Tuesday, November 10, 2026

1933 Pierce-Arrow Silver Arrow Sedan, borrowed from Graham the fish scales in the paint innovation, to create the iridescent Pearl Essence paint finish




Pierce merged with Studebaker in 1926.  In 1932, Phillip O. Wright moved to Studebaker headquarters in South Bend, Indiana and designed a streamlined fastback coupe on the Pierce-Arrow V-12 chassis. 

His rakish design evolved into a sporty sedan with a low roofline, envelope front and skirted rear fenders, and faired-in headlamp nacelles. 

With its 175-brake horsepower V-12, a Silver Arrow could top 115 mph. In a sea of boxy sedans, the sleek Pierce-Arrow show car was the height of modernity. Five hand-built Silver Arrows toured 1933 auto shows, where they caused a sensation.

 At the Chicago Century of Progress, the Silver Arrow upstaged Cadillac’s Aero-Dynamic coupe, Duesenberg’s “Twenty Grand,” and Packard’s “Car of the Dome,” with its audacious, aircraft-like shape.

Priced at a then-expensive $10,000, the Silver Arrow was one of thirty-eight different 1933 Pierce-Arrow models. 

 After succumbing in mid-1938, Pierce-Arrow is best remembered for its magnificent Silver Arrow. This is one of three survivors.


I photographed it in person in 2014 at the Phoenix Concours, the gallery is at https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-1933-pierce-arrow-silver-arrow-it.html the spare tire is hidden in the passenger side front fender... you can barely see the break in the body work

I recommend looking at the details in the design, like the door handles. 

Orley Ray Courtney’s enclosed bodywork on the 1930 Henderson KJ Streamline was virtually unknown on production two-wheelers (except for a few racing machines), making the KJ an unusual and beautiful example of Art Deco design.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day... and there are some companies extending some appreciation with offers to vets and active duty



Fill out the form on their site to get a voucher (a bit ridiculous that only people with email addresses can get one!) (Grrr!)

you can refuse to click the boxes 
because I REFUSE to get spam in return for a car wash

you will get this "huh... something went wrong when you didn't sign up for our nonsense spam" BUT the voucher and code still arrived in my email 


and if they don't like the free publicity, they can fix their website

Monday, November 09, 2026

when's the last time you've seen a restored 68 Firebird?






cars and guitars



this post will lead you into the next one! IT's a Billy Gibbons hot rod 42 Ford with a bar/hotel hunting/fishing camp logo of a place that Billy co-owns since 2023















I see a couple ZZ Top things in the above image
















For more than a hundred years, the Wise River Club (also known early on as the Wise River Hotel) has served as the gathering spot for the community of Wise River, Montana, and an essential stop over spot on the way to or after a well-spent day of fishing, hunting, off-road exploring, snowmobiling, hiking, camping, gold panning, or any of several other forms of summer and winter outdoor activities offered by the Pioneer Mountains and the Big Hole River Valley.

The exact year that the original Wise River Hotel was established is as hard to nail down as the perfect fishing spot on the Big Hole River, but the earliest available records indicate that the property was owned by C. M. Pyle in 1900. 

State and county records prior to 1900 are lacking, but Pyle’s family reported in his obituary that he established the hotel in 1896, only a few years after Montana became a state in 1889. The first known advertisement for the hotel appeared in The Butte Daily Post (Butte, Montana) on Thursday, November 12, 1914.

 In the advertisement, C. M. Pyle stated that interested parties wanting to stay at the hotel could write or phone and he would have a stage sent to meet them in Divide, Montana, some 12 miles away.

In 2023, the Wise River Club, which has long since been expanded to include a bar, restaurant, cabin, rentals, and nightly RV rental spots, was purchased by Montana-native and Top 40 rock and roller Tim Montana (raised in Elk Park, MT) and Billy F. Gibbons of ZZ Top (Tim’s friend and mentor) along with a group of financial partners with connections and history in the valley. 

The new owners strive to maintain the integrity and legacy of the Wise River Club by providing the same authentic Montana experience when you stop by, with a few updates to entice your taste buds and musical inclinations. 

