Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Ford Celebrates 75 Years Serving Law Enforcement
1908 Packard, and one hell of a weather curtain
The chauffer's must have been miserable outside in the New England winters
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=27893366276944808&set=gm.1669835173597398
For nearly half a century, the U-Haul box truck has been a fixture of the Tulsa skyline.
According to the Tulsa Foundation for Architecture, this was the first instance of a U-Haul truck being placed on a building, rather than a trailer. https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/05/u-haul-created-out-of-necessity-when.html
Jean Jennings, a superb car magazine hall of famer has passed away... and the world won't be any damn good without her.
She learned to drive as a 14-year-old exchange student in Ecuador, at the wheel of a Toyota Land Cruiser in the Andes mountains.
She drove in a demolition derby. She rode in an off-road race with Walker Evans. She ran Brock Yates’s One Lap of America three times, first in the inaugural year with Walker Evans and Parnelli Jones (in a beer-delivery van), next with Canadian WRC driver Nicole Ouimet, and lastly with Hurley Haywood.
A long career as a writer and editor led to multiple awards, including the International Motor Press Association’s 2007 Ken Purdy Award to Jean Jennings for her June 2006 Automobile cover story entitled, “Veyron in the USA,” https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/04/international-automotive-media-awards.html
https://www.theautopian.com/jean-jennings-the-woman-who-made-autojournalism-fun-dead-at-70/
And was awarded the New England Motor Press Association’s 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Motor Press Guild’s 2016 Dean Batchelor Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Jean was the first woman to lead a major monthly national car magazine. After 29 years with the publication, she was promoted to editor-in-chief of Automobile in 2000. She added the title and duties of President in 2006. Under her leadership, Automobile was the first car magazine to win a National Magazine Award.
Jean’s column, Vile Gossip, was a consistent must-read.
She served as the automotive correspondent on ABC’s Good Morning America from 1994 to 2000, took the same role on the Oxygen network, and was an expert correspondent on numerous news and magazine shows.
5 years ago I told you all about her, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2019/12/jean-jennings.html because I was so damned impressed
For a perfect example of how cool she was as a writer, https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/05/bernie-moreno-who-started-his-working.html
I only have known of 3 women writers in car magazines, Denise McCluggage, Jean Jennings, and Elana Scherr.
If you've ever read Lives by Hendrik Van Loon (my advice is read everything he ever wrote, he also did the illustrations) then you'll know the premise of the concept of the game show from the 60s, about inviting the most wonderful people to dinner, and conversing with 4 or 5 amazing people at the same night. (What's My Line, I've Got A Secret) Jean would sure as hell be on the list of people you'd want there.
Monday, December 16, 2024
tidy little unit, the Autozam AZ-1, which I believe began as a Suzuki concept car in the mid-1980s
With a diminutive curb weight of just 1,587 pounds, its mid-mounted 63 horsepower three-cylinder turbo engine provided just enough punch for a delightful, tire-screeching driving experience.
However, its price tag, approximately $12,000, made the AZ-1 a hard sell over the slightly more expensive, but nearly twice as powerful MX-5.
Compounded by a severe economic recession in Japan prior to its launch, Mazda sold fewer than 4,500 examples over a two-year period.
Keith Martin, editor of Sports Car Market in early 2018, purchased one and said of his time with the car, "During its time with SCM, it became everyone's favorite car, both for its striking gullwing doors and its high fun-factor as a driver."
Steve is finally back to occasionally blogging!
made by the C.W. Kelsey Manufacturing Company out of Hartford, Connecticut from 1910 to 1912.
https://serviside.blogspot.com/2024/11/three-wheeler-thursday.html
https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/hf14/lots/r161-1911-kelsey-model-m-motorette/
https://rmsothebys.com/auctions/hf14/lots/r161-1911-kelsey-model-m-motorette/
I wonder of that is related to Kelsey Hayes rims?
I learn it's not. At least, not directly. It's likely that CW Kelsey is related to John Kelsey, who founded the Kelsey Wheel Company, but without seriously diving into time consuming research, I won't find out how
Well, hell, you knew I needed to try.
There were brothers, it seems https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Kelsey-2813 by the names of John and Charles William. But that isn't Charles Washburn.
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John Kelsey formed the K. H. Wheel Company (with partner H. J. Herbert) in 1909 with the hopes of developing a spring wheel.
Advised by Henry Ford to focus instead on the production of traditional wheels made of hickory wood, Kelsey took his advice and by 1919 his company was producing wooden wheels at a rate of two million per year and in 1915 the Kelsey Wheel Company was reincorporated for $13 million.
Ford gave Kelsey his flying start, buying more than three quarters of the company's wheel production in 1909. Afraid of becoming too dependent on Ford, Kelsey diversified, giving Ford less than one-third of his business in 1910 and, following a disagreement with Ford, less than ten percent in 1912.
