The Most Beautiful Auto's Ever Built
I'm aware that we have a number of ''car nuts'' on NT...So in lieu of pissing and moaning about politics, cars are the subject.
I've been in love with these two auto's for a number of years.
What do you think of them and what would you choose as the most beautiful auto (s) ever built.
NO POLITICS AT ALL.
The 1935 Delahaye 135ms Torpedo Roadster
The 1938 Delahaye 165 Cabriolet
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Dear Brother and Fellow Roadster Kavika: The most beautiful; autos ever built are those fully paid for, no matter how ugly!
Enoch, Driving My Oldsmo-Buick which is old enough to vote.
That is not the American way niijii....Credit, credit and more credit.
Here is a nice Buick. Maybe one can be found in Craig's list?
Can't forget Oldsmobile in that duo:
I love that Buick...One of my favorites is the 1955 Buick Roadmaster convertible.
That's quite the combo. Buick and Oldsmobile...Very cool.
Thanks.
Years ago I had a brother in law with an Olds Super 88 much like the one pictured. Those old cars were works of art.
I believe it.
I used to own an auto body and spray shop.
Even modern refinishes (PPG, Dupont, Sherwin-Williams, House of Kolor, BASF, etc) complete curing time takes several weeks. We told people NOT to wax or seal their new paint for 2 months. This would get them past cure time.
Dry time is a matter of hours after baking, though Sherwin-Williams has a very quick clear.
Delahayes are some of the coolest cars ever......I'm actually watching Chasing Classic Cars right now.....A pierce Arrow and a Revere are featured.
The 1938 Cabriolet only 6 were ever made...Two are known to still exist.
I think you have already beat us and are out of our league...then again, there were some nice Buggattis.
Guesses who owned it?
Please tell me it was me and I misplaced it...
LOL. That was the Shah of Iran's car.
Well he's dead so I'm claiming it...LOL
Doubt he will contest the claim.
I am a fan of the Restoration Garage, the Guild of Automotive Restorers (In Ontario, Ca. - not so far from me). They actually built a one off Bugatti Aerolithe, only one was ever produced and it went missing in the 50s. They built this car form scratch, using pictures. They were able to figure out the 'scale' from a photo. They created this beauty and it has been and continues to travel the world.
That's a beauty and a great story as well.
Look how integrated the styling is. Attention to every detail.
Last I saw they were building a Ferrari from scatch, using wood framing and forms while hand tooling the aluminum body. These guys are worth checking out. Their show is on Velocity Channel in the states, though I'm sure other channels and sources have it. Their website is located here:
Here's the 58 Ferrari GT 250 creation:
Nice effort. Like to see that when it is done.
Wasn't the 250 the basis for the California?
Actually, there are pictures of the completed car on their website-was an award winner form the very first show it attended.
You know, the more I look at this car, it reminds of of some hints of aircraft styling of the period. Maybe it is the way the door and cab are designed? Maybe it's my imagination?
Did you ever admire the door hinges in your AH MkIII? they were things of precision and beauty.
Most of the Healey people had been involved with making aircraft during WII, hence the aluminum shrouds, door jam trim, carbs and hinges.
I was a bit of of a nut, back in the day, and kept my hinges and carbs polished like mirrors.
( Never again,
)
Yes the door hinges and boot as well.
I let too many good cars slip away.
I am guessing Cary Grant.
Close !!!
Really, Shah of Iran.
The maroon one in the seed photo looks like a pontoon boat.
They sure to look alike JR.
We have a lot of pontoon boats on Table Rock and they are not your father pontoon boat...One of our neighbors has one with twin 250HP outboards on it...LOL
I guess wheels were considered ugly with a lot of these cars. They sure did try and hide them.
And to think in my younger years, I had to drive a pinto.
LOL, never admit to that Ender.
My Jr /Sn year ride in HS til mom found out some friends and I yanked out the 4 banger and installed a ford 302 small block w/ NOX under the hood, was a tight fit.
Mine was light blue. I remember hearing about how some of them could be rear ended and explode. It was actually left after my Grandfather had passed. It gave me a ride. I did have a Plymouth Duster at the time but it was sitting in the driveway with the engine half apart.
I had a 340 Duster for a while. I always forget about that car, but it was quick.
