Antique & Classic Cars Blog

I was talking to my half brother last night, with whom my wife and I and cousins were supposed to have dinner. We canceled because of the snow—too hectic for driving . . .  Minnesotans nixing a family get-together because of a few inches of snow.

This got us laughing about how soft we all are in the 21st century. When our grandfather was little, kids rode to school in a horse-drawn sleigh. On one trip, the sleigh cornered fast and my grandfather, of earliest school age and wrapped in a bear-skin blanket, fell out. Nobody realized it until they got to school, so the driver looped around, backtracked and found him in a snow bank.

We had a relative who was blind. Year round, into her 90s, she followed a rope tied between the back of the house and the barn to milk cows.

Our mother’s grandfather did logging work. He’d ride the logs from Taylors Falls to Stillwater, buy a 50-pound sack of flour and walk back to Center City with it, using it as a pillow when he slept en route. Sure, he may have gotten a lift once in a while, but that doesn’t make his life easy.

So would our forebears, working with their hands, traveling by foot usually—by horse or open cart as a luxury, have skipped a family get-together because they’d have to sit a bit longer in their toasty, high-powered car with its miraculous dark-piercing headlights, sculpted form-fitting seats and concert-grade stereo?

—Probably, but only if they’d been in our time long enough to become as soft as we are.

Next time you’re out buying extraordinary classics overseas, make sure none of them is a national treasure….

I ran into similar trouble trying to sneak Brigitte Bardot out of Paris in 1969. Not sure if it was the femme fatale who caught French officials’ attention or the 5-year-old tugging her by the sleeve through the airport.

A few days ago, we looked at the start of a homemade gasket endeavor for the license-plate light on a TR6. Most people with sense and a roll of greenbacks would have binned the whole assembly and bought a new one, plus gasket: the pot metal base was bent up, broken off at both ends, the gasket was cracked and tattered and the chrome cover was bowed along the back edge.

But the sensible and this enthusiast part ways often. Plus, 250-odd dollars is more than I want to spend for something that bolts to the bumper. Besides, making and fixing things is more fun than clicking a mouse, opening a box, removing an imported reproduction part, and then trying to get all those statically charged styrofoam particles off your hands, shirt, floor, cat.

Stage one was straightening the metal (and calling pot metal, metal, is a compliment. As the name suggests, pot metal, a cheap automotive raw material, is part metal and part pot, or toilet. It distorts easily, straightens hardly, and cracks if you torque it anywhere near as much as you want to.) I used a vise, which worked some but it’s still a little warped. Once bolted down it should sit square. JB Weld, filed flat at the periphery to accommodate our gasket, now holds the mounting bolts on each end. I’ll bolt it down slowly and evenly with those bolts plus a couple sheet metal screws with a washer on them between the lights. The base just needs to be snug, not torqued down like a cylinder head.

The gasket itself is cut from cord-reinforced rubber mat from Amble’s Hardware–taken from outdoor shelves that house all kinds of secondhand goodies. Given the choice, I’d have preferred no cord, but it does make the rubber extremely tough and also helps prevent distortion.

Getting the outside edge right was a simple matter of outlining the chrome light cover, with a little apron for good measure. The rest of the cutting required a template. I used the lightweight cardstock cover of a law magazine sent to my wife that I had previously used under some parts I apparently painted silver. Mark, cut, fit, mark more, cut more, fit more and eventually you get about exactly what you need the gasket to look like. Cut too much and you can use masking tape to reshape the hole.

I used a utility knife to cut the rubber mat. This is slow going and requires a scoring pass, then successive passes till you cut through. I put a junk 1×6 plank under it and pulled carefully, never directly toward the hand holding the mat. (No matter how tough you think your hands are, a hard-pulled utility knife that slips will do ugly things instantly.) As with the template, there was some enlarging necessary to get a good fit. The final task on this piece was cutting grooves to accommodate a ridge in the pot metal base so that it will sit flush on the gasket. I had it darned-near esthetically perfect but I made one more pass before I took the photo, leaving that deeper cut in the middle. Dang.

