Antique & Classic Cars Blog

(This story also ran as a Locals in Motion piece in the hardcopy Star Tribune Cars section. This Thunderbird with its American Graffiti connection is a worthy local classic.)

As soon as he turned 16, Randy Schneider wanted a Ford Thunderbird. A parent had to co-sign for the loan, however, and his father wouldn’t ink a note for $1300—the dealer’s price for the 1956 model Schneider so eagerly desired. Instead, dad agreed to a 1956 Ford Victoria at $500 less.

Years passed and other matters came to the fore, but Schneider held on to the dream of getting a first generation T-Bird. That dream got stoked in 1973 when Suzanne Somers glided across the silver screen in a white one in American Graffiti. Years later, the actor was on TV with Jay Leno, whose passion for automobiles is legendary. He couldn’t help asking her what became of the car.

A couple were accounted for and well known—studios always have more than one example of a feature car during filming—and one, Somers had heard, was in a Quonset hut in North Dakota. Because of his love for this car, Schneider pocketed that detail in his mind.

In the mid-’90s, Schneider was in North Dakota playing golf with some business associates. It started pouring rain and they cleared the course, looking for a cold beer and a place to relax and maybe dry off. By coincidence that quest brought them to Olie Skinningsrud’s farm. One of the men knew Olie, and he was a welcoming host. He led them into a Quonset hut on his farm and turned on the light.

Schneider couldn’t believe it. There, dry and preserved like it was just parked, was a white Thunderbird. “That’s the car from American Graffiti,” he exclaimed. Olie was surprised. He acknowledged that it was, or at least that’s what circumstances suggested. Schneider offered to buy it on the spot, but the farmer wouldn’t sell.

Four years later, Schneider was driving back from Wisconsin when he passed a group of classic Thunderbirds. He thought of Olie’s farm and the Quonset-hut movie car. He called Olie, but the farmer still wasn’t ready to part with the white T-Bird. A few months later, however, he called Schneider. “I’m ready to sell,” Olie said. “Are you ready to buy.”

Only since he was 16. Schneider didn’t bargain; he asked Olie what he wanted for it and they cut the deal. Schneider had never heard the car run. He had never seen the engine. But he tracked down a car trailer and went off with his wife Sharon to pick up his prize.

Today Randy and Sharon enjoy the car whenever weather permits. During the winter, Randy spends a lot of time trying to confirm that this is one of the cars used in American Graffiti. He’s learned that they had three white ones and a black one on the set. The black one was never used. Most of the shots show a ’56 T-Bird and Schneider’s car is a ’57. Yet depending on camera angle and how much of the car is shown, it’s easy to get away with either year. Schneider has studied the film carefully and noted several shots where it’s near impossible to tell.

Olie believes this is one of the Somers cars. The build sheet shows that it was originally sold by Holmes Tuttle Ford on Beverly Boulevard in Los Angeles. Olie bought it from a man in Minot, ND, who had purchased it from Movieland Auctions, which was selling it as excess inventory for Universal Studios. Movie cars get repainted frequently to take on different looks and Schneider’s paint shop discovered 13 coats in various colors when they stripped it.

Schneider has chased every lead that’s come his way, but he hasn’t found that magical, absolute confirmation—or disqualification. Once, he got a number for someone in Universal’s vehicle records department and she was going to look for the Vehicle Identification Numbers of the cars used on the film. Yet when the call came, it wasn’t the VIN but news that the studio’s legal department didn’t want her to release the information. Stonewalled at confirmation’s doorstep.

He has called Holmes Tuttle, which still exists, but they moved years ago and the records indicating where Schneider’s car initially went are lost. He has spoken to various people on the film and they have useful tidbits and further leads. Someday he hopes to find proof that this is one of the cars used in an iconic American car film. In the meantime, he and Sharon have a beautiful car to drive, show and enjoy.

Even if movie proof never comes, the white Thunderbird fulfills a dream Schneider has had since he was first old enough to enter the driving world.

If each of us has a little Butch Cassidy, a little Jesse James, deep in our psyche yearning for a chance to “take the money and run,” that moment comes for the classic-car wrencher when you leave a salvage yard with a part so rare you spent the previous night wondering if they had it right, or if someone will realize the treasure in their stockroom and vanish with it before you arrive.

Last of the wrecking-yard 215 V8 four speeds?

I have enjoyed this feeling twice–each time I had to turn around repeatedly on the way home and make sure what I had hunted, found, cautiously approached the yard with a poker face and a pittance to buy, really was in the back of my vehicle…mine, mine, mine. The first time was when I left Rohner’s in Willmar a half dozen years ago with a 4-bbl 215-ci aluminum V8 engine that I had found and pulled myself (with a strong-backed friend) and which they sold me for 300 bucks. This morning it was a four-speed manual transmission for the same motor, scooped up from Elmer’s, a wrecking yard in Fountain City, Wisconsin.

