Category: Cars

All right. We are almost done with box number four. Let’s recap. We’ve talked about the car books… More of a recap for me, cause you have no idea that I just took a three hour break. This is more or less our section on auto mobiles. Let me get nice and close and comfortable for the viewer enjoyment. In the name of the people, Origins of the VW Beetle, Winged warriors of Chelsea, Sir William… I’ll let you look at it. You can pause and read for yourself.

Look at this advertisement, the Chevrolet review 1923, February. You know it has to be somewhere cold because I’m in Charlotte right now. It’s January. This is 1980 edition and there’s no snow.

Origins of the VW bug. We’re going to come back to that. I’d read that’s the essay. We’re going to do an essay on that. We’ll look at some of these other cars. Here we go… Rescuing the Chevrolet. What is he talking about here? Look at this one! This is the 1922, 490 touring. This is the 1923 superior series. I like that one right there. What do you all think?

Okay. This is what they said they were going to revive it, the 1923 Copper Cooled Chevrolet. Look at that. It’s in the Henry Ford Museum. A Chevy car in the Ford Museum. That’s funny!

Look at this one. Look at the little Chevy. You know what I’m saying? This is the 1924 Superior Two Passenger Coupe.

This is Jaguar, right here. What are they talking about with the Jag? We might do the Jaguar. What do you guys think? I think the JAG where’s this. Look at these. That’s the old school JAG. You’ve got to get a copy of this book. This is cool. These are old school Jaguars. The 53, the 49, on this side right here. I like this white one, right there. The 57, I liked that. What do you all think? 1961, this is 61, right here. They don’t really have an article about the Jags.

Sir. William, a fresh look at Jaguars background. They do. That’s what we’re going to do this story on Jaguar. They got a whole section on the story of Jaguar. Perfect. We’re going to do it on Jaguar. We’re going to talk a little bit about the origins of the VW.

So just look at pictures. I don’t want to take up too much time. What is this about Hitler? The future Fuehrer led a charmed life at the front throughout the war, but just weeks before they armed Tyson in 1980, he was caught in a poisonous gas attack in Belgium, was almost rendered blind for life. Shipped back to Munich, the [conference 00:05:22] lesson was given a job by the Bavarian army authorities, spying on extremist political groups, both left and right. One of these, the national socialist Germany party, and as DAP, he soon enough took over, for the expression and implantation of his new political ideas and ambition… What has this to do with the car?

Okay. I thought it was a paragraph. No, it’s quite long. Let me see if we can find.. On November 8th, 1923… Just skipping ahead. I thought it was just this little paragraph about Hitler, but no. It’s this page, this page. This is very interesting too. This is going to have to be for a different class. So it’s discussing basically the VW, the Volkswagen, which it’s also talking about. It’s going to be a toss up on which one we talk about. Either we talk about Hitler or we talk about Jaguar. This is the original VW with the engine in the back. You see it? Look at that one.

Now you can see how it’s getting closer to what we see today. You see Hitler in one right there. And that’s all they got for us on that part right there. It makes sense because under the Hitler one, that’s what the VW looked like for a while until this book was… It looks different now, but that’s also because this book is 30 years old, 40 years old. All right. So we’ll all decide whether we talk about Hitler and the VW or Jaguar and the Jag.

If you watched the other episode of the index. But so I’m going to look through and make sure we don’t get another book full of words. And I’m saying, if we’re going to look at automobiles, we at least got to look at the pictures, right? That’s the whole reason I thought they were interesting. If I knew I would’ve tossed them away. All right. We got a quarterly. Yeah. Cause the other one said index on the front. It’s my own fault. I didn’t look at that, but let’s talk. I mean, we got three red ones, a black one and a blue one. Let’s go with knocking out some of these red ones.

Again. We’re going to look kind of like this. So just like you guys are my students in class. I think I’ve seen this advertisement somewhere. I don’t know where I’ve seen it. You see it? I think it’s pretty popular, but let me show you so you can pause. And read your own table of contents.

The forgotten steam buggy, the Duesenberg. I remember the Duesenberg’s number 13, the bad luck, special Duesenberg circuit, 65 auto flea market that PM cigars or PF Sigma for safety sake by seven, 1970 200 miles an hour on the highway. That got my attention right there. Boom. We’re going to do it. Now there’s more, but that, that got my attention. 394.

Oh, I thought they were going to give us a nice picture starting at all, but no, they didn’t. So boom, there it is. You can kind of see 200 miles an hour on the freeway. Of course I’m going to pick the one thing where there’s not a single bloody picture. Are you kidding me? There’s no picture on here. We’ll go backwards. Let’s go find something else interesting. We’ve got to find pictures. Number 13, 374.

