Saturday, March 21, 2020

an unusual Corvair ad I've never seen before, it's certainly attention grabbing

well friends, its been a long day blogging, the first in over a month, and it's thanks to Roderick M in New Zealand, and Stephen R

who both tossed a big bill in my tip cup the moment I mentioned I got laid off.

Then right away SMK and SHK clanged the tip jar handsomely, and the Jeffery W, Christopher H, and Robert F lobbed in grenades from beyond the 3 point line, ringing the jar quite loudly, and today (not many people pop in on weekends normally) Tim W clanged the tip jar too.

If you guys hadn't, I'm pretty sure I'd still be in a damn funk, seriously freaked out about being broke, being on half income as that's all unemployment seems to pay, and probably not getting out of bed until rack ejection proved I'd recovered from all the lost sleep this week (6 hours a night, normally, then I sleep in on weekends to make up for the hours the body craves)

But you guys pushed back the bad attitude and put me in the good mood to get back to some good blogging, so I hope you enjoy today's variety like I do

Roadside attraction I'd never heard of until now, the Como Bluff Fossil Cabin on the Lincoln highway, in Medicine Bow Wyoming, built in 1932



Though built in 1932, the Fossil Cabin near the dinosaur graveyard at Como Bluff is, in a way, the oldest building in the world: the walls of the building were built out of 5,796 mortared-together dinosaur bones, dug from nearby areas.

Initially, the building was part of a gasoline filling station along US 30 by Thomas Boylan, who had been collecting bones for 17 years, with the intention of creating sculptures in front of his home and the gas station.


The cabin is widely recognized as the only building constructed of fossilized dinosaur bones in the United States

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/fossil-cabin
https://www.zmescience.com/other/offbeat-other/dinosaur-cabin-wyoming/

A trucker’s dash cam was rolling when an impatient moron nearly caused a head-on crash.

At midnight on March 17, Pennsylvania shut down all state rest areas and welcome centers due to Coronavirus concerns, The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission soon followed this by announcing that they were shutting down bathrooms and restaurants in Turnpike service plazas.

great. Just great.

There's a damn flu, and the governor of PA, some idiot named Wolf, closed the bathrooms.



Pennsylvania State Representative Metcalfe spells it out

All 17 closed service plazas are set to reopen at 7 a.m. on Friday, March 20, according to a news release from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

Proof that they realize now how stupid they were

https://cdllife.com/2020/pa-turnpike-to-reopen-all-17-closed-service-plazas-to-support-truckers-amid-covid-19-crisis

So long Kenny, thanks for the great music




and of course the album, The Gambler, was terrific. 

“How did they get the fire truck into this boxcar?"... the answer? An end-door boxcar. Pennsylvania Railroad had them made for the very purpose of delivering American LaFrance (thanks Steve!)


this 1955 American LaFrance 85’ aerial ladder truck cost $36,750. It wasn't retired until 1983



notice that the top photo shows the fire truck in a Pennsylvania box car!  The LaFrance was shipped out of Elmira, New York 




Thanks Steve!

Just when you think you've seen every stupid looking thing ever made, 1968 Mohs' Ostentatienne Opera Sedan. Built by Mohs Seaplane Corporation of Madison, Wisconsin.

the Arrowhead Teardrop car, designed by Wellington Everett Miller and constructed by Los Angeles’s Advance Body Company (also referred to as Advance Auto Body Works).









The rear-mounted flathead Ford V-8 engine was mounted backwards, transferring power to the front wheels via a standard transmission mated to a standard torque tube, axle and differential. The car was steered through the single rear wheel


the June 1937 issue of Automobile Trade Journal ran a photo that the Arrowhead was badly wrecked in the spring of that year.

https://caveviews.blogs.com/cave_news/2018/06/the-unique-1936-arrowhead-spring-water-teardrop-car.html
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2011/10/30/sia-flashback-the-arrowhead-teardrop-car/

Introduced in 1932, the very first Terraplane went to Orville Wright, while the second went to Amelia Earhart.


this photo in 1934, depicting a Terraplane sedan parked in front of the Montpelier Vermont state capitol building, known locally as the State House, though I doubt that it's welcoming to visitors anymore.

