Thursday, May 14, 2020
a 1942 Century Seamaid seventeen footer, has been sitting 51 feet under water in Hayward's Bay in West Lake Okoboji in Iowa for decades, and has finally been pulled out in April 2020, and donated to a museum
Chad Thompson, an ice fisherman, found this boat with his camera a couple years ago. He saw it again this year because the water was very clear and got in contact with Okoboji UnderWater Recovery and the Iowa Great Lakes Maritime Museum and worked a deal where UnderWater Recovery would donate their time and Chad would donate the boat to the Maritime Museum where they would display the boat.
A handful of Grain Belt beer cans, one Hamm’s, and a Bubble Up bottle were found in it
full detailed story at https://www.nwestiowa.com/okoboji_magazine/sunken-treasure/article_ced59fbe-7d93-11ea-a7cc-537336290e63.html
there is a business in Three Lakes Wisconsin that sells vintage boat stuff, Fine Wood Boats
and might have what you need for your hot rod, or vintage Chris Craft...
http://www.finewoodboats.com/
plus a couple photos from the 1962 races. How cool are these trucks!!!
https://www.woodyboater.com/blog/2020/04/02/fine-wood-boats-where-to-find-classic-boat-parts-in-these-parts/
https://www.facebook.com/WoodyBoater/photos/a.258067450929154/2760652937337247
best story I've read this month... how Steve traded a motorcycle for an Aston Martin DB4
This is the car, serial number 163, and Peter Ustinov's was serial number 161!
Stephan commented today on the Peter Ustinov post:
I owned a DB-4 Series I,
I got the Aston from my acquaintance Larry Rivers, the abstract painter, who had pretty much trashed it.
Traded him a nice BSA 650 and not a hell of a lot of money. The story gets better.
I had crashed the 650 and broke a lot of cooling fins on one cylinder, which I replaced myself, along with a new piston, though I really didn't know what I was doing.
When I drove the bike down to Rivers' Greenwich Village studio to deliver it, it began to overheat and seize up on me. In retrospect, I think I had neglected to properly size the piston-ring end gaps.
The next morning, Larry called. "Oh boy, there goes my Aston Martin," I thought.
No, Rivers said that the bike had been stolen overnight from outside his studio. He never even got to ride it. What a shame
watching someone who is really good at using construction equipment to complete a job, is a pleasure
the above is an example, and the best of the 6 on Youtube, but for a very impressive job done skillfully, see https://www.facebook.com/mrlindab/videos/879715859171931/
https://www.facebook.com/mrlindab/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBvEMF8wsuIkQFuYriT1kYw
A fun new trend among Australians during quarantine has made the news, leaving the house to take the trash bins to the curb with panache (thanks Will !)
it got started with a facebook group "the Bin isolation outing" Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/306002627033697/ has amassed almost a million members in under two weeks.
two weeks ago thieves stole the copper pipes and brass fittings ready to be mounted back on, to complete the restoration of, the 1904 steam locomotive Horden - only weeks from completion, but the restoration was halted due to the virus lockdown
“This theft has not only put back this historic restoration but left the Trust, who manage the railway, devastated during an already difficult situation fraught with financial losses from visitor income.
Tanfield Railway Trust chairman, Derek Smith, said: “Our volunteers have put thousands of hours into the restoration of Horden, which was only weeks away from hauling trains for the first time since 1972. The theft will put that back months and cost more than £20,000; money that we can ill afford at a time when we have no income.
“Anyone being offered copper piping and brass as cut up scrap, or anyone who witnessed anything suspicious in the area, is asked to contact police via our ‘Report an incident’ page, quoting log 300 280420.”
Donations to support the restoration of Horden can be made at https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-support-tanfield-railway?fbclid=IwAR3T0bG-P1SFjY701Ft1Vmc6kPAbUSXsyikIAlcR7U9R302psM6ntUyibRI
The Tanfield Railway will celebrate it's 300th anniversary in 2025.