Shifter and linkage still in place four decades on. Nice.

Manual transmissions were rare on the Buick Special/Skylark (and same-motor-sharing Olds F85) and most were 3-speeds. The 4-speed was an option that only a few performance enthusiasts threw down for. The number of those transmissions remaining in salvage yards 45 years later is very, very–VERY–small.

The bellhousing I sourced with a hunt of its own is really for a 3-speed….

Driving to the yard I had three hopes of varying improbability. Level one was that this really was what they thought it was and not a three-speed mis-identified. My second, less likely, wish was that it wasn’t a bare transmission but included the shifter with linkage. Third–the dream-on, get real, what have you been smoking–level was that, on top of the shifter and linkage, it would also have the bellhousing.

While the bellhousing sits in place properly, the 3-speed holes are too narrow for the 4-speed flange.

Fountain city nestles in a beautiful stretch of western Wisconsin between the mighty Mississippi and hills a few degrees shy of cliffs. Entering town I wondered where between the water and the raucous incline they were storing thousands of old cars. The answer is that the yard lies above town in a comparatively flat stretch of rolling hills and farmland. In fact, on climbing the hill you get the impression all of Wisconsin sits hundreds of feet above sea level except for the narrow ribbon of shoreline carved down by the Mississippi.

Should be possible with a Sharpie, hacksaw, die grinder and some aluminum stock to make the missing pieces and weld them in place, then drill and tap for bolts from the transmission. You need a few challenges to keep things interesting.

There I found the stuff of dreams–hundreds of cars slumbering in the grass, waiting to connect their unplucked treasures with the shade-tree and classics mechanics seeking the out-of-stock, out-of-production, seldom-seen, and totally rare items essential to somebody’s project.

Inside, successful yards have a modern, computerized, Office-Deport-furnished feel at odds with the throwback vehicles that weather the elements outdoors. I casually told the man up front what I had come for, “a 4-speed transmission for a 1963 Buick Special.” I tried to say it exactly as I’d say, “an alternator for a Dodge Neon.” He was the man I had spoken to and he treated the request as any other. I handed him a credit card and went back for a look.

Yeah, baby! The bellhousing bolt holes on the four-speed are wider than a three-speed’s and this was the genuine article. It bore no bellhousing, but the shifter and linkage were more important because I had a bellhousing already and they, to my good fortune, were attached and complete. I tried my best to eye the part with disdain as though maybe they should knock off a few bucks, but inside I just wanted to close the deal before somebody realized I was getting out the door with the rarest part in their inventory.

Back at the desk, I signed off for $110, then went out to the lot and backed up to the bay where I’d eyed my prize. A yard hand set it in the car and I drove off.

No one chased me. No manager came squealing behind to tell me there’d been a big mistake. It was mine. And I was gone.

Looking at it here, you may think I’ve inhaled too much gas or old oil, but if that’s the case you’ve stumbled upon the classics car blog by mistake. A real fan will understand that driving away with your rare old part, the salvage yard shrinking in your rearview mirror, is just like galloping from a Wild West holdup, hoping the marshal has a slow horse and lousy aim.

Gotta shop? Got no ideas for a couple guys on your list? You could throw down for that fake fish that sings when you push a button. You could buy a wall clock shaped like a car. Another hat? Those items might be used, might be appreciated, might get re-gifted.

What about a car book? If the text in interesting and the pictures are good, it’s a nice thing for any car enthusiast to thumb through and read, bit by bit or all at once. And once you’ve got from it what you want, you can put it on the shelf and pull it down again later. A book never becomes clutter; it becomes part of your library and remains a reference and a source for ideas and inspiration.

Here are five readily available books any car enthusiast is likely to enjoy.

1) Dream Garages. Features 21 profiles of garages (in the US, England and Italy), the collections they contain and the owners behind them. Photos are by top automotive snappers like Peter Vincent, James Mann, Robert Genat and Dave Gooley. Favorite car and motorcycle author Peter Egan wrote the forward and I can vouch for the text because I wrote it–and because it’s been a bestseller for Motorbooks, the world’s largest car book publisher. :^)

2) The Cobra in the Barn. Tom Cotter’s breakthrough “barn-find” book recounting tales of rare and wonderful cars “discovered” in barns and garages and often snapped up by the lucky finder.

3) The Hemi in the Barn. The follow-on to Cobra in the Barn, with stories just as interesting and cars just as rare. America’s best known car enthusiast, Jay Leno, penned the intro on this one and one of the great finds ever–Leno’s discovery of the legendary Duesenberg sitting in a Manhattan parking garage for seventy years–is included.