I inherited my grandfathers 73 dodge dart swinger when I was in the service , little did I know until I got it he ordered it with a Cleveland 360 under the hood , fire engine red , white vynil roof , and a very definite sleeper at the strip , and not a bad cruising car either....
Maybe you mean 360 LA engine, which were good running and durable motors which merged with the R series block and P series heads for hardcore racing. Would be another nice car to still have.
Clevelands were Fords which merged with the architecture of the Windsor style blocks and Cleveland style heads (Yates, CHI, BT, etc) over time for hardcore racing.
My dad bought a Dodge Dart Swinger in 1973 and it was my dad's weekend car. I leared to drive in that car. It was cream with a brown vinyl roof and a similar colored interior. My older sister is a lousy driver and she wrecked it into a tree when it was icy and she was going too fast in about 1987.
It looked exactly like this,
Slant-Six!
dead link , I taught both my sisters how to get out of slides on gravel and ice in the dart after I got it , when I went overseas , I put it up on blocks , little sister spent the summer at my dads and took it OFF the blocks , and decided to practice figure 8 powerslides in dads horse shoe pit . got both rear quarter panels , and cracked the drivers side exhaust manifold, haven't spoken to her since. that was 30 years ago.
here is the 73 swinger
Nope it was a special order Cleveland from ford , use to be you could swap out a dodge motor into a ford chassis , and vice versa, the dealership he got it from was both a ford and dodge dealer. reason I know it was a Cleveland was his mechanic was mine as well, and when little sister cracked the exhast manifold , the one needed was for a Cleveland , AND was a bit on the spendy side.
Interesting, then it would have been a 351C if it came directly from Ford.
Now I had a factory 360 FTE motor in a 76 F250.
That was a different series than the Cleveland. The FTEs were a Truck version of the FE family.
It was a V8, 318, if I remember correctly.
There was a problem with the automatic transmission and it had to be replaced in 1985.
OK.
I assumed it was a corporate clone of the Plymouth Valiant. I got one of those for graduation, in '69, and it loyally carried me back and forth across the country from one Army base to another.
It was a corporate clone. The 6 cylinder was the standard engine.
In my younger days, my dad had one, non-exploder version, he used it as part of his 25 mile drive to work and the same home again. Cam went flat at 50K and had to be replaced, besides that, no issues. Sold it with the original clutch still working fine at 140K miles. Biggest problem was corroision.....just like any car up here of that vintage.
An era when Auto's were works of art.
1930 Cord L29 Formal Sedan.
That Cord L29 also had front wheel drive.
I knew that a few of the later models had FWD but I wasn't aware that the L29 did.
It also relied on a Harry Miller design.
I have to vote this one most beautiful car over the Delahayes and Bugattis.
It sure rates right up there, it's a beauty for sure.
My brothers car, for those special days, his is the convertible.
How cool is that....Good one Galen.
He had to rebuild the rearend and, had to build the new parts by hand.
Of course the car I always wanted, never could afford was this little beauty,
Then there is the V16 Lincoln. Specially engineered for fuel deficiency...
Gotta love the sleek lines on it.
Car design was an art form in times past.
We will never see this kind of art ever again in a new car.
I don't know about that, the Italians have and continue to sculpt some beautiful cars.
I agree about the high end cars, but cars available to the average folks, just don't have that same sculpted styling.
True. Mass product, easier, fasdter, cheaper to produce......
Modern designers work within very tight constraints of all sorts:
The law: The front end must conform to pedestrian-accident rules, headlight position, and low-speed "no damage" bumpers.
Safety: Crash deformation.
Fuel efficiency: Low drag coefficient.
.... and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
Back when the Model T appeared, there weren't many rules.
Though traffic fatalities are nowehere near where they were before the advent of safety laws.
Chrysler 300 B
And, this is what they call a Chrysler 300 now.
I don't want to knock most cars made these days, because functionally they are much improved. However, they have become soulless, disposable utensils.
I agree totally.
Not all of them. There is one I would love to have and I think it looks stylish.
Well, modern stylish.
Tend to agree, for a modern car Aston Martin has pretty good style.
The Bentley Continental GT has been on the market for fifteen years already. I think it's gorgeous.
That car has some interesting lines. It looks like one of those cars that might present better in person than photos too.
Sylvester Stallone has one or, at least had one, that was black with a tan leather interior, it was nice.
It was "only" € 160 000 when it first appeared. It's now twice that...
