Saturday, July 14, 2007

Bee's and R/T's at the San Diego Mopar Club car show


Of interest to 440 6pack Superbee lovers alone, here are 2 of the 4 known to be in San Diego. I haven't seen Tom's red one in 10 years though. They are distinguished by the stripe around the trunk, here are the white stripe and black stripe... the other is a stripe delete (you will still see the round Super Bee decal). The story was told to me that he was really enthsiastic about how fine his rare Bee is, (and you can see it here: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/06/rare-early-69-stripe-delete-4-spd-440.html#links ) well one of the guys who was talking to him, soon after it first got in town, happened to mention that there are already two green 440 6 pack cars in San Diego (these two you see here) and just took the wind out of the guys sails. As rare as these are, there are 3 in town. The odds are just infinite I bet.


Six Pack Bee stats
Hard tops (WM23M) coupes (WM21M).
They made 1487 hard tops (661 auto and 826 4-spd)
420 coupes (153 auto and 267 4-spd).





The coolest Nash I've ever seen.



Really good business idea

Parking in the city for motorbikes, that also will tow, tune, and repair bikes

http://motorgrrl.com/

A bus junkyard photogallery

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2006/03/bus-graveyard.html

Good new pictures of the Zippomobile

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2006/03/zippomobile.html

Friday, July 13, 2007

Tool logos, trademarks, and parent company info... even has the images of the logos!

http://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/trademarks-and-logos.html

What is really informative is the list of the patents, by tool marking indexed to the tool company

For example :
Myers, C.H. Patent 288,098
Patent 446,072
Patent 869,255
in the A-M section of http://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/site-index.html

Now if you are looking up a wrench that says "model 1226" you click on the "Model 1226" and it then links you to a photo of the wrench and gives info about it.

If you are looking up (Plvmb or Plomb) another source that has a really fast easy guide to what year it was made is http://www.vannattabros.com/plomb/plombtool.html

Plomb tools had a couple interesting varieties stamped with a couple acronyms:
WF  Wright Field items made for the US government.
Ranger AT items made for Fairchild Aviation
PWA items made for Pratt and Whitney.
http://g503.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=48&t=262301&start=15

Never thought of it, but why not a taxi specific junkyard? NY NY

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2006/11/parts-is-parts.html

Imagine how many taxi's there are in New York, now figuring most of them are Crown Vic's it must pay well to strip totalled taxis for spare doors, bumpers, engines, hoods and trunklids.

July 15th: Just read in Automobile magazine that the Mayor of New York wants to get all taxis there switched out for electric or hybrid, says it could reduce NY states fuel consumption by 25 million gallons a year. Now why didn't that occur to someone when they destroyed all the electric cable cars that ran NY streets?

Annual dues to drive sports cars... cool!

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2006/12/classic-car-club-of-manhattan.html

http://www.manhattan.classiccarclub.com/ Here's an interesting business model, pay to play. Pay your annual dues, drive any of the clubs cars.
2005 Ferrari F430
2005 Ford GT
2006 Lamborghini Gallardo
2007 Porsche GT3
2007 Aston Martin DB9
2008 Audi R8
2008 Maserati Gran Turismo
2008 Ferrari 360 Modena Spider
2007 Bentley Continental GTC
1998 Ferrari 355 Spyder
2001 Porsche Turbo
1989 Ferrari 328GTS
2006 Corvette Z06
1972 Jaguar E-Type Roadster
1965 AC Shelby Cobra
1972 De Tomaso Pantera
2007 Parnelli Jones Mustang
1977 Aston Martin V8
1989 Rolls Royce Corniche II
2003 BMW M3
2005 Lotus Elise HRM Edition
2006 Range Rover Sport
2006 Mini Cooper S
1999 Mercedes E55 AMG
1967 Chevelle Super Sport
1965 Mustang Convertible
1988 Porsche 911
2005 Subaru Impreza WRX
1968 Porsche 911
1975 Alfa Romeo GTV
2006 Toyota FJ Cruiser
1957 Porsche Speedster
1986 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce
1972 Chevrolet Cheyenne
1968 Lincoln Continental
1972 BMW 2002tii

The streets of New York, on July 13th

As it happens, then, Manhattan's mathematically rational street grid is actually rotated 29º off the north-south axis – and this angle has interesting astronomical side-effects.

