its personality as an old car.” IF YOU’VE READ THIS month’s cover story, you’ve got a good handle on what it means to own an “outlaw” build. We call that same kind of thing “Road Ready” when extended out generally to driving enjoyment. The idea is to sensitively update an old car so it can still perform its original mission on modern roads, without sacrificing its personality as an old car. Some old cars can be readily appreciated unmodified, and some cars beg to be modified in a way that is uncompromisingly true to an earlier era, but there are a few that can really benefit from the…

“That tumultuous period opened the door of driving freedom for women, many of whom had no desire to relinquish that freedom after the war.” THE FIRST known woman driver was Bertha Benz, who in 1888 took her husband Karl Benz’s invention, the internal combustion-powered automobile, for a spin in Germany. Bertha neglected to tell Karl, but she brought her two sons along to push the car up hills during the nearly 60-mile drive from Mannheim to Pforzheim to visit her mother. The journey took a while because she had to stop frequently for petrol at pharmacies. She also had to have the wooden brake shoes relined with leather at a leather worker’s shop, thus inventing brake linings. After the visit, she and her sons drove home, and in doing so,…