LOL, why ya mad? I was working at a Chevron convenience store in Cathedral City, CA, we had a full service garage attached and, Stallone came in to get his car serviced there, yeah, we handled high end cars at the garage.
I'm mad because I once thought that a "pre-owned" GT might someday be accessible. But used prices have gone up with new prices. A quick glance tells me, for example, that the least I might pay today is $50k, for a 2004 with 60k miles...
Yeah, it is a rich mans toy.
I don't think I told you this before but, when I lived in Sarasota, Florida, may moons ago, this lady who lived along the beach there had a "yard sale", she had just divorced and, was selling all of her husbands toys that she had gotten in the divorce, a guy I know bought his car, Ferrari, I can't remember the exact year but, I do remember what she said she wanted and, why, she wanted 500 dollars so, that she could rub it in his face that she had sold his prize toy for so little.
I like these:
Do you remember these?
LOL, I was hoping to forget them, not remember them.
You want to compare nightmares? My brother-in-law and, sister use to take me and, my other sister to the drive-in in one of these, a Nash wagon, my sister and, I would lay in the back while they "snuggled" in the front.
HaHaHa.
One of the girls in the neighborhood got one as a hand me down as her first car. She drove it all over the place.
Some good engineering came out of Nash. They did some good work with the resources available.
Of interest the last straight 6 that was available in the Jeep 4WD vehicles was a Nash derivative.
"the last straight 6 that was available in the Jeep 4WD vehicles was a Nash derivative"
If that is the 4.0 it is a very good motor, my Cherokee has 272,000 miles and runs good.
Too funny
Yeah, I think my first niece came from that time in the Nash.
That's the one.
I think that's a Saab model 69. Lots of farmers had those because they were good at hauling hay bales.
The 3 cylinder 2-stroke version even had a freewheel transmission.....you could coast down a hill and gain speed.
Here's my original, first car, $200:
Except, that's a Fury and I had the sporty 2-Door Belvedere.....318 with a push button automatic.....in battleshop gray, of course.
Yes, they were a little different. Some folks pepped them up too.
Then that would have been an A series 318 which had what was called a polyspherical cylinder head. This is a different head than the LA head which most folks are more familiar with.
The polysphere is like an early "semi-hemi" also referred to as a compound wedge.
I found a picture of the chambers:
You can see that it is not the typical inline valve arrangement found in a true wedge layout and perhaps the first to introduce the rotated combustion chamber in a wedge like design.
Never knew that.....never had occaision to open up the motor-she was a runner, never failed to start......AM radio that had to warm up (tubes).......
A lot of good cylinder heads followed that approach.
My last one was a 2002 Viggen. I pepped up that 2.3L 4 cylinder from 230 hp to 300 just by chipping it and there were several power stages I could have gone above that. I did the same with my 1993 9000 which had essentially the same engine. All of my Saabs got well over 400K miles before I sold them, and except for the 9000 none needed any significant engine work.
They even made one with a hinged lower block to dynamically vary the compression ratio, thus allowing a huge range of fuel types to be used.
What did you think of the Viggen?
Great engine, tranny and brakes but the body, Recaro seats, headlights, cargo area, driving ergonomics and handling sucked. In other words all the things the classic 900 turbos generally excel at were truly horrible. I spent more time and money on things like a 5-point subframe brace, steering rack clamp, sway bars and bushings just to get the thing to handle OK but it never had the sweet neutral handling of the classic 900.
It was damn fast. Before I chipped it I went from 85 to 130 in just a few seconds on I-10 west of Austin, with no apparent difference in handling or stability......and averaged 34 mpg on that trip from Madison to St Louis to Austin to Los Alamos and back through the mountains. After chipping the mpg actually improved.
While GM money helped Saab survive it was ultimately GM corporate decisions which killed it, particularly the moves away from a double wishbone suspension and a hatchback, as well as GM's order to use more GM parts including a really crappy Opel Vectra platform. But the engine design is still better and more advanced than almost anything in the current market. Right before GM pulled the plug on Saab they were planning a production version of the PhoeniX hatchback concept car, a FWD turbo all fuel engine with RWD electric. I would have bought one of those in a heartbeat.
BTW, it was the 2.0L version of the 2.3L Saab engine which won the open class of the Pikes Peak race several years by running the engine at 750 hp driving an AWD system, 0-60 in 2.3s.
That was a good run. The soecs on the car remind me of the old Killer Bs.