Race car driving, I guess. Oh wow. Yeah. Look at him. So the number 13, boom. So here we go. That’s kind of a starter chapter. Race drivers have been known to arouse the ear of other members of their fraternity, but define one of the one or more auto racing superstitions often in an effort to draw special attention to themselves. Appearance on any American track of the unlucky green car, for example is a solid guarantee of extra publicity, but no one has ever created a greener foyer than Wilbur Delane, pictured left. This guy. Him.

50 years ago when he willed his Duesenberg special number 13. So I’m guessing this is in 1925 since this book is around…oh no, 1916. So it was much longer than I thought. Wow, that’s crazy. I didn’t even look that bad. Besides his swim cap, whatever he’s wearing, you know what I’m saying? It looks basically kind of like a person of today.

Let’s get back to where we were. Special number 13 in the starting lineup for the inaugural 300 mile event at the brand new board Speedway in Cincinnati. The date was September 4th, 1916, and then Delane’s action fomented such concern nation among his fellow race participants before and after the event that there is no record of anyone having used that bad luck number again in a major championship race.

During the early days of the motor racing, no standard procedure existed to determine car identification, numbers or starting positions said details were left to the discretion of promoters or American automobile association officials in charge of the various events. Indianapolis, for example, the system in effect in 1916, called for assignment of car numbers by Speedway officials were starting positions to be decided on the basis of speeds recorded in pre-race time trials, as some tracks, however, both car numbers and started positions were determined by the luck of the draw. And it was customary to admit 13 when making a drawing, because nearly everyone regarded as jinx.

So the number 13, I really wonder where in the world did it come from that 13 is an unlucky number? Cause this is 1916 and there were saying 13 was a negative number or like an unlucky number. So what is with this is number 13. Why does everyone say it’s a negative number? That’s not for this conversation, but just my own question.

So basically what he was basically saying is he got the lucky 13 number, just off a dumb luck. He went over to the Fred Wagner of the time, which was the AAA starter. He went up there and he said, “I want the 13”. Wagner said no, Delane challenged and pointed out. There’s nothing to rule book. Can’t have 13 number and boom. So here’s Wagner. And I’m guessing this is Delane insisted that other drivers would object. “I don’t care if they do,” Delane reported, “unless they’re willing to have 13 place in the box with the other numbers and take the chance of drawing it for their own cars, they don’t have any right to tell me I can’t use it. I believe it might bring me good luck”. Wagner finally agreed to at least to consider the request. But when the other drivers learned about it and angry dispute developed. Some threatened to punch Delane in the nose if he didn’t withdraw the request and almost all of them protested that everyone in the rest would be jinxed by the presence of the 13 car.

However, when Wagner finally agreed to let Delane use a number, the protests were pretty much still the other drivers rucking agreed among themselves. That would be better to let Delane use 13, then risk the possibility that any of them would draw the number. “But it’s a stupid kid’s stunt”, explained Tom Allie. Oh, well, no. So this is Delane right here. This is Wagner. And then this is Tom Allie. So some of your beginning race car drivers. He told Delane, “you’ll be putting the curse on all of us. And I bet you five to one you won’t even finish the race.” Delane made known to Allie that he would accept the challenge. If you want to put up $5, just like this one”, he pulled a $5 bill out his pocket. “It’s a crime to take your money”, said Allie. The bet was on.

28 cars answered to starting flag. Ralph de Palma set a pace at nearly 110 miles an hour to grab an early lead, but a connecting rod in his Mercedes broke on the 12th lap and he was out. Mechanical trouble claims seven other cars during the first a 100 miles clutch fails, broken bowels and overheated engines eliminated eight more contenders during the second 100 miles. As Darrio Resta and Johnny African battle for supremacy in put guards at the head of the pack. Jill Enderson studs overturned after hitting a chunk of thread torn from the tire of another car and only 11 cars remaining running as a final a 100 miles began.

The final a 100 miles? How many miles was this thing? What? 300 miles. I think it was 300. Yeah, 300 miles. So out of only 11 cars, how many started anyways? I don’t see them, I’m not going back. But with 70 miles ago, a broken rock in the Hoskins he was driving ended Allie’s chances of winning his bet with DeLane. Bowel trouble claimed two more victims at about the same time and with only 12 miles ago, rest that was unable to start his overheated engine after a fourth pit stop for water. Acken ultimately won the race by a margin of four minutes, 29 seconds over Delane and only five other cars were to go the full distance.

So literally every car broke down. Acken collected 12,000 Delaine six, including the amount of his wager, but Allie won his point concerning the use of 13. At an early meeting of the triple AAA contest board rule eight 11A paternity no card identification numbers were discussed at length and by unanimous vote, 13 was permanently banned from the AAA competition.

