Antique & Classic Cars Blog

There was enough sunshine and warm weather to make a drive to Red Wing–specifically Treasure Island Casino–a pleasant outing.

It’s entertaining on such journeys to go light on the pedal, linger here and there and snap a few photos.

Stay in the greater metro and it seems there isn’t a farm left that isn’t crowded by highway or malls or new housing. Not so. And a beautiful old church, free of the same encroachment, may be found among Minn.’s small towns as a reminder of simpler days.

This garage in New Trier, founded around 1856, may be the oldest one in Minnesota. Our best guess is that it was once a fire station, or perhaps stables. Could have gone into the New Trier Trophy House Restaurant next door for the answer, but I was convinced a quick Google search would unearth it. For once, there was a factoid the internet would not yield.

This is the best line in Spinal Tap, the Christopher Guest film that helped popularize the mockumentary. It is, if you’ve only recently emerged from some subterranean cavern, what the guitarist says about one of his amplifiers. It is special because “it’s ‘one’ louder.”

Horsepower’s perennial grasp on the consumer marketplace is a bit like that. The mystery applies to daily-driver commuters rather than fun/collector cars driven once in a while, or raced or dragged; with the latter, some hot-shotting around is a part of the joy. But why a high-horse commuter with 400, 500, 600 horsepower? They go to 11, in theory, but they’re never taken anywhere near their limit because you’d be arrested or die or kill someone or all three. The number of people capable of driving a car of that power on the road at top speed in miniscule. Schumacher, McQueen, Bond.

Be fun to hear someone patting the hood of an AMG Mercedes, saying, “It’s got 550 horses.” You could reply, “I have 600 pens in my desk.” He’d look at you as though you were pretty odd, since you could never use that many.

So why? Why can’t we shake horsepower fixation–and will we even now, with TV and web pages proclaiming the end of the world is nigh (and Jennifer Aniston has a new look)?

I’d say it’s because we just can’t picture anything else–horsepower crosses the daydream barrier. Cars going fast, we know. We like. We can name the muscle cars, the great movie car chases, the burnouts we did or witnessed in high school.

Worthwhile attributes don’t translate to good mental imagery. Bonnie and Clyde or Dillinger wouldn’t have become so notorious with highly efficient cars. You could elude police with a fast car, some lead-footing and plain lead. You couldn’t by convincing them you were getting great mileage, polluting less and that on balance, they should let you go.

And of course there’s money. Speed is power is money and money can, in fact, get you anything. You’ll never see handsome young men marrying 80-year-old women on fixed incomes. You will see 80-year-old men marrying women fresh from a swimsuit calendar for reasons only money can explain.

Cars also have the money/power link. Heavy hitter muscle cars have sold for some of the highest prices ever paid for an automobile, even though there’s no difference in build quality between a Hemi ’Cuda and an AMC Hornet station wagon.

As the economy backfires and smokes, it will be interesting to watch where horsepower goes in the next couple years. Will we get more miles for our money, or will cars come with 300 horsepower and a $10,000 rebate? Can stimulus ever match stimulation?

This has been kicking around the internet for a while, but I hadn’t seen it until a friend and blogger here sent it along: a WWII tank, submerged in a peat-bottomed lake in Estonia, was pulled free by a large bulldozer.

A little searching seems to confirm that this is a true story. About the only think I could think of to produce fake footage of this type would be if the tank were used in a movie and was being newly recovered.

I apologize for the Russian dating link that may appear on the page. Please ignore. The rest of the site is informative and includes both still photos and video clips of the tank extraction.

It’s in extraordinarily good condition and may have had to wait so long, for, among other reasons, a really powerful modern bulldozer to pull it out.

If you grew up watching the cartoon and making the noises, e.g., chuk-yoong-yoong-yoong (automatic jack sound, puts the car in flight–oft heard at 24 Atterbury Drive, Malvern, PA in the 1970s), you’re gonna love this:

51 Episodes, free. Caught one last night.

The hardcore set will understand this tidbit:

“Melange still races…..”

(The show says the name comes from Napolean’s horse, but my 5 minutes of Googling indicates Napolean’s favorite horse was named Marengo. I’ll write that off as a translation error–perish the thought there are any factual errors in one of the defining shows of the 1970s.)