About the Viggen. you know what they say about adding more hp? You just find the next weakest link.
That's true especially on a FWD car like the Viggen but after all the suspension and chassis work I did it handled OK and didn't have any sign of the notoriously bad Viggen torque steer (which was mostly due to an inadequate steering rack mount). So while the stock Viggen was overpowered at 230 hp my modified one was quite good at 300 hp. The biggest change I noticed was that the boost really kicked in at about 1800 rpm instead of 2200, so they were doing more than just playing with the fuel map.
Note that my '93 9000 had essentially the same engine and none of the problems the Viggen had with its Vectra platform. I think the 9000 was based on an Alfa 164, a much better fit for that kind of engine. I would have loved to have that 2.3L turbo engine in one of my classic 900s....I know some people managed to do that somehow.
The 9000 and the Alfa along with the FIAT Croma and the Lancia Therma were on the same world car platform.
I should mention something about this head in the event anyone might think this is a perfect rotated compound wedge chamber design:
Fundamentally the design was a step in the right direction. A serious problem here is the spark plug is pointing in the wrong direction. Chrysler wasn't the only outfit to do this.
Intake valve is cold. Exhaust valve is hot. Additionally, looking at the valve bowls, the intake charge is aimed at the exhaust side. Maybe somewhat of a swirl. Measurement is needed to know how much swirl. Looking at it, it appears the incoming air/fuel column will just dump straight down and over toward the exhaust side.
Spark plug ignites in a colder and maybe less dense area. Hot and becoming unstable area is around the exhaust valve. Soon the mixture around the intake ignites and cylinder pressure quickly climbs. Under heavily loaded and full power operating conditions, something bad happens.
That mixture sitting over at the opposite end of the chamber, by the exhaust valve begins igniting all by itself conflicting with the kernel started by the spark plug.
This is called detonation.
If the spark plug is to be aimed, always better to aim it towards the exhaust valve, or at least between the valves.
This was one of the convertibles I considered before I bought the TT Convertible.
You made the far better choice. The classic 900 convertibles are beautiful but they're heavy and the chassis isn't rigid.
One classic American car...The Studebaker Golden Hawk.
One of those cars ahead of it's time.
The poor man got the Silver Hawk.
The Hawk series was nice, but Loewy' masterpiece was this:
The Avanti.
Cool.
A shop teacher of mine had an Avanti II. Not sure what made it a II. It was a unique car. This was the year Team Penske with Mark Donahue won the Trans-Am championship, so he was a little proud of some shared lineage with the Javelins.
The II was a modest re-styling, about five years after the car first appeared. You had to be sharp to spot the differences.
I heard somewhere that these were still hand made with very limited amount made yearly with a several year waiting list. Anybody know if that is still the case?
You got me curious. Here is something I found:
This was my dream car - the 1959 Jaguar Mark IX
Another classic, Buzz.
A metal sculpture on wheels.
This little beauty is the newest addition to my fleet.....Long way to go to catch up to Jay Leno......
Is that the TT-RS?
I'd rather have the 2010 S5 because the redesigned it and ruined the lines.
It's a 2005 TT-S Quattro Convertible (has 3.2L V-6)
I love the big German V8 and a 6 speed.
The R8 V10 is a great car but its completely excessive in the US.
I also love the 928GTS.
Very nice, but not as cool as the Indian.
Talking apples and motorcycles, are we? LOL
57 Ford T-Bird followed by the 1963 Chevrolet Corvette with the split rear window!
Here ya go Doc.
Two of my favorites.
Looks like a clean resto mod on that Stingray.
My thanks. I had a former brother in law who in 1970 bought a lemon yellow 1963 Stingray. For some inexplicable reason decided he liked the looks of the 1968 Corvette more, so he altered the body and transformed it into a "68". I could not help but shake my head and tell him he would regret it. Sure enough years later when the 63 became such a classic, he told me that was one of the dumbest things he ever did. I just smiled and walked away.
I was waiting for these two.
Great American classics.
Here is another you might remember. Peter Brock discusses the development of the Cobra Daytona Coupe. In this story, Brock mentions a humorous story of when he worked for Bill Mitchel on the design of the original Stingray.
Another one I forgot to mention was the 1957 Chevy Nomad station wagon. I do not believe there were very many made.
The Nomads were were something else. Probably an exaggeration, it seems as they became collectors items as they drove off the showroom floor.