 So, whether you are a movie star stopping by on the way to a wild west movie set (there have been several over the years), a star-crazed Yellowstone fan who moved to Montana to experience the “cowboy way”, or a local hunter looking to “shoot the bull” and share your hunting stories, Tim and the Wise River Club invite you to come on in and experience the charm of a small-town Montana past and see the great collection of horns, artifacts, and stories (some are actually true) that the club has collected over the years. 

I've rarely come across cool old woodies with company or summer camps names on the doors, but I think they are a terrific segment of automotive history



Similar to my interest in surplus WW2 warbirds used after the war, by companies for exec level private plane transportation, or Reno Air Races

A lot of us have wondered how much it costs for a company to have a booth at SEMA... here's the facts from BD Performance

 

a 30' x 60' booth costs 15k for the carpet to be installed, 
the booth space is 50k
the material handling fee to get the booth loaded from the parking lot - 15k
to have a banner or call sign over the booth, is 10k

home made anvil


1932 Graham Blue Streak. By 1933 and beyond, the Graham's competition appeared to borrow more than a few cues from the Blue Streak. Graham even used fish scales to create the iridescent Pearl Essence paint finish, another feature that soon caught on in the market. In 1933 Erwin “Cannonball” Baker drove one coast to coast in 53.5 hours, a record that stood for 30 years.







https://www.facebook.com/HagertyDriversFoundation/posts/pfbid02D8XQdJXYxSQJs9sjDA7jb4dVeLAgPJg7zSHE3TUJCwjyaGXWbRnbCFPLF7WcbdpYl

Sunday, November 08, 2026

the Jeep commercial for the Avengers isn't likely to help sales

in 1974, Clarence "Kelly" Johnson, aircraft designer and senior vice president of Lockheed, announced his retirement after 40+ years and countless contributions to some of the most original aircraft designs of the 20th century.



a couple of the cars from the new drifting movie by Sung Kang








the SEMA 2026 schwag haul...




 I decided to try ALL the air freshners that were being given away... 19 that I found. I'll keep you posted who had the best smelling one they gave away





there were a couple displays for air freshners.

5 decks of cards... well, not that I'm likely to play cards with them, but IF I get the notion to build a house of cards? I'll be able to

more microfiber cloths than usual were up for grabs!

And there at the top of this bottom photo are the two coolest things I was given as schwag! A bucket of  "Tub Of Towels" ( I've bought a couple BECAUSE of the free sample packs at SEMA... and now I was given a bucket of them? AWESOME!)

And the coolest thing? That issue of Hella's new magazine, Dusty Times! 



just one example of the great articles in it
The older issues are available online in Flipbooks by Issuu, on each issues page on Dustytimes.com

Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac’s personal Chiron was taken from outside his company’s campus in Croatia, because he left it with the key still inside! Thank you Doug!


 He jumped into his Porsche 911 and chased it across Slovenia until police finally stopped it in Austria.

Odd choice of actions to take when your Bugatti is stolen

Someone local came in looking for a job and decided that he would take the Chiron instead. People noticed, they contacted Mate, and he got the police involved. But like nearly every modern car, there's plenty of telemetry that can, among other things, share the car's location. Being the owner of the company, Mate was able to see where the car was (and how much gas was in it) and let Croatian police know.

Instead of letting the police handle things, he saw the car heading to Slovenia, so he jumped into his own Porsche 911 to give chase. He hoped to get the border closed in time, but Slovenia is only about 10 miles from Rimac's campus in Zagreb. From there, it's only about 100 miles to Austria and, since the thief had a one-hour head start (and a Chiron), they were in that third country before police could coordinate.

Mate wasn't able to catch up to the thief, at least until Austrian authorities got the car stopped. The Chiron was recovered, and Mate had to spend the night doing paperwork. Surprisingly, Rimac said he didn't want to press charges.

https://carbuzz.com/mate-rimac-chases-stolen-chiron-in-porsche-october-2026

Corvette Specialties of San Diego went out of business when the owner retired, and now, the assets are getting auctioned off