Saturday, September 22, 2018

This old display would still sell toy cars today, it's just that good. Those toy cars are way cool

COEs sure are good looking

I wonder how many of these were built, and still out there

1926 Pontiac chief hood ornament patent

if you want to know if people appreciate your photography, google one of your photos, and see how many websites have used it.


take this image for an example.

I saw this Pontiac woody at Wavecrest 2010, as Wavecrest is THE woody car show on the West Coast. http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/10/pontiac-hood-ornaments-consistantly.html and it is the right place to go to photograph woodys, old car radios, old car speedometers, and old car gear selectors, and hood ornaments.

This photo shows up on 6 dozen other websites with a Google image search

Not a single website here ever contacted me to ask for permission, or if I minded them using the image. Not even to toss a compliment, and not a single one gave a link to my blog as the source.

So, if any one of you are going to upload good photography or art to the internet, and want to be credited as the photographer, water mark your photos. Evidently no one respects the creator of anything once it's available online, not even enough to copy and paste a link to the source

1938 Alfa Romeo 6C 2300B Spyder

People are more concerned about getting a good deal on a vacation than they are about any other discretionary purchase in their life, according to Google.

Average airfares trend upward 140–120 days ahead of departure, then drop about 90 days before, then hover for a while before starting to go up 20 days before, and then jumping up a week before

Advice? Buy early: The beginning of September is your best bet for getting a decent price, as fares are likely only to go up as we get closer to Thanksgiving and the December holidays.

Overall, independent of the destination, airfares are likely to go up 75 days before departure, and again 35 days before departure.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/google-flights-hotels-great-value-rating



An RV in disguise

Did you know, when Chrysler bought Dodge, they did so from a banking investment firm?

During 1920, the Dodge Brothers company lost its founding fathers. John Dodge died in January, and his younger brother Horace succumbed the following December. A New York investment banking firm paid the brothers’ widows, in a single cash payment, $146 million for the Dodge Brothers firm.

Within three years, the bankers initiated negotiations, and on May 28, 1928, Walter P. Chrysler purchased Dodge Brothers, Inc. for $170 million, making it, at the time, the largest business transaction in history.

https://reedbrothersdodgehistory.wordpress.com/2018/05/28/chrysler-buys-dodge/

county fairs used to be exciting, and have car races - the Rockville Fair 1923, about 10 miles north west of Washington DC



the Rockville Fair auto races




and the nearby car sales tents photos were all taken by Lewis Reed. Not much has changed about car dealerships setting up tents at the county fair, too bad they don't still have these cool old tents

Now the fairgrounds are a football field for the high school

https://reedbrothersdodgehistory.wordpress.com/2018/08/04/looking-back-at-the-montgomery-county-fair-whose-origins-stretch-back-to-1846/

On September 17,1908, the first military airplane in the world, built by the Wright brothers for the Army Signal Corps, made its first flight at Fort Myer, Virginia


this is the Wright Flyer in the hanger... not much larger than a garage

Less than a thousand people witnessed the first flight at Fort Myer, because the general public was still doubtful that powered flight had been achieved. But Lewis Reed was there and he took 6 glass plate photos.  Later he started a Dodge dealership in Rockville Maryland, which is still family owned and operated, and his grand daughter made a blog about the dealership and it's history.


The Wrights would prove their machine’s qualifications at Fort Myer. They met or exceeded all of the Army’s specifications, including flying at 40 miles per hour, carrying a combined passenger weight of 350 pounds, maneuvering in any direction in the air, landing without damage, and flying for at least an hour non-stop, which was a world record at the time.

https://reedbrothersdodgehistory.wordpress.com/2018/09/17/wright-flyer-test-flights-at-fort-myer-va/

Friday, September 21, 2018

the word on Facebook is that this truck from CHiPS, was also used on Rockford Files, but painted gold. Nothing on IMCDb about it though

the Mustang in Diamonds Are Forever

it looks like some simple easy fun, but do you think you could find a cart race track in less than 30 minutes, for a dollar a minute, or less?

Las Vegas Mini Gran Prix Family Fun Center http://www.lvmgp.com/
at interstate 95 and Vegas Dr
1401 N Rainbow Blvd, Las Vegas, NV 89108

and it's across the intersection from Robertos taco shop


Mega Ride "PLUS" Wristbands - Unlimited Rides *Including Adult Gran Prix Track​
47 mph carts
60 Minute Mega Ride Wristband...........$38.00 = 63 cents per minute.

ok... now this is different. I think that truck might be overloaded though... of course, I'm probably wrong

no freaking way. It was a 58 Chevy once, before someone went rv crazy on it

it wouldn't be much fun or fuel efficiency at freeway speeds to get to a national park... but this combo would be terrific for slowly getting from lake to lake through a summer of fishing and camping

Volvo has had a lot more models than I thought.. I am only familiar with a couple, the PV 544, the 1800, and the 740 wagon. They need another iconic looking car for now and the next decade

1930s wind up toy cars in the semblance of fire chiefs cars

on the tv show Bones, one of the characters was military before going into the FBI, and his apartment uses tail pieces of an old fighter plane to decorate walls


season 6 episode 3 I think.