The rubber-mat gasket was the tough one, lying between the light base and rear bumper. The stock gasket is cut out with internal lips that allow it to seal both between base and bumper, and base and chrome cover. I’m not that good with a utility knife. My homemade approach requires that gasket, then a second to go between base and cover. For this one I used an anti-slip stair tread from my local hardware store. It was the right thickness, is very pliable and, hallelujah, can be cut with scissors.

The template from the first gasket still had enough “meat” on it, so a little more marking and cutting and masking tape yielded the correct outline for the final piece. Trace onto raw material, cut and voila—or nearly voila. Because it’s a stair tread, it has ribs on it. I put these pointing up because the cover contacts the gasket with much less surface area than the base. Before I bolt it all together on the bumper, I’ll mark where the cover touches the gasket and then remove just enough rib with a sharp wood chisel for everything to sit flush.

Here are the pieces. They fit together well, but I’ll have to wait till bolt-up to show you because I couldn’t hold it all together and take a picture at the same time. The rubber mat cost six bucks; the stair tread was two bucks and change. I spent a couple hours and had fun.

(**This title is poached from a cool record store of my youth–Plastic Fantastic, in West Chester, PA.)

As is obvious to regulars here, there is a network of spies gathering information for this site that makes the KGB at its Cold War height look understaffed and poorly trained. The Motormouth Crew never sleeps; they maintain constant vigilance, eyes on the horizon, ears to the road–with a spotter making sure no one gets run over.

Here are some photos from the Alternative Vehicles Team, snapped with one of those tiny cameras that tucks into the end of a cigar.  —Wait, I accidentally destroyed that at a tailgate party. . . .

Point is, this vehicle is an amazing piece of work with a potentially bold future. Think of all the energy wasted, stationary, in those spinning classes at the gym. With a device like this, the same furious pedallers could go from Minneapolis to St. Paul and back, pollution free, seeing the world we live in instead of just the wall or the sweaty back of the person in front of you.

It’s the commuter vehicle that makes you fit. Chart your path so the strongest riders reach their destination last, riding farthest and with a declining number of assistants. Carries ten, parks in one spot, no bailout required. Everybody’s a winner.

Researchers have learned that the body’s sense of smell is directly wired to the brain, prompting immediate reactions to familiar scents. This is why mown grass on the breeze in the fall can take us back years, decades, to a ball field we stood beside as a child on our first sports team.

While that reflex serves some survival purpose—is it prey or predator on the wind?, cars are just as wired to our human hardware. Their look, smells, sounds, and overall impression stay with us, always.

Over the years I have interviewed hundreds of people about their cars . . . why they buy as classics machines that were new in their youths. Fond memories is the common thread. As much as our pals, classmates, teachers and neighbors, the automobiles that filled our driveways and garages, hauled us to movies and skiing and bowling, beaches and dates, dances and jobs, define our impressions of the lives we have led. Surprising, the details we can pull from our minds about a hubcap or a jack or a door handle or a radio knob on a car we have not owned or seen for 20 or 30 years.

The car that defined my early youth was my mother’s 1965 Plymouth Fury II, light blue with slightly darker blue interior, bench seat, three-on-the-tree column shift and bomb-proof slant six. It would hold six youthful skiers plus parent driver in the cabin and all gear in the trunk. Its sharp lines, high roof, stacked headlights, aluminum grille, and narrow, fixed hood ornament graced our driveway from the day I went to kindergarten right up to my college years. That car was as solid, faithful, dependable as any horse or cart to haul person or cargo.

This was the car, at this time of year, that my father, brother and I would take to Wetherill’s Tree Farm to dig our own Christmas tree. My father would put on the same grey wool coat, black leather gloves with grey wool liners, tan Air Force shirt, Levi’s jeans and black leather once-dress-now-work shoes, throw a couple shovels and a saw in the back of the Fury, and we’d all head off into southeastern Pennsylvania’s rolling, wooded hills–often blanketed with snow. My brother and I would be in our matching or comparable Mighty Mac coats, the brand we wore for years off the racks at J.C. Penney’s.

Broad as a church pew the Fury’s bench-seat was, so we always sat three across. In the early days I could convince my younger brother that he should take the middle, but in later years I swapped sometimes—depending on whether we were at a stage of brotherly competition or appreciation. With the column shift, Dad’s elbow was often passing through, so it wasn’t the favored spot. Good view over the long hood, though.

