John Deere 4WD farm tractors are a common sight in the Netherlands, both on- and off-road. Outside the city areas, you simply can’t miss them. That is, if you pay any attention. Here’s a number of them, standing still, just posing for the camera.
King & Daul Tire Co. circa 1951
Whenever the path of progress leads you back in time, the rabbit hole awaits. Like when renovations to an old building reveal an earlier incarnation, maybe a classic structure hidden under layers of modern facade. This sort of reverse transformation is currently taking place in my hometown of Bellingham, Wash., where King & Daul Tire Co. once anchored the corner of State Street and Chestnut. The building that is re-emerging was built in the 1920s, altered in the 1930s, and is now entering its second century. Over the years, the evolution of this building has been well documented, and can serve as a timeline for 50 years in the tire business. As such, its longest affiliation seems to have been with Mobilgas, available “at the sign of the flying red horse.” Read the rest of this entry »
1929 Cadillac Model 341-B Fisher 2/4-passenger convertible coupe with Synchro-Mesh transmission / Mecum Auctions
Before about 1930, most cars used unsynchronized sliding-gear manual transmissions, which were aptly nicknamed “crash boxes” because shifting without clashing gears took real skill. In 1929, however, Cadillac and LaSalle introduced a revolutionary new feature: Silent Synchro-Mesh, which allowed clash-free shifting. Here’s the story of how engineer Earl A. Thompson developed that important innovation and sold it to GM in the 1920s, a rare case of an outside inventor making good in Detroit.
(first posted 5/18/2013) My phone vibrated. It was a text from my brother, with this photo attached. “I’m in Columbus, Ohio, and look what I found!”
“What is it?” I texted back.
“I don’t know; I hoped you’d know!”
He’s not a car nut, but he knows I am. And he knew I’d go digging for answers.
Canadian cars and trucks are the mother-lode of badge engineering. Mercury trucks came about due to a quirk of the Canadian Ford dealership system due to the sparsely populated areas of Canada. Many smaller towns would have either a Ford-Monarch (Mercury in US) or a Lincoln-Mercury-Meteor (Ford) dealership but not both. So starting in 1946 Mercury received its own version of the Ford truck line. So why weren’t they called Meteors? To keep you Americans confused. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve posted a photo before of this Falcon wagon that lives in my neighborhood, but when I saw it with a heavy load attached, I thought it was worth digging my phone out. Then I realized that the boat trailer wasn’t really hitched up to it. Still, a second generation Falcon wagon is always worth spending a few pixels on.
Photos from the CC Cohort by Hyperpack.
I won’t deny that I have a fascination of sorts with the wild and outlandish vehicles of the Chrysler corporation created from 1957 to 1961. Now, keep in mind that fascination doesn’t mean admiration or condemnation; admittedly, the cars created at the Pentastar in this era go from the futuristically attractively bold to the outlandish and bizarre. But to ignore them? That’s hard to do. So, fascination, in my case, is the word.
The ’61 full-size Plymouths certainly fall on the outlandish side of the equation. Wild, extroverted, and overwrought fit too. See that face once, chances are you’ll never forget it.
’70 VW Karmann Ghia coupe / Union Jack Vintage Cars
I sold my Datsun 1200 when I went to England for a year in pursuit of my bachelor’s degree. I knew I had no need for a car there, as I could walk the two miles to the university or hitch a ride. However, I missed having some kind of motorized transport, so I bought an old Puch moped for 60 pounds sterling. The Puch (pronounced “pook”) had a 2-stroke engine; therefore I had to squirt a little oil into the fuel tank every time I added petrol.
So Cal Metro found and posted this tired Checker Aerobus. I can well imagine it led a long and hard life. Not all of these were used strictly as airport shuttles, but its name does rather suggest that as its primary market. This was of course in the day before van-based shuttle buses were invented, or at least popularized.
I found one in a more scenic setting a few years back:
On September 25, 1973, Chrysler Corporation introduced a new generation of full-size car, sold by Dodge as the Monaco. Also referred to as the C-body, the exterior was new as were many structural components. This new Monaco was the Dodge successor to the “fuselage” cars that were introduced in 1969.
In early October 1973 the first oil crisis hit. This crisis affected not only the United States but also Canada, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Japan, and later South Africa. By some reports the global price of oil quadrupled between October 1973 and April 1974.
The new Monaco weighed 300 to 400 pounds more than the outgoing model, despite a half-inch reduction in wheelbase, and now had a larger 360 cubic inch (5.9 liter) V8 as standard equipment. This, combined with the timing of their introduction, helped make these new Monacos a challenging sell.
Here’s a time warp traveling object, a 1987 Ford Taurus wagon in what seems almost showroom condition. Oh, fame, fickle fame… The once ubiquitous Taurus, among the best-selling models in the ’80s and ’90s, now seems like a faint memory. But for those who lived those times, this find is certain to take us back to the days of going to the nearby mall and dropping the kids off to go to Sam Goody (or whatever it was they did) while you went to JCPenney and Radio Shack (You have one of those programmable VCRs?). Then drive back home in modern Aero comfort to watch a new episode of Alf, Who’s The Boss?, or Wiseguy (or Star Trek TNG in my case).
It turns out I’ve written over fifty pieces for Curbside Classic now. That pales alongside the efforts of many of you, I know, but I felt it was worth a special something. I had a brainstorming session with my daughter, and I’d thought I’d set aside what I had planned in favour of a post centring on 1950. ‘50s for #50.
If you want to see pictures of perfectly restored classic cars, there are plenty of places on the Web for you to find them. But there’s something truly authentic–even haunting–about seeing a weathered artifact like this ’54 Olds parked at the curb. It brings me back to the days of my early childhood when I would occasionally see cars of this vintage in this condition–battered survivors from a lost world that existed before my time–evoking in me a sense of awe and mystery…
1982 Chrysler LeBaron Mark Cross Edition / Mecum Auctions
In January 1982, Chrysler introduced one of its most important cars of the ’80s: the Chrysler LeBaron convertible, the first factory-authorized U.S. ragtop since the 1976 Cadillac Eldorado. The drop-top LeBaron was greeted with interest and excitement, but it raised some questions: Why had domestic convertibles disappeared, and how is it that they were able to come back?