In other words, because of the off-center orientation of Manhattan's street grid, you can only see the setting sun "down the middle of any crosstown street" on two specific days of the year: May 28 and July 13.

July 13 is, of course, next week – so watch out for it.

Manhattan is a solar instrument that only works twice.So, because of historical decisions made about the logic and purpose of urban planning – and because of the declination of the Earth's poles – the streets of Manhattan are aligned with the setting sun only two times a year.

Via http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/

For bikers who want the damn light to turn green

Timo Tolonen said...

As a side note, the automated inductive loops cause my friend and his motorcycle no end of headache.

The electromagnetic loop created by it does indeed notice large bodies of metal and adjust the traffic lights accordingly, but sometimes my friend's motorcycle isn't big enough to register ie. the light never changes. (He's especially fond of this happening in the middle of the night w/ no other traffic around).

He later figured out that turning off the engine and restarting it creates a big enough electric signature to make the loop notice him and his vehicle and adjust the light accordingly. The system may be fully automated but it's not sentient just yet.

http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/geometry-of-traffic-control.html

Thursday, July 12, 2007

The designer and builder of the Blade Runner vehicles, Gene Winfield

Above via http://greyhandgang.com


Winfield was approached by director Ridley Scott to build the futuristic vehicles needed for his science fiction movie "Blade Runner."

The job required construction of 25 various vehicles ranging from flying police cars (called "Spinners"), to taxi cabs, buses, and everday transportation vehicles.

Winfield built all 25 units, but two were destroyed in a shop fire.

The "Spinner" was a marvel of technology, including forward-opening doors and wheels the folded-up into the body during the flight mode. Most of these vehicles were destroyed by the studio upon completion of filming.

However, one "Spinner" and one black & white police "sedan" were put on display outside at Disney/MGM Studios in Florida. Recently, after years of deterioration from the weather, they were moved and said to have been destroyed. Another "Spinner" has been restored and now resides in Japan. A red police "sedan" is currently on display in Miami, Florida at the police museum.

Sidenote, Sam Foose did some work on these too, how about that?

http://www.c-we.com/piranha/page9.htm

For an interview with Gene: http://media.bladezone.com/contents/film/interviews/gene-winfield/

If you have an adventurous streak that has to be addressed, there's a London to Mongolia car rally you could run

http://www.theadventurists.com/ bring you the Mongol Rally

I love that they limit the cars to .. ..

"The Vehicle Rule:
You can only use a car with an engine of less than 1 litre that is generally considered to be crap. Motorbikes are limited to under 125cc, ideally scooters. You should be careful not to limit your own fun though. The Mongol Rally is not about making sure you reach Mongolia but the fun you have trying. If you get there with no hiccups you won't have any fun. Exceptions to this rule may be considered for vehicles of notable unusualness with high comedy value. "

And a rule about raising money for a charity (cool), and the rule that you are on your own.

Other than these you are free to sneak, bribe, cheat, connive and generally out-wit the world to get yourselves to Ulaanbaatar. In fact you will probably have to. If you get to the end of the race without some good stories to tell, then the Mongol Rally has failed in its mission. Which it won't.

If you have the sickness of admiring antique automobiles, here's some RV eyecandy. Restoration of a '48 sportsman.

Reinforces the old adage, "Leave this to the professionals" and "Don't try this at home"

Wow, this sure turned out beautiful though

http://mobilesportsman.blogspot.com/

The Camaro from "Better off Dead" found and restored


The late, great Lane Meyer, played by John Cusack in the 1985 flick Better Off Dead, made sweet on Monique over the engine bay of a 1967 Camaro.

Jeff was so taken with the car that he tracked it down, despite the fact that the man who owned it during the filming of the movie had sold it. It was in pretty rough shape, with a tacked-on spoiler, the beginning of rust creeping in, and lots of cracked interior vinyl.

