The old drag strips are disappearing. I have an article coming out about an abandon drag strip right in my backyard.
Terminal Island in the Port of Los Angeles didn’t play by the typical drag strip operations manual. Intermodal shipping containers surrounded the strip and served as the basis for some of its structures. It had no national drag racing organization affiliation, and everybody pretty much run what they brung. It opened and closed nearly a dozen times over the course of three decades, and now, in the midst of an LAPD crackdown on street racing in the city, fans of the drag strip are working to bring it back.
“Our main goal is to keep everybody off the streets,” said Donald Galaz, a lieutenant with the International Brotherhood of Street Racers and the founder of Project Street Legal, an initiative to return racing to Terminal Island. “But you know the way politics is – the wheels go very very slowly.”
I remember my first drag strip experience, it was in the middle of a corn field in the middle of Texas (just outside of San Angelo). I recall thinking how awesome it was to have a place to test your skills – legally!! I wonder if it’s still there?
Two men were charged late Friday with drag racing on East Andrew Johnson Highway, Greeneville police Officer Joe Prokop said in a report. Charged were Justin E. Aiken, 21, of 127 Sam Aiken Road; and Kieffer L. Keller, 20, of 1500 John Graham Road.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The dragster is all black, and its driver is dressed in all black, too, from the top of the helmet right on down to the shoes. For a long time, no name was displayed on the sides like there are on other machines. It goes to the line …
Here are your Auto Factoids for the last week of Dec 2014.
– Charles Goodyear was born Dec 29, 1800 in New Heaven, Conn. 39 years and 4 days later he developed vulcanization or rubber (Jan 2, 1839)
– Jan 1, 1942 was the date that the us Government banned the sale of all non-essential car and small trucks in an effort to save valuable resources for the war effort.
– Back in 1966 on Jan 1st, Dodge rolls out the Charger.
1966 Charger Love the lines!!!
But it has had some changes over the years.
1969 Charger – Nice!!!!!
1987 Shelby version of the Charger.
2010 Dodge Charger – not a great looking car.
2014 Charger – looks make you want to yawn…but it can move!!!!
– Chevy debuts its first air-cooled engine on Jan 2, 1923.
Copper/Air Cooled
– On Jan 2, 1957 Ghia announced the production of the Crown Imperial limo.
Here is an 1958 Chrysler-Imperial Limo example. That’s a nice looking car!!!
Thanks for reading this installment of #AutoFactoids.
Tim
NOTE: If you’d like to sponsor an Auto Factoid contact me. With thousands of views every day you will get noticed!!!!!
Dec 15, 1861 Charles Duryea was born in Canton, Ohio. He grew up to be an engineer and with his brother Frank, they began production bicycles. By 1893 they test driving the first U.S. gasoline powered vehicle. It was a …
Let’s get right to the glory and the tragic historical events of this weeks Auto Factoids. June 10, 1927 the Graham brothers purchased Paige-Detroit Motor.
If you thought last week was light…this week is weak!! Buick became a corporation back in 1903 back on May 19. It eventually became a major General Motors brand.
By the late ’60s, VW was in a legitimate full-on panic about replacing the Beetle: somehow, they never really managed to figure this out. The Beetle was just selling too well for too long to worry until it was almost too late. Eventually, the Golf saved the day, but there was a brief moment where it looked like VW’s salvation would be much weirder.After VW bought NSU and Audi in the late ’60s, the much more conventional water-cooled, transverse front-engined Golf/Rabbit was derived from NSU/Audi designs and saved VW’s bacon, as well as set the company’s fundamental technical DNA to this day. But this was a sort of last-minute desperation plan. The goal of replacing the Beetle as VW’s core product went back much further, and almost culminated in a surprisingly sophisticated and unusual car, the EA266 prototype.
I don’t know about every car gal and guy, but I don’t enjoy shopping as a rule, clothes, gifts and food shopping is a chore!! To be honest shopping for new or used cars is not a great time for me. At times, even car parts shopping can be annoying. I’m much happier when I get what I need and get back to wrenchin’.
But today was different. Today’s shopping experience was…well…the perfect setting for my kind of shopping.
There is nothing like a 50 degree day here in Southern Arizona and a junkyard where the newest cars there is 1970. The weather was perfect for climbing over cars, that would normally be like walking on a 150 degree griddle in the summer time, wading through a sea of 1930, 40’s, 50’s, 60’s hub cabs and trailblazing through the tall weeds in search of my next project car.
Yes the 1970 Mustang is gone – living a life of leisure in a collection in the mid west and the 1984 C4 is in the hands of a Corvette lover – south of the border. And after clearing the purchase of a new project car with the she who has to put up with the mess and I am on the hunt.
Today I met up with my brother-in-law and my nephew and we did execute a perfect car guy’s shopping excursion.