Well, I’ll have to find a little bit of a different story since we basically just read the whole story. So it was not unlucky to him. He still, he made money, made $5,000 back in the day. That’s good money. Now they eventually outlawed the number 13 car, but it’s kind of interesting to know that it, at one point in time it was not outlawed. And at one point in time, it actually won money. So that was much better than the index. Hope you guys enjoyed that little story of car history.

All right. All right. All right. All right. Kind of showing I’m a little tubby. Anyways, let’s go with another one of our books from that massive box. I don’t know if I’m ever going to do a box that large again. This is ridiculous. And the amount of books that I’ve found in that one particular box, but hey, hopefully you guys like automobiles because this is what we’re going to be going through for quite some times. We’re going to bring the camera down a little bit. So hopefully we’re going to adjust, excuse me, because we’re… I’m going to try to show you just the pictures. It’s going to be like I’m a little kid. When you were a little kid and they had story time. So we’re going to try to have story time just a little bit. So we’ve got International Listings to Automobile Museums and Private Collections. I like that. That sounds interesting. So 144. But first let’s go through…

What is all this? I guess these are all the different people that own the books. Where is this… What is this? There’s no pictures in here.

This is just a resource guide. This… Boo. I thought there was something in here. Well, now we’ve got to kind of halfway see exactly what this is. This is a four year communicative index. International Roster of Automotive Clubs and Registries, International Listings and Museums. Yeah, I doubt that this is still… Cause this is 1975, right? So what I’m going to do for the actual essay is I will look through and we will… I’ll Google and see which one of these automo- [inaudible 00:02:15] International Listings of Automobile Museums, which museums are still active and relevant for today. 144. What is this beginning part? Index International Roster of Automotive Clubs and Registries. So these are just different clubs. So dude, no one cares. What page are we going to again?

I apologize. 144.

All right. Right here. So what we’re going to do is… Let me give you a brief summary, a little synopsis of what he’s talking about. So I love this little thing. This is so amazing. If you’ve been paying attention, I was holding it with my hand and while my arms were, one, were getting tired. Two, it was really difficult to sit there and show you anything. It’s just much easier. Okay.

Today, in addition to some very fine private collections and sometimes as outgrowth of them, automobile museums can be found throughout the world. Some having gained the prominence hither to held by such greats as the Louvre in Paris, the Prado in Madrid and London’s Tate Gallery. The Museo De Automobile, Carlo Biscaretti de Ruffia in Turin, Italy, not only contains a formidable collection, but it’s also a claimed art, art… Architecturally, excuse me, as one of the most outstanding modern buildings in Italy.

Okay. Okay. And Lord Martha Hughes, National Motor Museum in Beaulieu, England with a monorail to convey visitors throughout the collection and its vaulted, well lit exhibition halls, certainly is a far cry from the old storage barn on the back lot that housed so many automobile museums.

Wow. So yeah, these museums are.. They got a whole bunch. So in the United States, this is going to be interesting to see if some of these are around.

We got in Arkansas, the Museum of Automobiles. Now mind you I’ll give you more of a… Cause there’s no point in me reading it and then me summarizing it for you. So I will summarize it later, but let’s just, while I’ve got another minute or so… We’ve got California. Let’s go worldwide, right? This is all… Well, I’m in North Carolina. So yeah. You know I’m going to look in North Carolina. New Jersey. Where’s North Carolina?

Okay. We do got one in North Carolina. Loot at that. We’ve got two. No, we have more than two because we have the NASCAR Hall of Fame. That’s a car museum. I would think it was. It’s NASCAR, right? Oh, but they don’t say it. We are only talking about, this one right here was oh a Corio collection. It’s a private collection open by appointment. Okay. It’s only open by…Then the Estes-Winn Memorial Antique Car Museum, Biltmore Industries in Asheville open to the public, about 20 cars. So both of them in the United States have about 20 cars. That’s interesting. Now let’s go over… Oh, well, South Dakota, South Carolina, got to check it out. Joe Weatherly Stock Car Museum. Got 12 cars and it says it’s free.

Oh, here we go. Foreign. Right? Let’s see. Let me see if I find anything that’s just… These are museums. We got Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Brazil. There’s a few of them in Canada. Czechoslovakia. So this is old because it’s not Czechoslovakia anymore. Those are two different countries.

Denmark, Great Britain, Germany. Yeah. See? They’ve got, this is really old. They’ve got West and East Germany. That was in what? 1989 it came down. France. So I’m not a hundred percent sure that any of these are still awake or still alive. However, it will be interesting. I’m not going to go through every one. There’s way more than I thought. Right? I thought maybe we would go through maybe 10 to 20, but there’s hundreds of them. Right? Maybe not hundreds, but that’s close enough. Oh, they’ve got some in South Africa too. That’s pretty cool.

