Antique & Classic Cars Blog

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-jetfireÂ

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

And watch this drifting video:

http://tinyurl.com/5fngae

Yeeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

May all visitors to this site have a fine Thanksgiving with family or friends.

Whether your favorite cars sit in rows in a big garage or hang in photos on your wall or form only pleasant dreams, may you find things tomorrow to be thankful for.

As long as we have a few folks we can join for a meal, and trade a word and a smile, things are not so bad, for many in the world do not have even that.

Happy Thanksgiving

It’s a little late in the year for this post. Oh well. I’ve tried to title it in a way that will be easily found from any locale, at any time. Still, just yesterday I saw a bike locked up in downtown Minneapolis that was an easy target for thieves.

Although gas prices are down, lots of people are bicycling to work and elsewhere to save money. Many newcomers don’t know how to lock up a bike securely. It matters because bikes are a high crime item.

When I was at U of M, I biked there every single day for three years. I heard of many bike thefts and observed the aftermath of many more–e.g., bikes missing wheels, seats, other parts, and occasionally, everything but a wheel because that’s all the novice lock-user secured with it.

So here’s my list of tried-in-the-field pointers. Other people may have modifications to this list, but these techniques have worked for me for almost 20 theft-free years.

First the lock. Buy a sturdy U-shaped lock. I use a Kryptonite now and had a Master during school. Don’t use a cable–a stout bolt cutter will go through it like scissors through kite string.

Quick-release items are easy pickin’s for thieves and they’ll steal anything. If you rarely need to break your bike down, replace the seat-tube release with a bolt. Yes, thieves can remove it with the right wrench but very few bother to do so (mine’s never been taken).

They will steal your front wheel. Either replace the front quick-release with a bolt-in axle or remove the front wheel and lock it with the frame and rear wheel every time you park it. Another option I used in school is a little device that replaces the quick-release lever with a special piece operated by an Allen wrench. The Allen wrench is drilled out and the portion of the release mechanism that stays with the bike has a stud through the hole so a standard Allen doesn’t work.

The goal when locking is to lock to something sturdy and to have the lock pass through (encompass) any wheel with a quick release, and the frame. I always remove the front wheel, set it next to the rear drop-out, and run the lock around the front wheel, rear wheel, and rear drop-out frame member. Have a bike shop technician show you how to remove and replace the quick-release front wheel safely.

DON’T just drape the lock over the top tube! As not to encourage more thieves, I will not explain how they overcome your lock when you do that, but it’s quickly done. A guy in my class at U of M got a brand new Specialized mountain bike stolen from the front of the Law School because he locked it this way. You don’t want a lot of empty space or play inside the lock–between the U-shaped and straight lock pieces. When you have both wheels and the rear drop-out plus a pole or bike rack in there, it’s much more difficult to overcome a good U-lock.

Finally, you get what you pay for. A really cheap dime-store U-lock is easier to break open than a high-quality (and therefore higher priced) one. Get a good one and send in the warranty card.

Ride on!

Beautiful weekend and as always motorists galore on the highways.

Here are three unsafe things I observed…. how many times can you do each one before something happens?

1.  Slowing down to merge. Going slower is generally safer–you overtake things more slowly and have more time to react to problems. Merging is different. I exited 77 south (Cedar Avenue), which then loops around and becomes an entrance ramp onto 62 (east in this case). A woman in a Toyota was in front of me and at that critical moment when the ramp begins to straighten out and you need to get on the gas so the difference between your speed and the speed of the cars you’re trying to merge with is minimal, she started looking over her shoulder and braking.

Not safe.

Merging at highway speed leaves lots of time and options; creeping up at 40 miles an hour gives you less opportunity to fit into a gap and encourages further braking and problems for people on the ramp and the highway.

2. Entering oncoming traffic to pass a bicycle. Some drivers are overly cautious of passing a bicyclist, so they go all the way to the opposite side of a two-way road, fully into oncoming lanes. That works when you can see a mile straight ahead. It’s dangerous on hills and curves. Three feet, carefully taken, gives the cyclist and driver room to get along. Way more takes away all of the motorist’s options and requires a major swerve to avoid approaching traffic. Guess who’s in the way of that two-ton swerve? A man, woman or kid on a 30 pound bicycle. Note that we cyclists have a duty to stay by the side of the road and not steer erratically.

3. Motorcycling without a helmet. I’ve seen parents and children on motorcycles bareheaded. Survey emergency-room doctors on the wisdom of doing that. Saturday I saw a guy on a wicked cool lime-green custom frame V-twin. He was bareheaded; his young daughter (presumably) on the back had a helmet. That’s 50 percent right. If you’re wearing eye protection adding a helmet won’t make it harder to crash. But it’ll make it easier to get back up–and the girl on the back really wants you to.

It’s Friday and your boss wants you to relax so you’ll be mentally prepared for the weekend, the essential re-charging days that allow you to be so productive Monday through Thursday when the real money is made.

Here’s a little quiz for ya.

For each of the following cars, identify whether the engine is in the front, the rear or the middle, whether it is air or liquid cooled, and whether the front or rear wheels are driven. (No internet searches before answering :^) )

1. Ferrari 308
2. VW Beetle (”old” version)
3. Cord
4. Chevrolet Corvair
5. Tatra
6. Renault 2CV
7. Tucker
8. Olds Toronado
9. Jensen FF
10. Morgan V-Twin

Answers at the bottom, here. (If you comment, please put it by the answers so readers don’t see them up here.)

AutoWeek has a feature at the back called Photo Without Caption, showing some conundrum confronting drivers.

Here’s a nice paradox out front of Edina’s York Plaza apartment complex. The right sign is plainly visible in this shot.

Here’s the left sign.

Anybody else have their earliest driving excitement piloting go-karts at Wisconsin Dells? The place has been dear ever since, which is why, when Lake Delton drained, it was a must-see disaster.

The hard copy paper ran a photo of it and told how hard it’s hit the town. Here are a couple more shots. Usually “dry lake bed” describes something that changed over decades or centuries. Seeing the site of a 250-acre lake drained to the sand overnight is eerie.

Last weekend, we trekked to Michigan for a family reunion with the in-laws. On the way back, we drove through a little Illinois town called Galien. (The main point of driving through Galien was to see a tiny jail from the 1800s, which we had seen on a prior trip. And the main point of that–seeing the jail–was that I thought we saw it on an Iowa trip and my wife saw the opportunity to prove me wrong–something few spouses can resist.)

Since she was right, a bigger highlight for the town was these tiny treats. At a distance, I thought they were some version of the Crosley I hadn’t seen before. A closer look proved them to be the less sporting King Midget, out of Athens, Ohio.

There were two of the cars outside a church. These little tots run one-cylinder, four-cycle engines less powerful than a typical sitmower from today. If this article is correct, they were good for 40-50 miles per hour and 65 miles per gallon.

They’re from the 1950s and cost only $500-$600, some assembly required. How two found their way to this small town, I don’t know–we went to an antique shop across the way and I was hoping the owners would emerge from the church while we were there but no luck.

It’s been a long time since I ran across anything on these cars and in refreshing my memory, I ran across this piece from Time magazine. How curious that the piece is so  derogatory of the inexpensive, fuel efficient little road-tot. The article doesn’t say they functioned poorly or weren’t as fun as they look. Maybe the author’s quietly jealous of that 65 miles per gallon.

Can’t say the car pushes all my styling buttons but it was certainly fun to see and snap these little guys. (The owners had put more modern Chrysler badges on them. Not sure why.)