This was a good sign!!!!
The salvage yard has been in place for 60 years or more, I’ve known the owner for nearly 30 years and recently the place was damaged by some huge flooding issues. The owner isn’t in great health is clearing out some of the desirable cars.
The car gods were shining some light for this shopping trip.
He was mainly a Ford car, restoring and collecting Model T’s (including a Model T doing duty as a tow truck) so there are a lot of Fords – Comets, Fairlanes, Falcons, Ford Customs, Thunderbirds and on and on. There are a few MOPARs there as well, including a 1971 Charger and a Satellite with a 400 under the hood. There’s a few Chevys as well and Covairs, Impalas and 50’s Caddies and some very cool military Kaiser Jeeps.
We covered a lot of ground and I’m look for a complete car – mostly. Here in Arizona the heat is not kind to the interiors, so they is little doubt that an interior will be a necessity. I need to it to have the basics – good frame – engine, front and rear ends in-tack and depending on the car good glass.
So what caught my eye (beside everything I mentioned above)?
1961 Comet – Nice little 2 door car with 6 cylinder under the good (oh yes there’s room in there for something bigger for sure!!!).
Nice straight body – got to love those tail lights!!!
Interior is mostly there!
There was also this Mercury Cougar, clearly used for a race car based on the stickers on the side and the tires.
Cougar!!!!
I also found a car I’ve been interested in getting my hands on for a few years and that’s a 1970 Thunderbird.
Here are a few more shots from the yard.
While I’m waiting for the owner to give an idea what he wants for the cars I’m interested in, the hunt continues!!! This was a great day!!!!
Racing game enthusiasts may have been dismayed when Bandai Namco delayed Project Cars from its holiday release. To ease fans’ wait, the publisher has released a set of screens showing off the racer’s new tracks. Project Cars‘ new tracks are the Mazda …
We’ve all seen optimistic “project cars” listed for sale online–worthless run-down husks whose owners still believe there’s value hidden somewhere between the rust and the missing parts. That’s why you need to read this eBay listing for a BMW Isetta …
Dec 15, 1861 Charles Duryea was born in Canton, Ohio. He grew up to be an engineer and with his brother Frank, they began production bicycles. By 1893 they test driving the first U.S. gasoline powered vehicle. It was a used horse drawn buggy they purchased fro $70.00. It sported a single cylinder 4HP engine with friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition. The car was then stored in 1894 and found and given to a museum.
Charles and Frank – left to right in there first car.
1894 Duryea
These brother went on to create Duryea “Motor Wagon Company” and produced 13 hand-made cars out of their garage. These were the first commercially produced automobiles in the U.S. This wasn’t their only ‘first’. The Duryea car won the first American car race and was involved in the first traffic accident. Charles and Frank parted ways in 1898 and Charles died in 1938. Frank formed the Hampden Car company. To actually produce the cars brother Frank sought out the services of J. Stevens of J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company. This eventually lead to the Stevens-Duryea cars being produced.
This is the Model C Touring car. Production continued until 1927.
New York City creates the first one way street Dec 17th 1791.
Ford names Lee Iacocca as president 10/18/1970.
Dec 20, 1892 Pneumatic automobile tire patented. The original patented was by Robert William Thomson who invented the first pneumatic tire but apparently never caught on, however, John Dunlap’s did.
Harvey Firestone was born in Columbia County, Ohio on Dec 20, 1868. After high school Harvey worked for the Columbus Buggy Company . In 1890 before starting his own company making rubber tires for carriages. By 1900 he began marketing tires for automobiles and then founded the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, a pioneer in the mass production of tires. In 1926 he published a book, Men and Rubber:
Sears, Roebuck & Co show off the Kaiser built Allstate, Dec 20, 1951. The Allstate was built on Kaiser-Frazer platform and marketed by Sears. It was a 2 door, fastback and came in a Series 4 and Series 6 with several different trim levels.
Let’s get right to the glory and the tragic historical events of this weeks Auto Factoids. June 10, 1927 the Graham brothers purchased Paige-Detroit Motor.
Auto Factoids – 1970 Mustang – Ford Assembly Line http://timsweet.wordpress.com/2010/12/01/auto-factoids-1970-mustang-ford-assembly-line/ December 1, 2010. Today is the anniversary of the assembly line created by …
The Collectors’ Car Department at Artcurial has discovered 60 collectors’ automobiles, all major marques dating
from the early days of the motor car through to the 1970s. Found following fifty years of lying dormant, the Baillon collection
will be sold by Artcurial Motorcars in the first part of the traditional sale at Retromobile Salon, on 6 February 2015, in Paris.
