Saturday, September 23, 2023

great upcycle of junk yard parts. How is there some one not making these and selling them on a website?


new walker using old Rolligon wheel design





If you don't recall the post about the Albee Rolligon https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2020/01/finally-new-photos-of-albee-rolligon.html  

William Albee returned to California, and in 1951, began working on a modern adaption of the Eskimo bags. He designed bag-like tires made from nylon impregnated with rubber, that were very flexible. They deformed easily but did not expand.

After many consultations, the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company agreed to manufacture them according to plans designed by Albee. Eventually, Albee founded the “Albee Rolligon Company” and began producing vehicles fitted with low pressure tires.

 Later, with the help of the U.S. Army, Albee’s company released a Jeep, a Reo truck and a Dodge Power Wagon, all equipped with Rolligons. The final creation was a 7-ton off-highway transporter, the “Albee Rolligon”

A Jeep tribute to WWII aviation






I'm still amazed and surprised to hear from the sons and daughters of bomber planes. I just heard from the tailgunner's son of the B-29 Ernie Pyle's Milk Wagon


My father was the tail gunner on B-29 Ernie Pyle's Milkwagon, later named Uncle Sam's Milk Wagon.

Al Bino

1945 D7 still putting in a hard days work, with only 1/3rd the power a modern D7 has. 80 Hp vs 240 Hp


15 years after a fatal hit and run, the car was found, and the people in it arrested


passing 41 riders to go from last to second in the Foxhill VMXDN 23

tesla founders, neither of them retained enough Tesla stock to achieve billionaire status

Friday, September 22, 2023

in the 1952-59 (and a secret race in 63) there were sports car races held at Put-in-Bay, South Bass Island, Ohio, and they now have an annual revival reunion race, and there's a book about it's history











that's a Berkeley (with a fairing for the driver that I have not seen before) entered by the Funny Face Auto Racing Team in 1959, running in J-Production, no less.










In 1951, the Cleveland Sport Car Club was chartered, and in 1953 a great little sports car race took place on an island in Lake Erie, offshore of Sandusky, Ohio, limited to sport racers with engines of 1.5 liters or smaller, or production sports cars with engines of 2 liters or smaller. (Watkins Glen began in 1948) 

Having the race on an island helped reduce the other big safety issue: crowd control. The people there for the race were people who wanted to be there for the race. And it’s a good thing, because there weren’t a lot of barriers, outside of some snow fencing and the hay bales in the corners and in front of lampposts, fire hydrants and other objects.

The drivers came on ferry boats to compete for silver cups in an age when there were no sponsors and no prize money. 

Because it was on public roads, and shutting them down for even one day was a tall order, there was no qualifying race. Instead, drivers drew from a hat to learn their starting position.

The drivers were car salesmen, stock brokers, engineers, printers, etc. Often, the cars they raced were those they drove as daily transportation: MGs, Porsches, Triumphs, Alfas and others.

Ultimately, the 1959 Put-in-Bay race was the last. The state of Ohio had banned road racing, and it was becoming more difficult to find an insurer to underwrite the event.

There was one more race, an “outlaw” event, not sanctioned by any governing body — in 1963, but the race faded into obscurity, a curiosity from a bygone time.



I didn't even realize until researching, that this was one of the islands that the airplanes I just posted about last month were flying to and from https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2023/08/alaska-might-be-last-area-known-for.html



thank you Marc!

the GO GO GO GO Purple Onion sponsorship must be an asset in making this race car faster





https://www.facebook.com/groups/527146584145263?multi_permalinks=2286572541535983&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen

thanks to Rob Zombie


https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=857983422358651&set=a.209668253856841

I wish there was a website with photos of all the goofy things that the Price is Right had in the showcase showdown


there are always new fun things to learn of, and Matias just sent me the link to the 1967 Ford Falcon Angostado of Argentina


Matias commented:

Instead of chopping the roof in Argentina they just took a strip of body down the center. If you look the pics you will see a bar in the center of the windshield to hide the place where they cut the glass in half. Later cars had one piece windshields. The narrowed Falcons were an attempt to reduce the car's frontal section. They couldn't chop the roof like Moody did because the rule book said that the windshield had to keep the original car's angle and that the doors had to be the original height. Unfortunately for the people that wrote the rules they forgot to mention the roof in the rulebook... so the builders just took a section down the center of the car










https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_Falcon_V8_Angostado_-_Carlos_Reutemann_02.jpg

the Skunk Train has been running since 1885, and heads out at 6:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday evenings, on a 25-minute sunset ride among the redwoods, through Pudding Creek and Mendocino County to the Glen Blair Bar


Overland Expo has an interesting set of videos


Peter Mullin, 1930s French art deco car aficionado, has died. Few people have achieved such financial success, and then collected a world class variety of cars, but put them in a public museum

https://www.autoweek.com/news/a45243222/philanthropist-car-collector-peter-mullin-obit

not only is the Panama Canal slowing international trade; A Mexican railway operator announced it is temporarily suspending 60 cargo train runs because so many migrants are climbing aboard freight cars, some international trade would be affected by the stoppage.


U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sources told Fox News that between Friday and Monday, there were more than 35,000 migrant encounters along the southern border. On average, that equates to just under 9,000 migrant encounters per day.

Ferromex said services would be halted on the trains travelling towards Mexico's border with the US, in order to "avoid accidents or loss of life". It added that the number of migrants trying to hitch rides on its freight trains was "unprecedented". Hundreds of thousands clamber onto the roofs and cling to the sides each year.

The United Nations Children's Fund, Unicef, says that the number of children migrating through Latin America and the Caribbean has reached record numbers.

"Gang violence, instability, poverty and climate-related events are, alarmingly, gripping the region and pushing more children from their homes," Gary Conville, Unicef's Latin America and Caribbean director, said.

United States Customs and Border Protection said that more than 83,000 children had crossed the US's southern border in the first seven months of 2023.


Seems to me that few if any countries are being run well enough to prevent chaos. 

The north western European countries are never in the news, but Central America and Africa, the Middle East and China/North Korea are always threatening either war or economic chaos, Russia is still attempting a military takeover of Ukraine, Haiti can't figure out how to operate without a bail out, the USA is 33 trillion in debt with not a single elected official caring (they are only in office to get rich quick and retire with pension), inflation is ridiculous, Libya's neglect of the dam resulted in deadly flood, New York City's liberal left wingers campaigned to be a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants  - before they were delivered by a convoy of busloads, the homeless population has doubled in California, etc etc

What a mess. No wonder so many people simply want to retire and go fishing

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Auto Trader UK relocated their offices then recreated the Italian Job scene in their new offices


Holman Moody made a Falcon with a shorter profile than a Porsche 356 of the day.


Holman Moody was no stranger to Ford, modifying T-Birds and Galaxies on the track. So, Ford approached H/M to build a fire-breathing monster from their new, little compact Falcon Challenger III.

To make the family car a little more slippery in the wind, they removed 3 inches horizontally from the center section of the body, and chopping the roof top another 3 inches, the small Falcon was a full 6 inches shorter than the factory Falcon. Adding the aluminum fastback to the car was the final piece to make the boxy compact slice through the air. 

 The Challenger III had a shorter profile than a Porsche 356 of the day.


divorces result in strange and passionate actions... like keeping and hiding someone's prize car