The road in the above picture was removed, probably so no one could drive as close as this, anymore.


the above satellite view makes it clear the city street in the top image, and the same one in the below image, was removed


In the 1930s promoting new cars to a nationwide audience still took hill climb and land-speed records, Pike’s Peak runs, and nationwide endurance feats of distance and sometimes gas mileage.

the Terraplane in the top photo was named “The Colonial Cruiser” and it carried a map of it's traveled route around New England in its rear window.

Hudson planned about 20 such "Ruggedness Runs" across the country, each using a 1934 Terraplane already in the hands of a customer, sent out for two weeks straight on pre-selected circuits (or “Ruggedness Routes”) of 1,500 to 1,800 miles.



Hemmings did an article on this a decade ago, and found evidence of five Ruggedness Runs: the Colonial Cruiser throughout New England;
 the unnamed car that traveled through Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, and Delaware;
the Cascade Express, which hit Washington state (and, likely, Oregon as well);
the Golden Gate Flyer, Sacramento resident W.W. Luce’s car that covered California;
and the Gulf States Flyer, which saw service in Florida

https://chicagology.com/centuryprogress/1933fair50/
http://myflatheadford.com/historic-around-town-shots/
https://www.hemmings.com/blog/2010/05/05/two-weeks-punishment-hudson-terraplanes-ruggedness-run/

thank you Tim W for clanging my tip jar!



how do this many fishermen in such density not get their lines tangled?


do fish prefer to hang around under bridges?

anyway, thank you Kodak for Kodachrome!

http://myflatheadford.com/historic-around-town-shots/

advertising, plus time and temp? I bet this was pioneering the concept of time and temp as a public service, long before banks has the digital displays and took over that idea. It seems to me banks are the only places that di time and temp anymore

I added a link on the right hand side of the page for quickly getting to the report on the price of oil, which is $19 a barrel today,


Once you get to that site you can choose what way to see the data by the graphs you can choose from.  This on is "intraday"

next is 1W, meaning the past week


https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/oil-price?type=wti

The quick link is near the top of all the stuff in the right sidebar, just below "About Justacarguy"

clever and funny

the word on Facebook is that no one was showing up to work to avoid possibly getting the flu, so, it's no surprise that Ducati shut down

Friday, March 20, 2020

looks like the advertising is on a piece of material added to the sides of this delivery truck


which seems to prevent the door on this side from opening

http://myflatheadford.com/historic-around-town-shots/

Steve says:
Those 1936 Ford panel delivery trucks being used by the Farm Crest Bakery (Detroit) were not made/sold by Ford. The Ford panel delivery body was actually built by Budd

big towtruck with an odd cab

Ronald Wick and Carl Stolz disappeared in 1961 after a night on the town and an ill-fated drive onto the frozen lake.


Ronald Wick's 1950 Ford being pulled out of Lake Waubesa in 2006, where it had been lying under several feet of silt for 45 years.

https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/environment/divers-like-rick-krueger-uncover-the-lakes-underwater-secrets/article_799a86a5-a225-5c79-9feb-5d4e98b00ecc.html

Smart way to advertise, use what the critics say about your product

on days like this, I wonder... what is the Stig doing?

they could make a tv show with only the Stig, having a ridiculous day doing this that are uncommonly bizzare, episode after episode.