Yep. Kind of like the old Jeep Woodies, the original surf mobiles. Always loved the wood exteriors and interiors.
Yes indeed. You are right about that.
1930 Deusenberg model SJ
Here's one that you might know,
Can ya name this car?
Tucker....
Ding,ding,ding.
You beat me to it. The Tucker Tornado was the most awesome car ever. If Tucker had not got beaten down by the Big Three, there would be TT's everywhere. They were ahead of their time.
A car that was years ahead of its time, and was screwed by the vested major car manufacturers because of the expected competition. I had an older cousin from Chicago who drove his Tucker up to my grandmother's cottage at Burlington Beach, Ontario, when I was a little kid, and I recall being fascinated by the middle headlight.
My best friend when I was in high school had a limited edition 57 Ford Fairlane with the 312 Thunderbird Special engine. Three speed column shift with overdrive. A beauty of a car and very fast as well.
lol here is one to rack the brain , what was the difference between a ford 3 on the tree and a chevy/ gm 3 on the tree?
Ans: the position of reverse in the shift pattern.
Yep.
When we "hot rodded" a '54 merc way back a long time ago, we pulled a 312 from a very early 60s Fairlane to replace the 254 in the Merc. The 312 was a newer and larger displacement version of the 254.
purple classic Cadillac.
Not sure of the year. ( late 40's?) Love the look though.
That is a real beauty and i would agree late 1940's.
because of the fin style I want to say early 50s , that's where the acsess for the gas tank was , under the driver side tail light....
A friend of ours had an early 50 Caddy with that rear end.
I had a brother-in-law that rolled a hard top version over a cliff in North Carolina, he lived the car didn't
Glad he was okay
Yeah, well, it was a few months before he was OK, it's also how we found out he had epilepsy, he had a grand mall (spelling?) that day it's what caused the wreck.
Could have been much worse then.
Yep, he was lucky.
Some very nice pictures and nice discussion
There are some really cool cars thus far, but I'm still sticking with the two Delahaye's as the most beautiful....
Come on folks, come up with more beauties.
I've had this one for 23 years now (got it after a doctor turned it in off a 2 year lease):
Wish I had a better picture of it on tis computer......twin rotor, twin in line Turbos, all kinds of go fast........
How about this beauty, the Auburn Speedster.
Sexiest Race Cars.
Ferrari 330 P3
They weren't built for tall people.
Tall people got cars fitted with the "Gurney bump". He was taller than most drivers of the era and when driving team cars at times the mod was made in the roof.
Another solution is a more reclined driving position.
My problem isn't in the body it's in the legs, long legs, I always feel like my knees are around my ears in those cars.
Have you ever been fitted for one? You just might fit???
You might be right but, I have never needed to own anything like these, yes, they are nice to look at but, I don't need anything that goes so fast, I figure where I'm going will be there when I get there and, I have never been late getting anywhere so, why do I need something that has more triple digits on the speedometer than Carter has pills, after all, the speed limit is 75 on highways and, even slower in city's.
Of course my brother loves his Miata and, his Porsche 911, me, I've never really seen the need to own one.
True,
These cars aren't for need. They are on the deep end of the want category.
Need vs want
My brother and, I were raised differently, I was raised to go for what I needed and, he was raised to go for not only need but want, I need one car or, in my case a truck, I need a roof over my head but, I don't need a house. My brother wants toys and, a house, he doesn't need them, he just wants them and, he can afford the toys and, a house to boot.
The only possible answer is
I'd put the Ferrari 333 SP over those cars, but I'd be labeled a heretic by the Tifosi
Different kind of sports car and deeper into the era of air management. But nice in it's own functional way
By Tony Harrison from Farnborough, UK - Ferrari 333SP Donnington 1997, CC BY-SA 2.0,
I could be mistaken, but I think the Mclaren MK8F set this trend. Shame the investment in the development had such a high toll.
Jim Hall's Chaparral sucker car was before the McLaren M8.
I'm not usually much of a Ferrari fan, but the 333SPs V12 sounded great at redline.
That's true, Jimmy Hall experimented with a lot of out of the box thinking and I shouldn't have forgotten him and even his high wing concept became wide spread in motorsports.
With the end of the high wings, I would say the M8F was a milestone most followed.
The Ferrari V12s could always sing music. One of the best sounds in motorsports.