The Horden has very little left to be done for completion of it's restoration, the cab window spectacles, fitting handrails, installing the chimney, the pipework are awaiting the completion of the engine's painting, lining and varnishing before the fitters can clamber around to fit it.
https://www.facebook.com/northumbriapolice/posts/10157375998586309
Thanks to Steve for the news! Without readers letting me know about things they run across in local news, I'd never learn of these things, and wouldn't be able to help spread the word
Wednesday, May 13, 2020
Peter Ustinov exiting a English taxi... what a fantastic raconteur, and Aston Martin fan
For a wonderful romp that I've adored since 1975 or 76, watch Blackbeard's Ghost. It co-stars Dean Jones, the beautiful Suzanne Pleshette, and of course, my favorite Disney actor and inventor of the T Bucket, Norm Grabowski. It's on Disney + if you've got that. He also voiced Prince John in Disney's Robin Hood
And with David Niven in the paddock with an Aston Martin
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, 3 time Emmy winner, a director, writer, journalist and raconteur fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, and also was a native English speaker.
His father was a MI5 agent for British intelligence before the war, he warned the government seven months in advance of Hitler's intention to invade Czechoslovakia. He was of one quarter Polish Jewish, one half Russian, one eighth African Ethiopian, and one eighth German, descent, while his mother was one of Russian Imperial Theatre's finest artists who emigrated and made a career as theatre an film set designer of one half Russian, one quarter Italian, one eighth French, and one eighth German, ancestry.
At age 18, he was on the London stage, by 21, he had two plays running in the West End.
In 1960 came his best film acting as Batiatus, the self-disparaging slave dealer in Stanley Kubrick's film Spartacus. Fellow actors still analyse the almost throwaway technique of understatement with which he upstaged Laurence Olivier during that player's prime and held his own with Charles Laughton, a grand master of underplayed idiosyncracy. It won him an Oscar for best supporting actor
From 1942-46 Ustinov served as a private soldier with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in The Way Ahead (1944) (aka "The Immortal Battalion").
His first car was a £200 Fiat Topolino, but as his acting career progressed he bought exotica such as an 11.3 litre V12 Hispano-Suiza
Bernard Cahier recounted the story of Peter Ustinov’s first Hispano. Cahier had been asked by Ustinov’s wife to find a great Hispano as a birthday present for the actor’s 40th birthday. Cahier, who had the best possible connections in the car world, found a great and very huge J12 Limousine with coachwork by Binder for his friend. The surprise present was a great success and Ustinov was almost crying when he saw the car in front of his home, he couldn’t believe his eyes, he had been dreaming of owning a Hispano for so long.
and a pre-war Delage which had the following instruction stamped on the engine, in French; If you use oil which is too heavy, many bad things will happen to you. Other classic cars owned by Ustinov included an Alfa Romeo Giulietta, an Aston Martin DB2/4, an AC which he toured Norway in, an Alvis Speed Twenty and a special-bodied Jowett Jupiter.
he loved cars so much, he made this album, which due to his fluency in so many languages, and his comedic acting excellence, he voiced all by himself.
Bernard Cahier wrote that Ustinov was completely crazy about cars, as well as car racing; he attended many races and was a good friend of many racing drivers such as Fangio, Moss and Collins.
Those energetic engines noises are him, sounding like a beatboxer being plagued by mosquitoes. Vintage F1 fans will identify the protagonists; Jose Julio Fandango (Juan Manual Fangio), Girling Foss (Stitling Moss) and Bill Dill (Phil Hill). There’s a thorough character assassination of Mercedes’ legendary team boss Alfred Neubauer, too. The nationalities of the teams are beautifully parodied; The French are suffering from industrial action and are running their car on cognac, the Germans are highly secretive and complain about everything, the Italians overly excitable and the Brits slightly shambolic. The American car has been lightened to better perform by fitting a slightly smaller clock. Fandango speaks only via a translator, all voiced by the brilliant Ustinov himself.
https://www.motorpunk.co.uk/articles/peter-ustinov-unlikely-entertaining-petrolhead-audio/
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001811/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
https://voxsartoria.com/page/325
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/mar/30/broadcasting.artsobituaries
https://crankhandleblog.com/stories-2/the-stolen-ustinov-hispano-1/
thank you Phil!