While still selling to Ford, by 1915 the company's business had grown to $3.5 million in total revenues and had 15-20 percent of the wheel market, supplying not only Ford but also Hudson, Paige, Chalmers, and Studebaker.
Government demand for artillery type wheels provided a further boost to profitability--in 1918, 80 percent of production was devoted to defense type wheels--and by the end of World War I the company was solidly profitable.
https://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/kelsey-hayes-group-of-companies-history/
Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey's first ride in an automobile came in 1897, when a banker took him for a ride in a new Panhard. This inspired him to build his first car, a two-cycle, single-cylinder affair that proved to be a failure, but he kept many of the parts.
Enamored of the Léon Bollée tricycle, he joined with a classmate, Sheldon Tilney, to build a three-wheel car called the Autotri, now said to be at the Smithsonian Institution.
He became an agent for Autocar in Pennsylvania and continued to build cars of his own design before selling Maxwells, and then he became sales manager for Columbia in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1910, he attempted a startup with the Spartan car at Hartford. It was stillborn after a single prototype.
It was the Motorette that finally went into production. Kelsey again embraced the three-wheel formula, with a single rear wheel and a two-stroke 10-horsepower engine.
It was the Motorette that finally went into production. Kelsey again embraced the three-wheel formula, with a single rear wheel and a two-stroke 10-horsepower engine.
After air-cooling proved insufficient, he switched to thermo-syphon water cooling and birthed the Motorette at $385 F.O.B. Hartford. With a 74-inch wheelbase, it weighed just 700 pounds, delivery models being slightly heavier and more expensive. Unfortunately, in 1912, he endeavored to cut costs with outsourced engines, which proved to be very poorly built.
By the time the problems were solved, the Kelsey Manufacturing Company was in dire straits and went into receivership. A concept for an automobile drivetrain with enclosed friction discs failed to gain traction, although he endeavored to produce it in an otherwise conventional Kelsey car in 1920/21.
Carl Kelsey spent most of his subsequent career with the very successful Rototiller company in Troy, New York. In the 1960s, he patented the Skycar, a two-passenger vertical-takeoff helicopter. He died in 1970, aged 89.
Did you ever hear that during WW2, the Vatican was bombed? Twice?
Above, shrapnel damage on the Vatican Railway station
The first exploded near the railway station. The second destroyed a large part of the Vatican mosaic workshop. The third hit the façade of the Palazzo del Governo. Finally, the fourth hit a square behind the basilica, shattering the surrounding stained-glass windows to smithereens. The last one didn't go off.
The bombs "weighed between 100 and 150 kg, (220 - 330 lbs, ed.) were highly explosive, burst immediately, and produced small craters but had a large range of action," noted Cardinal Secretary of State Luigi Maglione the following day.
Public opinion blamed the Fascists or the Germans. The Americans believed that the plane was one of their bombers that got lost and dropped its bombs on the wrong target, and secretly admitted so to the Vatican.
The city was also bombed a second time, in March 1944, but that was a much simpler case of a British bomber missing its target.
The city was also bombed a second time, in March 1944, but that was a much simpler case of a British bomber missing its target.
Steve, you were telling me about this during SEMA, and mentioned that it was the world's worst navigator on an American bomber, but I couldn't find anything online about the story you mentioned
Sunday, December 15, 2024
I'm watching the new "Day Of The Jackal" and they did something ineteresting
instead of just wiping down the fingerprints on the car, or wearing gloves while using the rental car, the assassin character used a spray of some acid or something, and the paint, steering wheel material, etc etc just foamed and smoked.
Interesting that no tv show or movie has used this more realistic way of preventing police from getting fingerprints or DNA from a car used by the bad guys
truth
Kim mentioned in the comments that a famous guy mentioned that if you get a helicopter, you suddenly make a lot of friends.
That reminded me that when I got a truck, right after bootcamp, suddenly, I too was making friends, other guys in the Navy noticed that the back of my truck was empty all the time, and they wanted to get their "household goods" is what the Navy called your personal items that simply take up space around your house, but since we were living in the barracks, and were straight out of bootcamp, no one had been home to go get their things, and the few guys that were ready to move into apartments off base wanted to grab a lot of stuff, and not pay for a uhaul. Suddenly, someone like me who would trade the use of the truck for gas and expenses on a road trip seemed mighty nice
Own a pickup and you'll be everyone's best friend.
this booth was perfectly set up for airbrushing, it impresses the hell out of me
Packed just right, everything fits inside the drums! Unpacked, and the drum provides advertising of the artists caliber of work, and a flat top to lay out supplies on
the coal industry should advertise, “Coal, it’s what Teslas eat for dinner.”
Don just recommended a fun to read article on how electric cars in Colorado are subsidized
Thank you Don!