I'll look around, but there probably aren't better photos of this tv show set.

His apartment also has an end table made from a manhole cover and aluminum tubing, and an airplane window turned into a wall mirror.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/11/bones-set-design-brennan-loft-booth-apartment.html

I love seeing a car part getting repurposed, and this is a pretty cool way to keep that cab out of the car crusher (thanks Steve!)


A gold plated Rolls Royce with a strange series of owners


The first owner was a woman – Irene Mamlock Simon Schoelkopf Carman.
Why so many names? Because of so many marriages to get richer and richer.'

Born in Ohio, little is known of her early life until her marriage to Michael Simon, a clothing manufacturer. The marriage lasted until Simon’s business failed, and Irene remarried soon after her divorce was final.
Her second husband, C.P. Hugo Schoelkopf, was one of the wealthiest men in Buffalo, New York.

Her love of fine jewellery was well-known, including a reported robbery of $500,000 of her gems during a New Year’s Eve party at a Manhattan apartment that belonged to actor Frank Carman who was referred to as Mrs. Schoelkopf’s “dancing instructor.”
Irene married Mr. Carman in February 1927, a man whom one reporter described as “good looking, but poor.” Apparently Irene agreed as the couple divorced some months later.

In February 1928, the Schoelkopfs reconciled; he died days later.

One can surmise that Irene was well taken care of financially as she took delivery of her gold-plated Rolls-Royce Phantom I S390LR on December 23, 1929 and she disposed of the Rolls-Royce in April 1932.

 The car’s next owner was James Cromwell, whose widowed mother Eva married a partner in the investment banking firm Drexel and Co. as well as J.P. Morgan in New York.
James therefore grew up in Philadelphia and went on to lead an extraordinary life;  his first marriage to automotive tycoon Horace Dodge’s daughter Delphine of Grosse Pointe, Michigan had come to an end. Two years later, he would famously marry Doris Duke, the famed tobacco heiress and namesake of Duke University, then he was a diplomat, Ambassador of the United States to Canada, author, candidate for U.S. Senate, and brother in law to General Douglas MacArthur.

https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/ve11/auction/lots/r117-1929-rolls-royce-springfield-phantom-i-riviera-town-brougham-by-brewster-co

The vice president of marketing at the largest Porsche dealership in America has vanished without a trace, but with his wife and $2.5 million in buyer deposits.

Shiraaz Sookralli and his wife have disappeared after it was discovered he scammed at least 24 people, who paid deposits for exclusive ultra-rare limited edition 911 GT3 and GT3 RS models released to the dealership each year.

The buyers trusted Sookralli, who worked at the Florida dealership for more than a decade and handed over hefty deposits, because he worked for Champion Porsche, the top dealership in the country for the luxury sports car.

But Sookralli set up a shell company, wiring their deposits into a secret bank account that has since been emptied out.

He was bankrupt, owed child support for 10 kids, and American Express won a lawsuit and was garnishing his wages for $176,000

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6173995/Marketing-VP-largest-Porsche-dealership-America-disappears-2-5-million.html

William Steig, illustrator and children's book author



After studying at City College and the National Academy of Design in New York, and briefly, at Yale School of Fine Arts, Steig set out to support his family during the Great Depression. He found work at The New Yorker in 1930 at the age of twenty-three, where his drawings were a regular feature throughout his life. Over seventy-three years, until his passing in 2003, William Steig contributed 123 covers and 1,676 drawings to The New Yorker.

And he made a book you might have heard of, Shrek. Yes, the movie and broadway play came from a book by a Yale grad, and New Yorker illustrator.

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/william-steig
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157156609626988&set=gm.1768375739911108&type=3&theater

toys used to be a work of art

Packard touring bus

Burney Streamline (1929)

John found this racing Volvo at this years Glenora Rally, it's held every year in beautiful Watkins Glen in central New York. There was a wide variety of cars, but this Volvo really sticks out



a similar P1800 is at https://www.facebook.com/groups/stiffspeed/permalink/1572352139578063/ in fact it might be the same car  https://oppositelock.kinja.com/naskar-the-story-of-the-1963-holman-moody-volvo-1800-1029894636



this was Holman and Moody prepped... and the name over the window says Bob Ford

You might not recall, and I'd forgotten, that Ford owned Volvo, as well as Jaguar, etc etc a couple decades ago. 

kids RV playground in the Burlington RV Center in Steutervant, WI