Jeff put together a web site telling how he tracked the Camaro down, complete with unnecessary quotes from the movie playing in the background while you read it.

http://www.betteroffdeadcamaro.com/

You might remember it from the scene where John Cusack races the asian dudes in their rusted out ghetto sled(Muddy Waters playing in the background.)

http://www.timemachinesinc.com/ restored it.

"Gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire" Metallica -------------Top fuel dragsters.

TOP FUEL DRAGSTER STATS
One dragster's 500-inch Hemi makes more horsepower then the first 8 rows at Daytona.

Under full throttle, a dragster engine consumes 1 1/2 gallons of nitro per second, (that's about 10 gallons per run!), the same rate of fuel consumption as a fully loaded 747, but with 4 times the energy volume.

The supercharger takes more power to drive then a stock hemi makes.

Even with nearly 3000 CFM of air being rammed in by the supercharger on overdrive, the fuel mixture is compressed into nearly-solid form before ignition.

Cylinders run on the verge of hydraulic lock.

Dual magnetos apply 44 amps to each spark plug.

This is the output of an arc welder in each cylinder.

At stoichiometric (exact) 1.7:1 air/fuel mixture (for nitro), the flame front of nitro methane measures 7050 degrees F.

Nitro methane burns yellow. The spectacular white flame seen above the stacks at night is raw burning hydrogen, dissociated from atmospheric water vapor by the searing exhaust gases.

Spark plug electrodes are totally consumed during a pass.

After 1/2 way, the engine is dieseling from compression plus the glow of exhaust valves at1400 degrees F. The engine can only be shut down by cutting off it's fuel flow.

If spark momentarily fails early in the run, unburned nitro builds up in those cylinders and then explodes with a force that can blow cylinder heads off the block in pieces or blow the block in half.

Dragsters twist the crank (torsionally) so far (20 degrees in the big end of the track) that sometimes cam lobes are ground offset from front to rear to re-phase the valve timing somewhere closer to synchronization with the pistons.

To exceed 300mph in 4.5 seconds dragsters must accelerate at an average of over 4G's. But in reaching 200 mph well before 1/2 track, launch acceleration is closer to 8G's.

If all the equipment is paid off, the crew worked for free, and for once NOTHING BLOWS UP, each run costs $1000.00 per second.

Dragsters reach over 300 miles per hour before you have read this sentence.

Top Fuel Engines ONLY turn 540 revolutions from start light to finish line.

The redline is actually quite high at 9500 rpm.

To give you an idea of this acceleration, the current TF dragster elapsed time record is 4.441 seconds for the quarter mile. This means that you could be coming across the starting line in your average Lingenfelter powered "twin-turbo" Corvette at 200 mph (on a FLYING START) and the dragster would BEAT you to the finish line FROM A DEAD STOP in a quarter mile distance!

PERFORMANCE EXAMPLES
0 to 100 MPH in .8 seconds (the first 60 feet of the run)
0-200 MPH in 2.2 seconds (the first 350 feet of the run)
6 g-forces at the starting line (nothing accelerates faster on land)
6 negative g-forces upon deployment of twin ‘chutes at 300 MPH

An NHRA Top Fuel Dragster accelerates quicker than any other land vehicle on earth . . . quicker than a jet fighter plane . . . quicker than the space shuttle.

http://www.pafoa.org/forum/lounge-108/720-acceleration.html

The ultimate automobile search function, from the Smithsonian

The Museum’s online transportation collection includes more than a thousand artifacts and photographs. Browse the collection by selecting multiple categories, eras, and regions.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/ONTHEMOVE/collection/

Classic cars of the '30's

http://www.cromoclassico.com/eng/anni_trenta.html

Alfa Romeo made ambulance vans? Who knew?

Unsual cool cars for sale, mostly race cars... incredible variety!

Maybe you'd like to look up some obscure vehicles, here's the place

Everything from the Oshkosk, to Bantams, Divco trucks to Croselys.

http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/

10 Things Your Rental Car Company Won't Tell You

http://www.smartmoney.com/10things/index.cfm?story=july2006&pgnum=1

From Smart Money magazine via http://growabrain.typepad.com

What restoring a M37 (1963 3/4 ton military Dodge truck) cost in two years to complete the restoration

http://www.swapmeetdave.com/Humor/Workshop/M37B.htm

People that obviously lack the requisite skills to operate a motor vehicle, also known as "the 10 worst drivers ever caught on film"

http://onemansblog.com/2007/02/07/10-worst-drivers-ever-caught-on-video/

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

The stupidest thing you'll see today

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2007/05/lieutenant-lee.html

A Chevy Cavalier painter to look like the General Lee... and it has white walls. Which is more idiotic?