The forgotten Baillon Collection will be auctioned at the annual Retromobile event in Paris next February. The lots include some of the most desirable Ferrari’s and Bugatti models and is sure to provide a talking point for the classic car market for …
It will be the star lot of Artcurial’s Baillon Collection sale in Paris on Feb. 6 with an estimate of 10 million euros, or $12.4 million. Another example of this rare car, this time in smarter “concours” condition, sold for $15.1 million at Gooding in …
… « Depuis la révélation de la collection Schlumpf de Mulhouse, jamais une telle réunion d’automobiles emblématiques n’avait été dévoilée, mais plus encore, dans un tel état d’origine ! », a confié Matthieu Lamoure, Directeur d’Artcurial Motorcars.
MOSCOU – RIA Novosti/La Voix de la Russie Une collection d’environ 100 véhicules anciens de grandes marques – des voitures sport à celles de luxe – a été découverte dans une ferme en France, a annoncé lundi le magazine Artcurial Motorcars. Diaporama …
In the pantheon of lust-worthy Mustangs, the Special Service Package cars tend to hang out at the tip-top of the mountain. Fitted for police pursuit duty, the cars came from the factory with a bushel of parts to go faster and stop shorter. The two cars pictured here are reportedly the first SSP Mustangs ever built. Ford whipped them up in December of 1981 as test cars for the California Highway Patrol and the State of Texas. Of the machines CHP tested that year, these two were the only cars to pass the department’s performance tests. California ordered 400, and the SSP program was officially under way.
Owning one of these cars or any former police car is a great part of the car collecting/restoration hobby. But keep in mind there are rules for what equipment/logos, etc. that can be on these cars while they are driven on public streets. Each U.S. state has different rules, research those.
CHiPs, I met a few of those guys driving the roads of Southern Cal.
One of the cool things about cars from the 50 and 60 was each marquee had the ability and willingness to set their sub-brands apart from each other with design and power plant options. That is evidenced by the GM’s development of the 215 small block.
Used by Pontiac, Buick and Oldsmobile for powering multiple makes/models each GM subdivision add its own unique at aspects. For this post we are talking about the 1962 Oldsmobile 215 aluminum V8. The Oldsmobile version of this engine, although sharing the same basic architecture, had cylinder heads and angled valve covers designed by Oldsmobile engineers to look like a traditional Olds V8 and was produced on a separate assembly line.
Among the differences between the Oldsmobile from the Buick versions, it was heavier, at 350 lb. The major design differences were in the cylinder heads: Buick used a 5-bolt pattern around each cylinder where Oldsmobile used a 6-bolt pattern. The 6th bolt was added to the intake manifold side of the head, one extra bolt for each cylinder, meant to alleviate a head-warping problem on high-compression versions. This meant that Oldsmobile heads would fit on Buick blocks, but not vice versa.
Most of the 215’s produced 215 HP, however some models came with a turbo.
As is the case with the engine below which is for sale from a fellow gear-head I work with. It was pulled from a 1962 Oldsmobile Jetfire and restored back to factory specs, with the exceptions of harden valve seats etc. to accommodate unleaded gas. It is set up for 7lbs of boost from the turbo. It was then stored, here in AZ.
If you are interested drop me a note at AGCARRESTORATION@COX.NET or timsweet@cox.net or just leave a post here and I’ll find ya!!
first-turbocharged-car-1962-Oldsmobile-Jetfire-engine-detail. The V8’s 10.25:1 compression ratio resulted in detonation or pre-ignition events, innocuously called knocking or pinging. Controlling the timing of the combustion …
The concept was not unknown at the time, of course — the Oldsmobile Jetfire engine had a wastegate, as well as fluid injection. (In fact, there was a switch at the bottom of the injection tank that automatically popped open the …
Ford has said very little about the upcoming 2016 GT350, aside from telling us a few of the specifications. One of the key things they’ve neglected to mention so far has been pricing for the latest collaboration between SVT and Shelby.Horsepower Kings, is saying that they were able to get the inside scoop on much of the pricing plans for the upcoming flat plane crank powered Mustang. According to Horsepower Kings, the GT350 will have a base MSRP of $52,995. This would put the car under the price of its key competitor, Chevy’s Z/28, as well as below the previous generation GT500.
Ford just unveiled the new Mustang Shelby GT350, a ferocious-looking, track-focused thing with all-new adaptive dampers, giant brakes, and Ford’s first-ever flat-crank V-8 engine. The company isn’t spilling details on things like horsepower, torque, or …
The 2015 Ford Shelby GT350 Mustang was one of the shining stars of this year’s Los Angeles Auto Show. And the Blue Oval’s latest muscle car might even have reason to burn a little brighter if a recent rumor about its price proves true. Best of all are …
The original GT350 was Carroll Shelby’s first kick at the street-legal high(er) volume performance car can. Shelby’s mandate with the GT350 was clear from the beginning, but the lump of clay that Ford continually handed him was, well… lumpy. Even …