4) Cannonball: World’s Greatest Outlaw Road Race. Although several years old now, Brock Yates’ stories and photos of this, er, unsanctioned dash across the United States–which spawned the movies Gumball Rally and Cannonball Run–is worth every penny.

5) McQueen’s Machines. If you think Steve McQueen was cool and are curious about what cars he actually owned and drove in his personal life–along with many bikes–this book by his son Chad has the inside story and photos. Good stuff.

Then pass it to those who love you most. This roster is your classic car list. The snowmobile and ice fishing equipment haven’t been so useful for the last few winters. Why not make the move to a classic car?

If it needs some work, all the better–you’ll get it cheaper and have something to do when you just can’t face another DVD and you’ve worked through every level on all your video games.

Here’s a list of 25-plus cool cars that can be found for less than insane dollars. Any one of these cars would look good in your garage, great in your driveway, and the view out the windshield and over the hood cannot be beat when it’s your classic.

Ford Mustang
Mercury Comet
Pontiac LeMans/Tempest/GTO
—Firebird
Oldsmobile F85/Cutlass
—Toronado
Chevrolet Monte Carlo
—Impala
—Chevelle
—Vega (good lines; swap out the motor)
—Camaro
—Corvette
—Bel Air
Plymouth Fury
—Satellite
—Road Runner
—Belvedere
—Barricuda/’Cuda
Dodge Charger
—Challenger
—Coronet
—Super Bee
MG (A, B, Midget)
Triumph (TR series, Stag, Spitfire and GT6)
Sunbeam Alpine or Tiger

You will find a broad cost range among these vehicles, with the muscle cars like ‘Cuda, Charger, Challenger, Road Runner and Belvedere GTX being the least value for money because of intense competition and six-to-seven figure values.

Vegas have nice lines but are very hard to find in original condition–most seem to have been crushed or converted for drag racing.

If you can buy any of these cars from a realistic owner (rather than a re-seller), you can still find good deals. British sports cars can still be had cheap, especially the tiny Midget and Spitfire, and six-cylinder Mustangs and Camaros command lower prices with identical great lines to their V8 siblings.

This is a non-exclusive list and of course there are many other cars equally worth buying, fixing, driving and cherishing. Start your search. The holidays are imminent!

Sometimes classic cars trade hands–or never come into them–because a person feels that “parts are hard to find.” Great!! If you love classics for what they are–pieces of a vanishing past–elusive parts is just another quality to recommend them.

It would be a lot less fun finding that original pressing of A Hard Day’s Night at a garage sale if every home you walked into had the complete Beatles vinyl library in the rec room. If you could walk into the woods, close your eyes, draw back your compound bow and be guaranteed of bringing down a 12-point buck when you released the string, would hunting lose some magic? Of course it would. It’s much more satisfying to wait for hours and play a big gamefish than to walk into a store and buy it.

Parts hunting is fun. It’s a game of wits–learning where to look, and a game of patience because you must try again and again. Every miss makes the hit more rewarding.

Here’s a tough-to-find part I searched hard for–a 198 V6/215 V8 stickshift bellhousing. It was a great moment to come back from a grilled cheese sandwich at the local watering hole and find this part in its battered box on my back porch, right where I asked UPS to leave it.

Here’s the tale of the hunt: try eBay and searches like “215 bellhousing, 215 bell housing, 215 V8, BOP V8, Buick V8, Olds V8….” They all turned up nothing. So on to craigslist and the same search–actually an advanced search using “craigslist.org” as a site limiter (because a lot of rubbish sites incorporate craigslist as a search term to try to get you to click on them). A couple leads dried up–link expired. On to Hemmings where you can get some hits but they’re the 215 V8 supplier D&D in Michigan looking to buy them–and resell them to you. While D&D is an invaluable resource to 215 enthusiasts, I wanted one straight from a private seller or wrecking yard. Deep into the searching, I found reference to a 198 V6 bellhousing, the only other bellhousing said to share the 215’s unique bolt pattern. I expanded my search and found a Jeep enthusiast offering one of these bellhousings to someone else.

I was briefly excited until I saw that the post was from 2005…. But my disappointment lasted only for a second before I remembered my own motto–never give up. I joined the site, got the seller’s email address and said if he still had the bellhousing, I’d be interested. He did. He was ready to sell it because he had moved on from that conception of his project.

What was once a buried comment on a two-year-old web page about a “hard-to-find part” made for only a couple years more than 40 years ago is now a very real component in my basement, waiting for a couple other pieces, a warm afternoon, and a day with the wrenches. This part and the opportunity to trade a few emails with a fellow car enthusiast in another state make a classic car project all the more valuable.