At court the new owner asked Ustinov to prove he was the owner (in France we have got registration card and a registration card for antiques. Ustinov had the original registration card, the new owner had a registration card for antiques. (it is easy to obtain for wrecks, it is delivered by the Federation Française des Véhicules d'Époque).
The court asked Ustinov why he has not taken care of this car for many years and he lost the trial !
The kid that took off from his babysitter, in his parents Journey who told the cop he was going to buy a Lambo... yeah, that kid. Looks like a 10 year old, but now gets to hang with Jamie Foxx in Malibu, and face time with Shaq. How does that make any effing sense at all, especially during this quarantine?
His parents told him no they would not buy him a Lamborghini, so the kid from Ogden Utah decided to drive to California to buy one. When his 16 year old sister/babysitter wasn't paying attention, because instead of watching her siblings, she went to sleep, he grabbed the keys to his parents’ Dodge Journey and took it for a slow ride down I-15.
And was pulled over by Utah highway patrol.
He knew how to drive from his experience behind the wheel of his back yard electric toy car.
Now A list celebs like Jamie Foxx and Shaq reward his bad moves with unprecedented play time. WTF are they doing to this kids ethics, morals, punishment, behavioral thinking?
Giving his brain a Hollywood reward for stupid, reckless, and dangerous driving on interstate 15? Makes no sense to me.
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/5/8/21252255/5-year-old-driver-freeway-prosecutor-no-charges-parents-i15-ogden-weber-county-attorney-lamborghini
https://www.deseret.com/utah/2020/5/4/21247196/5-year-old-boy-driver-lamborghini-pulled-over-in-utah
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-8315959/Jamie-Foxx-hangs-viral-5-year-old-stole-parents-car-buy-Lamborghini.html
https://kutv.com/news/local/5-year-old-recounts-being-stopped-by-utah-trooper-after-driving-family-car-on-freeway
Sergio Pininfarina.
Sergio Farina was born in Turin. After joining his father Battista Farina at Carrozzeria Pininfarina, he quickly became integral to the company, and during his career oversaw many of the designs (particularly Ferraris) for which the company is famous.
In 1961, by decree of the Italian president, his family surname was changed from Farina to Pininfarina to match that of the company.
In 1965 it was Sergio Pininfarina who personally persuaded Enzo Ferrari to adopt a "mid-engined" engine configuration for a new line of road cars
https://voxsartoria.com/
in 1995 Levi's 501 jeans had an advertising campaign I really admired, as I found I was the audience they were targetting, with 501 reasons to want to wear a pair of 501s
and that, was reason 43. Soap box derby racing.
No. 061 "Ironing sucks"
No. 013 "64% of female sexual fantasies include them."
No. 7 "In Prague, you can trade them for a car."
See what I mean? Oh, and the kid driving? Is Kate Moss' brother
Foote Cone and Belding was the ad agency from San Francisco, and they did not have a #1 reason to wear the 501s. Isn't that odd?
Reason #2, that's a dangerous place to put a zipper
What has been annoying me since 1995, is that I only ever saw the Levi's commercial with the Super Bee once. It was reason 42 I think... but I can't remember for sure
and I bet you didn't know that Spike Jonze and Gus Van Sant directed two of these commercials, or that Brad Pitt drove a Galaxie 500 in a Levi's commercial
but did you know they can be used to tow a car?
for an outstanding analysis and investigative journalism research into why Levi's dropped out of the market after the 1995 "Reasons" ad campaign, read https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/red-white-and-blue-levi-strauss-co-24494/. I didn't even know there was a 1970s settlement of a federal price-fixing case.
David has got this Texaco theme complete in his garage
How the hell the good folks at Hemmings or Hagerty haven't done a feature on this garage is a mystery and a shame
Tuesday, May 12, 2020
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