Did someone say "Chaparral"?
Or the Caparral 2J (really good article here):
That really was a good article. Very seldom do I find an article, any where, with as close a match to my recollection as this article. Of course, Jimmy Hall being involved helped, I am sure.
There is one thing I would like to point out as technically inaccurate in the article concerning the 2J in race trim. In competition it did not run a 427.
It was either a 496 or 520 ~ 525. The 2I might have been the 496. hmmmm? The 2J may have run both displacements during the season.
Although the current configuration of the 2J may have a 427 in use today, the ZL1 block had an interesting feature. Although a Reynolds alloy block, it did not have pressed ductile iron or darton cylinder liners. Neither did it have any of the more exotic cast in cylinder liners nor did it have a surface infused by some arc vaporization or similar process.
It was a high silicon content aluminum (aluminium) alloy which must have been cast using some form of hypereutectic process. So the piston rings and pistons themselves dragged directly against the Reynolds alloy.
NOTE: This was not the same technology as the Vega block.
So this alloy block without cylinder liners could go beyond the standard overbore of the typical 427 which has a 4.250" bore. Max overbore for those engines was +.060. Typical was +.030. So you are looking at 4.280" or 4.310" usable bore possibilities.
This Reynolds block could go to a 4.440" bore. This opened the door for lot more cubic inches which most team took advantage of. 465 to 525 was typical from most competitors using this block.
Interestingly enough, Team McLaren used a 430cid configuration when the block was first available. By taking advantage the large bore and a shorter stroke, they had slower piston speed for any given rpm. Back then that was somewhat important as rings were big, heavy, high tension, stone age implements that could go into a flutter situation at calculable piston speeds and tended to put less stress on the cylinder walls. Being the first year with that block I would be cautious too.
Had ZERO to do with rod/stroke ratios. That is an "old wives tales".
All that said Team McLaren handily won the Can-Am championship that year first year of the block and then repeated the next year with the Chaparral 2J came on the scene.
By that time even privateers were using the big bore configurations. That same 2nd year when the 2J appeared, even Team McLaren put in some stroker cranks and ran 465s.
Now the 2I is another story onto itself.
Hope it makes sense.
Slight re-statement here: Had ZERO to do with any mythical horsepower gains as a result of any magically blessed rod/stroke ratio.
For anyone who knows the algorithm to determine instantaneous piston velocity as determined by engine stroke, connecting rod length and engine rpm:
It is true a shorter rod/stroke ratio will result in piston acceleration away from top dead center quicker and result in a higher instantaneous max piston velocity and velocity curve in the upper arcs of crankshaft rotation (0 - 90 after top dead center and 90 - 0 before top dead center). On the bottom half of the crankshaft arc the situation reverses, resulting in an equal mean piston velocity throughout a complete arc of rotation.
For optimum power in each arrangement, some minor tweaking of valve timing, and port is all that is needed and each will produce the same max horsepower.
Yikes!
I'm impressed!
Did you have access to Hall's skunk works?
Back then all that was needed were subscriptions to:
Primarily regarding the cars:
#1 Sports Car Graphic.
These guys were actual racers and/or engineers for real racers. These guys knew who they were talking to. Knew the subject matter, because they were involved in the sport and the information they reported was common knowledge in the pits.
Really everyone knew Team McLaren had less tq and hp (per plan) than anyone else and for many years ran circles around everybody else on race day. So hp wasn't the magic ingredient.
#2 Road & Track.
Had some good supplemental information from time to time. More helpful on the F1 circuit in this area.
For the engines:
#1 Sports Car Graphic, for all the same reasons above.
#2 Tied: Hot Rod, Motor Trend, and a third publication I can't think of.
Again, good supplemental insights from time to time. Again, Road & Track was more helpful on the F1 circuit in this area.
Over time, the engines become an open book in many areas to a real engine guy.
OK... I too started reading car mags back in the Stone Age before SCG became Car and Driver... but c'mon... that was decades ago... Do you really remember all this stuff in such detail?
I'm even more impressed!
I don't know about SCG becoming Car and Driver, because they co-existed while SCG was still in print. Could have been a buy out when I was distracted in life by something else.
I remember the SCG guys referred to Car and Driver as Card and River. Always gave me a laugh.
Yes, I remember a lot from them because I had a very strong interest in motorsports and they were the best academic source I had at that time.