With its beautiful architecture, professional hockey team, Fitzgerald Theater hosting Garrison Keillor, the Science Museum, the scenic riverfront, some great bars, nice restaurants, etc., etc., St. Paul is nearly a great city. But to be a great city you must act like a great city and St. Paul thinks like some kids with a tree fort when it comes to parking.

People are a city’s lifeblood. They’re its revenues, its ideas, its diversity, its energy, its wisdom. The tradeoff to gathering so many minds and abilities in one place is that you have to tolerate some chaos, disorder, inconvenience. That’s life in the city. You get some litter, you get some noise. You or your guests may have to walk a block–gasp!!–to get from the car to your door. Big vibrant-urban-melting-pot deal. A block’s walk could do us all some good. It’s normal. It’s good.

Start getting fascist with the parking and the businesses suffer because it’s a pain in the petooty for people from other areas to patronize them because they can’t just park where there’s an open stretch of curb. Or they can park only for an hour. Or two hours. Or they can’t park until after 4, or 6, without a permit. This side.

Come on, St. Paul. Stop discriminating against the automobile. Stop discriminating against students and visitors. Open your curbs and let us park. They’re city streets–paid for and built and repaired and plowed and swept with public money. Let thy people park.

If you had posted a comment to the Motormouth website recently and it is now gone, please accept my apologies. Sadly, though it is a great burden to computer systems, many companies find it acceptable to post their garbage spam everywhere they can sling it.

Along with the genuine and thoughtful comments that readers post here, I get between a couple and dozens of emptyheaded spam posts almost every day. A few days ago, there were over 50 and while clearing them out in a “mass edit” mode, I inadvertently deleted several comments from readers and my own in response.

This was not intentional! Please keep reading and posting and I’ll clear out the spam with a smaller, more accurate shovel. Thank you, KP (Motormouth)

A stressed mind is an unproductive mind. Because employment is king and Fridays are grand-emperor-poobah, this site promotes productivity through a restful often-weekly trivia quiz to ease the mind of employee and employer alike.

If you haven’t squandered too much time on sports and literature, you’ve probably consumed enough important information to answer these questions off the top of your head. Today’s quiz comes entirely from the staple 1960s car-racing anime, Speed Racer.

1) Who is Racer X and what is his “real” name?

2) What is Speed’s girlfriend’s name?

3) Who is his mechanic?

4-a. What is his little brother’s name? 4-b. Name and describe the little brother’s sidekick.

5) Extra credit: What was the Melange and who or what utters the phrase, “Melange still races” ?

Answers at the bottom of this post.

Many of you may have read that Mazda is celebrating its rotary-engined car’s 40th anniversary this year. (Hallmark probably has a card for it.) Engineers have been intrigued by rotary movement, as opposed to the reciprocating piston that dominates the world’s internal combustion vehicle production, because of its smoothness and smaller number of moving parts.

While the crankshaft spins–a simple motion–a traditional piston comes to a stop at the top and the bottom of the cylinder with every revolution. In a conventional automobile idling at 1,000 RPMs, every piston is being hurled into motion and stopped dead again two thousand times per minute. That’s a lot of wasted momentum and a lot of herky-jerky activity to dampen for a smooth ride.

The rotary avoids the stop-go-stop-go nature of the regular piston engine, but it is not without its drawbacks. Just when manufacturers were getting excited about the technology in the 1970s, gasoline prices began to rise and emissions requirements grew more stringent. The rotary of the day was not very clean or fuel efficient, so most manufacturers backed off.

Mazda didn’t and its RX7 sports car became a runaway sensation for the company. The third generation of that model was twin-turbocharged, had smoking sexy lines, and could back them up with outstanding performance. The technology is very sophisticated though and a limited number of mechanics able to fix them properly has been cited as the company’s reason for discontinuing that model in the US. Sales continued in Japan and the car’s popularity held strong here among “tuners.” The 3rd gen RX7 features prominently in the Fast & The Furious films (and is on my wife’s short list of cool cars she’d like to climb into at the end of the work day).

Perhaps last Friday’s trivia quiz was too long or too intense… only a couple people stepped up with comments or gave me grief via email.

Today I’ll go shorter–five questions instead of ten. Because such exercises are both good for your brain and relaxing, your employer would probably rather you did ten, but I can’t shoulder corporate productivity on my own each week.

See if you can pull the answers, as I do, out of your memory from years of reading car magazines and talking to car folks and watching TV and movies—that is, from partaking in popular culture. (You can always double-check with Google.)

1) What do the ’70s band REO Speedwagon and the General Motors division, Oldsmobile, have in common?

2) Which manufacturer’s bikes did Evel Knievel ride?

3) Where did the Edsel get its name?

4) Why is a flathead so named?

5) From what vehicle was the Monkeemobile (That is, the car the TV band, The Monkees, drove) created?

Answers at the bottom of this entry.