Outside Indian Larry's

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2007/05/sidewalk-maintenance.html

Hard core New York City bikers

http://testofwill.blogspot.com/2007/05/bicycle-fetish.html

A great story about how fun it is to have a Hummer after a snow blizzard

http://people.ambrosiasw.com/~andrew/snow.html

The Fiat rooftop test track

http://www.quartzcity.net/2006/10/05/futurists-gone-wild-the-fiat-rooftop-test-track/

If spinning tires and drifting is your thing, you may never see a better video

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-837380894445012850

Morons are everywhere, it is simple to spot them when they park

http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/gallery2/gallery2/main.php

http://www.youparklikeanasshole.com/gallery2/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=358

Secret test tracks by Ferrari, Pirelli, Bosch, Pininfarina, Ford and Volkswagen and others

http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/204239/inside_story_secret_test_tracks.html

Probably the most incredible automobile race of all time

The race from Peking to Paris, in 1907

http://www.unmuseum.org/autorace.htm

15-horsepower (HP) Dutch Spyker.
10HP De Dion Boutons.
6HP Contal.
40HP Itala

No idea why this photographer likes covered cars

http://barrylewisphotography.com/pm/pages/imagegroup.public.display.php?igId=101

But I know some people who have a guessing game, to see who's better at figuring out what's under the cover.

Beautiful cars crashed by rich idiots

http://thewrongadvices.com/2007/03/29/beautiful-cars-crashed-by-rich-idiots

Monday, July 09, 2007

Jim Cooley, had a genius idea as a young entreprenuer

I was swapping stories with Jim, owner of the JA Cooley Auto Museum, and when I mentioned weeing him in the neighborhood driving his 1930 Ford, he told me how it is that he's been driving it for about 6o years.

Right after WW2, most people wanted to buy a new car, and this was for different reasons, but partly due to them not having had anything new to drive since about 1940. New cars weren't being built until about 1947, as a matter of fact, Jim told me, Ford was selling trucks to civilians in '46, but not cars. They had a car planned and even had a set of 8 car models for the '46 line that they sent out to dealerships to promote the new '46 cars, and garner some interest from potential buyers. No cars though.

So, with all cars being about 7 years old at the newest, people were in the mood to get rid of the old ones and buy new. So Jim saw the opportunity to pick up model A's and T's cheap.

A lot of A and T models had been neglected all through the war, due to rationing, military not coming home, lack of new tires, broken parts, all kinds of things added up to there being a lot of these old Fords being left in garages and backyards with flat tires, and engine troubles.

Here's the clever part.

Jim bought them for 10 or 20 dollars apiece, fixed the minor troubles, and when he had four or five ready to sell, he placed one ad in the paper. The ad cost 2 dollars, and being quite clever Jim had figured he could just wait until he had several cars, to place just one ad. Savings? 6 to 8 dollars.

With just one ad and 4 or 5 cars, he put one out front of his house with the for sale sign to catch buyers attention, and when it sold he pulled around another.

This kept the nonsense about one being nicer, or a buyer flittering around through all the cars to just a bad idea. The people responding to the ad for one car for sale found just one, and then they bought it for about 100 dollars, and went away. Nice, neat, simple. Savings? Time, aggravation.

Now the last of one group was this yellow and black '30 Ford that a fellow bought, and returned in just 3 hours. Nothing wrong with tha car, but the guy lived a block from work, and soon realized he didn't need the car. He'd bought it on impulse, it being too good a deal to pass up. He returned it and offered to Jim that he'd give back the car for half the price, but being a fair and honest guy, Jim gave him back all the money for the car. Since the car came back to him, Jim decided maybe he was meant to keep it, and so he still has it and regularly drives it.

Sunday, July 08, 2007