A reader emailed on the Marquis deSoto, ruminating on whether the complete Mercury was still under there. This prompted a little detective work on this cool car. The NYT piece describes it as a ‘98 Mercury Marquis blended with a ‘57 deSoto and 10 other classic cars.

Here’s what I see so far:  it looks like the interior, top, front doors, mirrors and rockers are (mostly) Mercury. The center of the hood looks Mercury too. Then what do we have?

‘58 Lincoln headlights

Dagmar portion of a ‘56 Caddy front bumper

‘57 DeSoto fins, lights, back bumper and trunk lid

‘57 Buick bodyside chrome trim and portals

Anything else stand out for anyone?

Humans are built funny. It’s hard to kick as high as someone else’s face. But it’s easy to put your foot in your own mouth.

My wife had a shoe-leather tasting opportunity yesterday on a roadtrip to St. James, Minn., in Watonwan County. There is a pork plant there whose unmistakable aroma permeates the air.

She’s working as a special assistant state public defender and was in the town, her first ever visit, for some hearings. As she parked and got out, the DOJ hearing officer and supervised release agent were on the sidewalk.

The first words from her mouth were, “Do you smell bacon?” They were standing directly in front of the sheriff’s office.

“It always smells like that,” one of them said. Good thing, too.

It’s such a distinctive smell, and therefore such an obvious remark, you can bet officers occasionally have fun messing with new visitors.

Officer Sternlook: “What did you just say?”

Hapless Visitor:  “Uh… never mind.”

Snow emergency!!!

If you live in the Twin Cities, don’t forget amid shoveling, ice removal, and finding any pets you may have left outside to PUT YOUR CAR ON THE PROPER SIDE OF THE STREET.

The last snow emergency from a few days ago (see post a few down) cost me–and lots and lots of others–money and time. The tickets on my wife’s and my car were time stamped 8:02 and 8:03.

Money’s tight and the cities are motivated! They’ll be inviting hundreds of people to the impound lot over the next 48 hours. Don’t let your name be on that list!

You gotta see it to believe it.

The Marquis deSoto (and other inventions from a New York artist). Check the slide show. Fun stuff.

A few posts down are some model cars from the World of Wheels. Models are fun because you can make them your own. The same applies to full-size cars and motorcycles–part of the reason enthusiasts love them and maybe something those who don’t understand the whole into-cars or into-bikes thing fail to grasp.

The fact that a car is a huge hunk of metal mostly built by multi-million or -billion dollar companies doesn’t mean there isn’t room for unique styling from one or two people with a garage, a torch, a welder, an air compressor, a spray gun.

Here are three totally unique takes on the basic car and motorcycle theme. They look like nothing else on the road and didn’t require Detroit or Japan to handle the details. These machines emerged from their builders’ minds.

For many people, a car or a motorcycle is a way to get to work. For these folks it’s an opportunity to express something unique. Not a bad hobby, eh?

Living in the Minneapolis city limits has many benefits–access to the beautiful parks and trails for one, views of the skyline, quick transit to any of the excellent food, music, beer, theater, comedy and art venues scattered throughout the place, plus short commutes for downtown work.

But snow emergencies go in the other column on the pros/cons sheet.

The city will make some money today because it’s lulled us into a sense of complacency by not declaring snow emergencies for several prior storms as big as yesterday’s.

Still, when your phone rings and the caller ID displays a neighbor’s name you’re not expecting to hear from at 8:15, you pick it up. And when he tells you a nice man is backing his flatbed up to your truck, action is the thing you spring into.

What you’re wearing, whether you’ve showered or combed your hair, who’s watching and what they’re going to say, all recede to the farthest reaches of significance.

When my ringing phone had my neighbor Don’s name displayed, and he provided the previous information, I bolted out the door sockless, jacketless, and 90% witless—but the ten percent I took was enough to convince Mr. Tow to let my Dakota go. Which is key because nothing–nothing at all–spoils a day like standing around the impound lot waiting to part with 200 bucks so you can have your vehicle back to stick it ten feet from where it was three hours earlier, pointing the other direction.

So another benefit of city living–neighbors who are up, alert, and ready to spare you a lot of wasted time and money. Thanks Don!