back in 1969, a fellow drove 8 hours from Prince Rupert, British Columbia to buy the family a new car, a brand new A12 Super Bee. Once he got it home, he took his wife for a ride and she told him he was selling it and to take it back to the dealership. He did.

a young couple were there test driving a hemi R/T, with manual brakes and manual steering.

The small wife decided it wasn't right for a daily driver, as her 90 pounds found it difficult to park... that front heavy car's armstrong steering is no fun.

But when they got back to the dealership, she noticed this freshly returned A12 Super Bee sitting on the lot. After driving the car, the couple realized it was much more suitable for daily driving duties so they purchased the Bee and took it home to Williams Lake.

They used it as the daily driver for 18 years.

Then it was bought and sold, and bought and sold and restored, and hit the car shows.

In 2011, Ray and his wife Rachelle towed the car up to a car show in Williams Lake  “While we were at the show, a woman driving past noticed the Super Bee parked in the show. She hit the brakes at the end of the road, turned around and came back. She parked and came up to us and said, “That’s my old car!”

“After talking to her for a bit, she went home and brought back some old photos of the car, the original registration papers, original keys and the Super Bee emblem that was broken off the trunk lid. After the show, we took her and her grand kids for a ride in the car. It was really cool! Since then, we’ve kept in touch with the family and always send them photos of the car to let them know it has a good and pampered life.”

http://moparconnectionmagazine.com/british-columbian-bee-ray-rachelle-myles-1969-1-2-dodge-super-bee-a12/

Ryan Montgomery’s never raced a motorcycle before, never built a racing bike before, and decided to make a junk 38 yr old Yamaha he found abandoned in Montana run on housemade ethanol for a Bonneville land speed record

“a bike built by a novice, ridden by an amateur, running experimental fuel to go as fast as possible"m

The record for his class — 750cc partially-modified bikes 1980 or older with alternate fuel — was just under 98 mph.

He went 114... on the left overs from vodka production (that aren't suitable for drinking)

Unfortunately, a couple days later, someone else went 140. Dennis Weinhold, the other entrant in Montgomery’s class, had a 1974 Honda CB750 bike that had almost 100cc on Sudden Wisdom’s 654. That gave Weinhold the speed to get his motorcycle up to 140 mph.

“I had figured that might happen,” said Montgomery, who with his wife Jenny owns Montgomery Distillery. “I got to be the record holder for about 72 hours and that’s good enough for me.”

But wow, taking  bikes around 4 decades old, to Bonneville on something other than gas... is a good trick. Pulling off a record run is incredible!

http://www.foxnews.com/auto/2018/09/01/vodka-powered-motorcycle-sets-speed-record.html
https://missoulian.com/news/local/sudden-wisdom-vodka-fueled-motorcycle-heads-from-missoula-to-bonneville/article_43baf974-945b-50ec-8194-0479a1d13ad4.html
https://mtstandard.com/news/state-and-regional/missoula-distiller-s-bonneville-speed-record-proves-short-lived/article_5b2464b4-a6d6-573b-8172-3f53943ddc05.html
https://www.facebook.com/MontgomeryDistillery/

In 1977, Orville Wright’s downtown Dayton laboratory, where he loved to experiment, was demolished to make way for a gas station that was never built.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/wright-brothers-aviation-history-dayton.html

the 1000th airplne built by the Wright Brothers in Dayton Ohio, and a tour of the facility in 1918 as they seem to have completed a bulk order ready to be crated and shipped or ready to assemble airplanes

but the image original size is quite large, and you can open it up to full original size and count rivets.

https://catalog.archives.gov/search?q=*:*&f.ancestorNaIds=17331752&sort=naIdSort%20asc  which has dozens more step by step photos of them crating, making, and engineering the planes

thanks Bruce!

there aren't many wonderful ways to reuse old tires, few artists are making statues from them, and burning them makes a lot of pollution. It seems making a landfill is about all that can be done when you have millions of them

But efforts may be underway to get the tires recycled https://www.arjes.de/en/news/shredding-under-the-dessert-sun/

as it would be a gross pollution event for the to burn away, as the results of a Google search show that several fires have burned in the tire landfills in the past decade in Colorado, Spain, and Kuwait

https://500px.com/photo/6816260/kuwait-tire-fire-by-mohammed-alsultan

Six Flags Chicago has announced a triple-record breaking roller coaster coming to the park in summer 2019

Maxx Force will be the fastest launch coaster in North America. It will feature the fastest inversion and highest double inversion of any roller coaster in the world, according to a news release from Six Flags.

“The new Maxx Force coaster is in a class all by itself, launching riders from 0 to 78 miles per hour in under two seconds.

Other unparalleled features:
A unique air-powered launching system propelling guests forward at record speeds
The world’s highest double inversion at 175 feet above the ground
The fastest inversion on any roller coaster in the world with a 60 miles-per-hour zero-G roll
Five high-speed inversions
One-of-a-kind custom coaster trains modeled after Formula One racing cars

https://wgntv.com/2018/08/30/record-breaking-maxx-force-launch-coaster-coming-to-great-america-in-2019/

Maurice and his cool grand dad!

