Monday, February 18, 2019

Trivia about the American Graffiti cars, the Merc and Milner's duece


The intake on Milner's hot rod was a Man-A-Fre, it had 4 Rochester 2 barrel carbs, and direct port injection which was nicknamed the Afterburner

The Afterburner feature was a precursor to today’s direct-port nitrous oxide injection.

a Man-A-Fre kit was the aluminum plate that locates the four carburetors directly over the intake ports to achieve perfect fuel distribution and maximum performance.
The lack of traditional manifold passages kept the height of the entire setup very low. Even with the four carburetors mounted and air cleaners attached, everything fit under the hood


this one was made with 1958 carbs, mounted to the intake in 67, and in 1969 the owner was drafted but pulled this off his Corvette and put it in a duffle bag so it would be around when he got back from Nam, but he didn't use it for racing. It stayed in the duffle bag for 47 years before getting sold on Ebay


the 51 Mercury custom. In the movie it belonged to Bo Hopkins and the Pharoahs, who led Richard Dreyfuss to the adventure with the cop car.
Eddie Van Halen eventually bought the Mercury from a Universal Studios back lot and later sold it to Brian Setzer of The Stray Cats.
Eventually it belonged to a young collector in New York, who committed suicide over a failed love affair. His father refused to sell the car, and at last report it was rusting away in a junkyard.

https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2016/05/11/american-graffiti-deuce-coupe#
https://www.hotrod.com/articles/meet-man-fre-guru-makes-carburetor-injector-systems-look-like-new/

By the way, I'd love to blog more like this, about cooler cars, hot rod parts, etc, but it's far more time consuming to make one post with this type of stuff than 10 of the light humor, photos and amusing stuff. If posting was my full time paycheck job? It would be all about this sort of stuff, and without photos from library collections about old trains, showcases of painters art, etc. 

2 comments:

  1. Thanks, I didn't know about the Man-a-fre. I wonder if it's tough to sync four two barrels?

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  2. In 1975, I toured Universal studios. They had the 58 Impala and the Pharoahs Mercury on display. The Impala was nice, but the Merc was just a faded, sagging lump of old car. It looked so cool in the movie... a disappointment in real life.

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