Using the world's faster lawnmower to maintain a football field,
using the worlds fastest tractor to plant seeds in a field
using some ridiculous over powered scooter to get to the grocery store

etc etc

and now, for something completely different....

just watch the first 5 seconds, more if you wish, but this wheelie up Pikes Peak is pretty cool... at the 9:12 mark some varmint tries to take him down




running across the road right at the last of these 3 bales



looks like Pikes Peak is know to be a home to Marmots


lucky pilot who emergency landed on a regular city street without hitting anything

in too great a hurry to drive safely.... these New York EMTs run red lights and ignore basic public safety... neither of them cared to prevent running into traffic at this intersection

police officers in Billings County, Montana had to stop a dog sled team which had lost their human... and the dogs took the opportunity to see how many red lights they could run before cops caught them

the 1939 Porsche Type 64

Top Gear Series 28 Trailer One

How did they know?

http://jckronbauer.blogspot.com/

Damn shame that Amazon doesn't have a couple episodes of The Grand Tour ready to release, even one as bad as that recent river boat nonsense

Thank you Jeff W, SHK, SMK, Robert F, and Christopher H for clanging the tip jar! There' going to be some dedicated - no distraction - blogging tonight!



police in North Carolina found 9 tons of commercial bathroom paper products inside a stolen tractor-trailer on Wednesday. (Thanks Gary!)


police in North Carolina uncovered nearly 18,000 pounds of commercial bathroom paper products inside a stolen tractor-trailer on Wednesday.

Police said they aren't releasing the name of the driver because the topic of toilet paper is “fairly sensitive right now.”

"After further investigation, it was determined the 53-foot Hyundai dry-van trailer was reported stolen locally and was being utilized to transport nearly 18,000 pounds of commercial bathroom paper products," the Guilford County Sheriff's Office said in a news release.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/police-north-carolina-find-stolen-trailer-full-toilet-paper
https://www.facebook.com/guilfordcountysheriff/posts/2405156102932929

Thank you to Stephen R for clanging the tip jar!




General Motors is shutting down all new orders for the 2020 Chevrolet Corvette, effective immediately, however, GM will open up orders a month earlier than planned for the 2021 Corvette on May 21.

According to a leaked -email via a Corvette Forum, the automaker is citing heavy demand and limited supply due to the 6 week production shutdown caused by the United Auto Workers strike last year.

GM will open up orders a month earlier than planned for the 2021 Corvette on May 21.

https://www.powernationtv.com/post/gm-has-suspended-all-new-orders-for-2020-chevrolet-corvettes

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Doggone it I wish I was able to make it to the ConExpo in Vegas some year, but I haven't been able to yet. Maybe in 2 years, the next time it's held. For now, we've got these new videos, and other coverage is out there somewhere I suppose



the above has an amazing machine at 2:40, don't miss it

unusual racecar hauler for that era, but check out the rocket tube tail it seems to have (thanks Kim!)


Sig Haugdahl was the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) national auto racing driving champion each year from 1927 through 1932, and built the first man-driven rocket powered car in America in the early 1930s.

Two earlier efforts in Germany a few years earlier, one was an unmanned rocket sled that ran on a rail,


the other was Von Opel himself driving the Rak 2 in 1928 and setting a new speed record reaching 148 mph but only in a straight line. The record attempt was witnessed by 3,000 spectators, including journalists, celebrities, and athletes".



http://jckronbauer.blogspot.com/2018/05/em-1928-o-opel-rak-2-impulsionado-por-24-foguetes-atingia-o-recorde-de-velocidade-de-238-kmh.html

 Sig only drove the rocket car in exhibition runs, the first public one being on June 17, 1932 at the Bo Sterns Speedway, Wichita, Kansas. The car was scheduled to make a second exhibition run at the same racetrack on June 19, 1932 but that performance was postponed to August 7, 1932 due to rain.




When the car finally did make a speed run at Bo Stearns Speedway, it turned one lap on the half-mile track in 33.2 before the rockets burned out on the second lap.

http://myflatheadford.com/gallery-standard-3-column/
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/the-flying-norwegian-the-first-rocket-race-car-in-1932.413223/
https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/vintage-shots-from-days-gone-by.428585/page-717
http://winfield.50megs.com/JetCar.htm