But again, I will try to break down the list a little bit more in my essay, since this is from ’75. So it’s 45 years old? Whatever. 46 years old. Right? Your Automobile Quarterly. Not a very interesting book, but it’s the Quarterly Index. So for an index, I guess you can’t really get better than that, right? So we’ll see how well they made their index. If their index has held or upheld the test of time, right? All right.

All right, we got this one. What volume is it? Volume 21. Number two. It lets look at it. See what kind of chapters you got in there. There you can be able to pause it and all that kind of goodness. Let’s just kind of a look around. Chrysler. Now, let’s just look. We got… Oh that’s a sexy one right there. The 1938. Look. They made cars more little, everything was as mini limousine. How did you even [drive 00:00:52] , Oh, that’s the backseat. All right. Yeah. This is the James Young Lagonda.

Oh yeah. Look at that. Imagine getting drove around in something like that. You guys are back there. If you think about, it’s kind of like the horse and buggy, but that’s nice right there. That’s really nice.

The Imperial Chrysler flagship. So here we… Oh, look at this. Above is the Chrysler Imperial Sedan and below is the Chrysler Imperial CG convertible 1931. So this is the 29 and this is the 31. You see them? So a couple more of them. They’re a little different, but you can see. Around the same year.

Oh, wow. They have a lot of them. I like this one. Look at that.

That’s a nice one too. If you remember our Mascots, look at this Mascot.

Chrysler Imperial. So this is how they transitioned over the years.

This is cool.

This is 1960. This is the… You can see it, Yeah… The Crown Imperial Limousine. Originally used by governor of California, Pat Brown.

Then it kind of brings us into the eighties.

All Right. What else do we got in this? This book is pretty interesting. Oh, I’ll try to keep it up here.

Ballot Production Car Era. What are they talking about? What does it say? I see some numbers. I don’t know how to pronounce that. [Inaudible 00:04:12] of Ballot Production above. Floor ground three seat [Inaudible 00:04:16], 2 LS with clamshell fenders and background two seater bear chassis cost six grand. So back in the day, this cost six grand. I thought it was going to be a little bit more descriptive. I saw money. I got excited.

Here we go. We got some old school racing in there. Can you see it?

We might just do an article on Chrysler. Look at these. I take it that the pointy thing at the end did not help in aerodynamics as much as we would’ve liked back in the day, or we’d still be making cars with aerodynamics like that.

Okay. Ballot Production. These are all Ballot cars. This is a old car company. Look a Ballot. A colorful portfolio. I don’t know. What do you guys think? That’s different.

Let’s look at what it is. It’s a…

They’re talking about the preceding page. 1921. The top 1924 type Two Liter three seater… owned by Harrah’s Automobile Collection. So it’s owned by the casino I guess. Okay. Whoa, look closely. That’s a seat back there. You see it?

All right. This is pretty interesting. Oh my bad. So [Inaudible 00:06:37]. Okay. So this is the reason why they had their… See? They got the picture of the aerodynamics. So that’s why they were building them like that. The bad… But they… Institute in the last years, so… Okay.

Oh, wow. Look at this one. They put fins on there and everything. Well, that’s what we’re going to… And there it goes. You guys know what car that is. If you don’t think of back to the future.

Well. Look at that one.

So nowadays cars are kind of just boring. We have our typical cars, but then that’s it. There is another one.

So what we’re going to do…

I don’t know. We’ll probably look at the aerodynamics. The Chrysler was really interesting, but the aerodynamics, I wanted to understand the aerodynamics. Oh, look at this. The old school roughing it in luxury. If you ever want to go camping, if you’ve ever wondered how long ago they were doing camping. 1930s. Wow. 1937. I thought this was like newish. Look. It looks like they are today. I mean the flowers that’s a little different, but that’s like all old things. Everything was flowers. This is how… Look at this. Oh, you got to love the advertising too. They got the car back here. That car had four wheel drive. But this is awesome. This is a 1937 camper by Pierce-Arrow.

“Will the Phoenix rise again?” What kind of car does that look like?

I thought it was a Corvette at first, but it was not. It’s a… Phoenix will rise again. In July 1966, former race driver, John Fitch announced the Fitch Phoenix. Like the DeLorean it was to be a sensible sports car. The clean lines still fresh today we’re painted by Coby Whitmore. The steel body was built in Torino by Frank Reisner, Intermeccanica coach building facility.

Look at this. Lyndon B. Johnson signed a law bill creating a national highway transportation safety Bureau. Yet Fitch says it was years, literally, before concrete regulations were handed down so the Phoenix easily complied with those rules. Chevrolet in the meantime, chosen to cease production of the Corvair, leaving Fitch without a car to build. So they were going to create this car, but Lyndon Johnson basically stopped production of it. So that’s really interesting. I’m not quite sure what we’re going to talk about in here. Because there was a lot of different things and I mean a lot of automobile history. Good book.