Jerry Titus was the editor in chief and Paul Van Valkenburg a contributing editor. These guys and the rest of the team used SCG as an educational tool. I was a student. The development of my algorithms in order to predict effects from causes is based directly on what I learned from those guys.
So, my reading of those journals was not entertainment, rather a foundation I built upon during my life. Some consider my level of involvement a hobby. It is a nice hobby that has me as part of multiple ANDRA National Pro Stock Championships and breaking and setting a couple UIM Flying Kilo World Records in the 6 litre injected boat class. Not to mention my own personal local stuff.
Really, what I learned then is not in the past. It is still with me.
My bad. I looked a little closer. Alzheimer's is looming.....
In March 1961, Sports Car Illustrated became Car and Driver.
Sports Car Graphic folded in 1971.
Happens to the best of us.
1971, I guess that's about right. Jerry Titus died in a Trans-Am practice incident in 1970 and he was a driving force for that publication.
I was getting hands on experience about that time and was able to start matching real life to the academic knowledge. About that time I got a programmable Ti scientific calculator with memory strips for saving algorithms. I think it was an SR71 (famous war bird). I got it on sale at a Montgomery Ward for something like $120. Thank goodness I had about 3 jobs when I was in HS.
Lola T70 (Mark Donahue with the flat top)
MKII and MKIII
The #6 won the 1969 Daytona 24hr
WTH, I thought that you and epistte new all about fast cars and here you go and post photos of the lug buggies.
This is the real deal...Remember it was so fast that songs were written about it. It embarrassed a Cad and it was still in 2nd gear...
Ladies and Gentleman I give you the Nash Metropolitan.
BEEP BEEP
Well, you know when talking thoroughbreds only an expert should bring them up. It is too easy for a novice to get the details wrong.
I've seen a Nash Metropolitan.They are tiny.
I'm not sure what a lug buggy is so I won't report you for a personal attack. j/k.
I have a thing for Citreon sedans, starting with the DS, the XM and the latest C6. I love that the French tend to ignore the typical path of the Germans and Brits and follow their own Gallic weirdness. I also love the Alfa Guila but the reliability scares me off, even if I had Powerball amount of money. Maybe I would lease one.
It might be this,
my mother had a Nash Metropolitan about 1960, I had to ride behind the seats on a rug she put back there.
One day it rolled down the hill and ended up on top a bush and my father and neighbors picked it up and carried it back to the street
I know that after a hurricane hit Miami my sisters Nash was gone and, they had a Chevy Bel Aire after that and, a Chevy Nomad after that.
I just saw a Rambler 4 door for sale locally the other day....one of those, so ugly it's cute kinda cars.
They're rare now, it might not be a bad investment.
I found this after I remembered that damn Nomad.
I need more garage space.....
My favorite teacher had one of those. I loved it.
They were so small that I could put one on each foot and call them roller skates...LOL
I think the Fix It Again Tony epoch for Italian cars is long gone. Fifteen years ago, I had a (fantastic) Alfa 147 which gave me no trouble whatsoever for the five or six years I owned it. Great car! Then a young woman ran a stop sign and... no more Alfa...
LOL, I need a garage.
John Wyre Gulf GT40
Now that is cool.
... and clickable...
LOL, I love this:
I understand why they did. There were material and metallurgical issues that were serious obstacles back then under certain conditions. Mainly high output and heavy loads for the era.
Even the Millers later Miller-Drake-Offy's later Offenhausers aka Offy's that competed at Indy and USAC tracks around the country from the '30 through the 70's were cast with that same philosophy.
But they were built with the intent of being torn down after every race and shops were setup to accommodate that.
That big beautiful car with that big 1 piece block head and delicate valves...things of nightmares. LOL.
Then the piece de resistance, that big long crankshaft with a long stroke and lord knows how heavy a reciprocating assembly total mass held in place by 3 main bearings.
That they made it work is a testament to somebody's engineering prowess.
I love old machines for this reason. Steam engines, locomotives, motorcycles from the 1900s ... the Shreveport Pumping Station , ...
Those engineers were brilliant!
Wonderful machines.
I can Dream about You !
1956 Lincoln MKII……….
Built the year I was born, I'd like to have it just for that reason alone.
50's babies are the best.
"Right arm".
Da gang circa 1980,
Now that's a lot of redheads.
What's the squiggly thing everyone is looking at on the woman's chest?