Ain't that cool! At a family Northern Wisconsin farm

1937 Cadillac Series 90 Hartmann Cabriolet originally commissioned by international playboy Philippe Barraud.

He wanted a custom car constructed on a grand scale and in late 1936 ordered a 452-inch w.b. Cadillac V-16 chassis through the Edelweiss Garage in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Garage was located near Lake Geneva in the area that is referred to as the Swiss Rivera.

Cadillac shipped a bare chassis, one of only two that year, around the world to Switzerland and there it was bodied in Lausanne by Willy Hartmann. Barraud wanted to body the chassis in his own home town so he could personally suprvise the work.

to see the above image of the owner being dwarfed by the car... is a striking reminder of how BIG cars were then.

The design was accented in chrome and definitely mimicked the French masters Figoni et Falaschi which pioneered the trend from a painting by Geo Ham. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/04/geo-ham-study-for-hispano-suiza.html

Philippe Barraud kept the car until the 1960s, and it was found abandoned in a Swiss field in 1968 in poor condition and was sold for only $925 USD

this isn't the most amazing Caddy that Pebble Beach has seen, last years purple Saoutchik bodied Caddy was more amazing https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2017/11/saoutchik-bodied-1948-cadillac-series-62.html as it's not a simple copy of a Figoni et Falachi body design from the 1936 Delahaye Torpedo, fender skirts, headlight zippers, auxiliary headlights, the side swoosh, and the dorsal fin.

For more examples of the seminal Figoni et Falachi design spawning imitators with nothing original to add, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2016/01/i-was-wrong-to-admire-vanvooren.html

also compare it to the Figoni et Falaschi design of the Delahaye 135 Competition Court Coupe  https://www.supercars.net/blog/delahaye-135-competition-court/  and the Delahaye 165

https://www.automobilemag.com/news/best-cars-of-the-2018-pebble-beach-concours-delegance/
https://www.supercars.net/blog/1937-cadillac-v16-hartmann-cabriolet/
http://theoldmotor.com/?p=145216
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-1937-cadillac-is-poised-to-wow-pebble-beach-1531831417

Aretha's hearse, a 1940 carved side La Salle, is something that has been around, and carried not just a few history makers. Rosa Parks also was carried in it.

Swanson Funeral Home's 1940 Cadillac LaSalle hearse

For the last 50 years, it's been reserved at Swanson Funeral Home for some of the Motor City's most stately send-offs.

The ivory hearse carried Rosa Parks in 2005, when the pallbearers pushed the antique vehicle with all their might on the final stretch toward the civil rights hero's grave at Detroit's Woodlawn Cemetery. It transported the Temptations baritone David Ruffin in 1991 and Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops in 2008.

Swanson was two years out of the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science when he founded the funeral home in 1958. He said he bought the hearse several years later, knowing it was a treasure the moment he saw it. The LaSalle brand ended production in 1940, making Swanson's hearse one of the last of the model.

"I guess I have a liking for vintage cars - classic cars," he said. "We've been very attentive to it over the years."

As Swanson built the business, his funeral home grew to become a "Detroit institution that has shepherded thousands of residents far above and beyond 8 Mile and guided families and communities through their grief," as the Detroit Free Press described it in 2005, ahead of Parks' funeral. Over the years, the Free Press reported, Swanson has provided scholarships to low-income students and donated to churches and various civic organizations.

The funeral home has even attracted good deeds from Franklin herself. Linda Swanson, the funeral home's vice president, told the Associated Press that Franklin would often pay for the funeral expenses of needy families - often "in full without being asked or prompted to do so."

https://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/08/aretha_franklins_last_ride_wil.html

thanks Gary!

Coffee and donuts video for Friday... “Thank You” videos were created by Strike Anywhere for Lyft, to show appreciation for extra special Lyft drivers

For the holidays, pickup service Lyft worked with production company Strike Anywhere to give two drivers a special shout-out. The films, which follow out-of-home ads earlier this month also thanking drivers, give us the chance to meet, and become invested in, a pair of faces behind the wheel before the company rewards them with a surprise gift.



https://www.adweek.com/creativity/lyft-gives-year-end-love-to-its-drivers-whove-truly-changed-peoples-lives/

Sports car in Disneyland... hmmm, strange.

The car is an Abarth 207/A with chassis N. 001 and is the first of approximately ten to twelve similar cars built. There were two similarly styled road cars in the series as well, one a roadster and one a coupe.

 The owner, Dr. Karl Brigandi (Garden Grove, CA), owned this Abarth beginning 1956 and it was raced 1956 to 1958 by himself and Carmela Martin, known earlier as "Carmela Brigandi" and then "Carmela Clark".

The doctor's family held on to the car until September of 1980. My guess is that the photograph was taken circa May, 1957 when a concours was held at Holidayland and the car was in attendance.

John de Boer - The Italian Car Registry
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ocarchives/3025758974/

http://www.maseratiexperts.com/abarth.htm

Orange Fire Department truck No. 1, 1912

https://www.flickr.com/photos/ocarchives/4679270616/

if more neighborhoods had street maps like this, so many people's lives would be easier... delivery people especially

http://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2018/08/street-map.html

I have come across a plethora of photos to use as banners this past month, so many, that some I haven't even used yet