Wetherill’s was about ten miles away, a short hop today but a journey when you’re 10. We’d roll up the dirt drive, tell them we were there to dig our own, and then lumber off slowly down the rows. The good trees weren’t by the paths anymore, so you drove until your tree-sense tingled.

Dad was good. There were lumberjacks in his blood generations back and he could look at the pockets of trees and divine where the good ones stood. And he was picky.

While we loved these trips, my brother and I seldom made the winning pick—and “seldom” is generous. If we were experts at anything, it was finding crooked trunks and split tops and huge bare spots that didn’t show until we had already shouted out . . . and by then, well, I guess the imperfections were a little obvious.

The Fury was integral once Dad had found the annual winner. He’d collect the car, while we stood watch (guard?), and drive it as close to our pick as he could. Then from the car’s expansive trunk–with its grey-and-black plaid liner–we take the essential tools: shovels, burlap square, twine, saw. He’d saw off the lower branches first, those unneeded and in the way of future presents, then we’d dig straight down at a roughly fixed perimeter, marking out the edge of the root ball. Removing the dirt was not the fun part, though this was Pennsylvania, not Minnesota, so the ground was not earthen concrete.

Once we had it down to a beautiful tree perched on a ball of dirt, Dad would make the final shovel thrust to cut it free and we’d lift, roll, jockey and fuss until the burlap square was beneath it all. Up came the corners, round went the twine, and the three of us would again fight gravity and branches until we had that lump of burlap and dirt over the lip of the Fury’s trunk.

It was always dark when we finished this job and the drive home a one-car victory parade. When you’re small, you notice little things like how much more of the world the Fury would show us when my father hit the metal button-pedal to kick in the high beams. We’d often call out for  them—“High beams, Dad! Come on!”

The final phase of the tree trek involved a vehicle more modest, yet equally helpful: the all-metal red wagon that was our family’s wheel barrow. We’d coerce the tree up over the trunk lip again and down onto the wagon for the ride up the sidewalk. Then we’d use the movers’ trick of setting the tree on an old blanket and dragging it into the living room.

The Fury’s work was done then, yet it would see that tree again. We planted perhaps a dozen Wetherill blue spruces at 24 Atterbury Drive and they sheltered the driveway and the Fury as they grew, giving approaching neighbors an alpine view, rather than our plain white garage door. Those that remain are huge now, taller than the house, but they shelter the Plymouth no more.

In the mid-1980s, a friend with a car trailer helped us tow the old Fury to Great Valley Auto Salvage, run by our school classmates, the McDevitts. Tommy McDevitt had assembled a bitchin’ red and white ’57 Chevy from that yard years before, though cars of that vintage had disappeared when the Fury came in. The old Plymouth still ran—you can’t stop a slant six—but the brakes needed work and the car was no longer licensed.

It’s surely gone now—scrapped, but it lives in many minds, solid and willing and dependable, as clear and real and meaningful as any machine in three dimensions. I can hear it still, I can picture the big thin steering wheel and the amount of play in the shifter, the feel of engaging each gear. The squared speedometer is right before my eyes, and the long hood.

There is no folly in owning a remembered classic, no mystery. It is a part of you that you have called back from the past to share your life once more.

We’ve all seen various home-furnishing castoffs, jettisoned by air resistance when drivers or store clerks fail to secure them adequately to a vehicle. These items–chair, love seat, table, book case, refrigerator, etc. may be along the roadside or right in someone’s lane.

Generally, we don’t want to hit something. But what harm could there be running over a soft mattress, particularly in a big truck capable of taming surfaces far more aggressive? Jerome found these photos answering the question.

Turns out, if you hit it wrong, a mattress can be quite a hassle. Perhaps the mattress covering was damaged such that a bit of the inner wire was exposed. Maybe it was folded over. However it lay in the road, this truck’s drive-shaft got hold of its innards and turned a flat rectangle of springs and cushion into a big spun blob of wire and batting.

I picked up the photos from this post, which asserts that the whipping wire tore a hole in the fuel tank, eventually ending the ride. You can imagine the wobble from a drive-shaft churning away at highway speeds with that much extra weight–hardly balanced–rotating with it!

Lesson is, even if the object seems soft–and inviting–it’s better to avoid an obstacle than run it over.