That's my sister Leta and, the squiggly thing is a bow that holds her top up. She had just said something funny and, everyone was laughing at what she had said. Can ya guess where I am in that shot?
Shoot what do you expect from a Scottish and, Irish mix?
I have always had a bit of curiosity about those cars though never seen one in person.
I imagine it came with one of the large inch MEL motors. They are pretty interesting too.
I've seen one in my lifetime. From what I understand, they sold for over 10 grand back then (a ton), and would be delivered to your home wrapped in a sheep's wool blanket that they would unwrap when it got to your house. You got to keep the blanket.
My favorite from Car and Driver Dreams of my Youth:
Still the sexiest thing on 4 wheels, to me.....
I still have the poster of the white version from high school.
Somewhere I have a framed photo of a wine bottle on it's side in shadow profile, below that a woman's body laying on the side in shadow profile, then the Coontach in shadow profile, under it in small font, it says, 'When Luxury Becomes Neccessity'.
Luv it !!!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember seeing it at Spencer's gifts in the mall.
I made a right turn on red in a Lamborghini somewhere between Hong Kong and the town of Stanley. Oops. That was also the first time I drove a RH car with a stick.
I won't even tell you what some guy from Abu Dhabi wanted us to do to one of those once.
1950 Chevy Fleetline Deluxe
The car that introduced me to drag racing. My Mom's car when she still lived at home. So I heard the stories.
Hmmmm? Seems to me, the Bugatti marque is popping up the most.
Nice to know Bugattis are being made today under the VW umbrella. Earlier we saw how one of the more exotic types required some hefty maintenance.
I wonder how they are doing in that area today?
The Bug V16 is a variation of the VW VR6. Lengthen the VR6 to a VR8 and then position two of them around a common crankshaft at 90°. The cylinder heads look almost identical.
I'd much rather have the original Mclaren F1 than any Bugatti.
Yes but how does it handle in the snow, and what's its towing capacity?
About the same as any other 2 seat mid-engine sports car.
If you need to tow something, buy a truck.
That's why the Saabs were such great cars - practical but fast as hell, and you didn't need to store them during winter.
Plus you could change your own oil.
I am glad you posted that. Modern supercars are a wonder to behold, but few have an idea of what is under the skin and what it takes to keep them going.
There was one thing in the vid that irritated me a little. The one guy removing the wing used the sharp end of the stubby screw driver to knock the screws and adjoining pieces. raised my eyebrows a little bit.
Probably terrible and 0.
My little Audi, as an example, left front parking light was out, took me 6 hours to change it in my garage. I do know my way around 'under the hood', but the car was desigend to be driven, not worked on.
A thing I learned with German cars is, they tend to have a "trick" somewhere in disassembly. Without knowing the trick, things are very difficult.
I think all cars have little tricks like that depending how things are squeezed in. I could change a clutch on a classic 900 in under 2 hours, but anything on the "front" of the engine was a real pain in the butt since it was all up against the firewall. In contrast changing the water pump on my BMW X3 was by far the easiest one I've ever done.
That's funny about the water pump.
He had one of those Buick 3800s in for a water pump. It took maybe 3 minutes to change. I just laughed.
In the body shop those BMWs and Mercedes always had a trick up their sleeve for bumper covers, cladding, valances, mirrors and and anything in the interior.
The funniest one is many of the side view mirrors. To get the cover off you scratch your head a little bit. Most just pop off one way or another.
With these, you need a long thing screw driver to insert all the way and flip a tang, bingo the cover pops off.
On my Mach I, for a while I went through clutches so often for a while, I got it down to 30 minutes. Of course I think rwd is easier than fwd.
These were 2800lb Hayes and Mcleod units.
Once I got a dual friction counter weighted clutch that problem went away.
Youtube and specialty sites like Saabnet and Bimmerforums have been god's gift to people like me who do their own repairs and forget the little tricks from one repair session to the next......at least as long as you're smart enough to filter out the wheat from the chaff.
It doesn't appear that ease of maintenance was a very high priority for the conceptors....
Well, to be honest the priority was to have a very fast car, yet reliable within a certain scope.
So, yes, those little maintenance details took a back seat.
IIRC in all the hoopla when the first of the "VW Bugattis" was launched, there were two requirements from God (Ferdinand Piëch): 1000 hp, and "fastest production car".
God will was fulfilled.
There you go.