If you can hear the clock ticking in your mind and see with your eyes closed all the unchecked names on your gift list, maybe you’re feeling some holiday stress— Can you get everything you need on time?

How remiss would I be not to mention an easy gift for the car fans on your list? Survivor: The Unrestored Collector Car is just in from the printers. It’s filled with facts and stories about cars that have survived the decades without a major restoration, showing in patina and beauty marks their many years of adventures.

The book covers cars from California to England, including many exciting models from our very own Minnesota. Among the machines featured are a 1925 Amilcar, hidden for half a century in a Massachusetts barn. Red Leonard’s 1959 Plymouth Fury sat nearly as long in a St. Paul garage and remains pristine today, with just over 3,000 original miles.

Winner of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds’ first hot rod race in 1946 is included (a flathead-powered 1923 model T), as is the famous Jaguar SS 100 raced throughout the East Coast by the Today Show’s first host, Dave Garroway. Some of the best unrestored ’32 Fords in the world are covered here, as is a pair of Porsche 356s that have been in the same family for a combined total of 75 years.

The book has two parts. The first talks about the nature and appeal of the unrestored survivor; the second examines many cool and fun examples. I hired some ace photographers, including Classic and Sports Car’s James Mann, Star Tribune’s Tom Witta and former Sports Illustrated snapper, Jerry Lee.

And Tom Cotter, author of the much loved Cobra in the Barn and Hemi in the Barn books, wrote the introduction.

Santa’s not getting any younger and those flying deer can’t move like they did in the Rankin & Bass animation days. Why not give the North Pole crew a break and let Amazon.com send a few gifts for you. Easy as a few mouse clicks. Send ’em Dream Garages too, to assure free shipping. I’m sure they’ll love these books—and I’m not just saying that as the author. Promise. ;^)

When your employer stops by today to tell you to relax a minute, you’re going to burn yourself out, use the break to check out this classic commercial that reader Paul found over at Jalopnik.

http://jalopnik.com/5106163/the-ladies-dig-turbo-rocket-fluid-1962-oldsmobile-jetfire�

It’s both quaint and technical, like a modern oil-additives ad merged with an old sci-fi movie.�

Where there’s a will there’s a way. If there are also stubbornness, playfulness, reckless optimism and a digital camera, there is probably another way too….

My ‘72 TR6 has a license plate light that bolts to the top of the back bumper. It was in bad shape. The potmetal base was bent and the captive anchor bolts at either end had snapped off–they were still with the car only because the hideous cracked, split, warped, bowed, gasket held them there. The lenses were dirty and the bulbs were rusted in the sockets–but still had filaments.

To replace the housing and gasket is over $200. Too much. This car’s a driver so spending a couple hundred on something outside the car that I can never possibly view while driving ain’t happenin’. So I thought maybe I just replace the gasket.

Amazingly Mark Brandow at Quality Coaches in S. Minneapolis didn’t have it. Not even Moss had it! But Victoria British does, for something like $22. It’d be a cinch to order it. But it would be a lot more work and hassle to make one myself, so why not give that a try?

First stop for that effort was Amble’s near Franklin and Cedar in Minneapolis. Amble’s is a like a hardware junkyard. They have old tools, machines, motors, wheels, sheet metal and all sorts of other odds, ends and raw materials. The owner pointed me toward the back door, and there on metal shelves gathering snow, was a piece of rubber mat that looked about perfect.

This job will be a few days in the making but this post shows what’s come so far. Captive bolts reattached with JB Weld. Housing straightened with small wood piece, clamps and then some two-thumbs fine-tuning. Rubber mat washed, marked with a Sharpie and cut to initial shape.

Still have some figuring to do to get it all to fit and look nice…because really, I need two gaskets–one between the base and bumper and one between the base and cover. “Every problem is an opportunity it disguise.” I’ll chip away at it in the coming days. Stay tuned….

A reader sent me this video asking how they did it. I have my theories, which I’ll withhold for now in case anybody else wants to comment.

There’s lots of curious videos circulating out there and it’s often fun to try to see through their tricks.

(This came to me as an attached file, but I found the video on the web page above. It appears to be a family-friendly site, but as always, surfer beware.)