Vintage shots from days gone by!

Ah, yes. I remember my first beer.

 

Actually there are two such engines at the Speedway Motors Museum. Bill Smith tracked them down to somebody in the woods in the northwest someplace. At one point one engine set on display complete while the second was displayed in a manner that you could see many of the individual parts of the engine. There is also a 1930's era Studebaker Indy engine on display there.

 

Rootie, maybe the most interesting part of the photo is the pit cart. I've seen photos of it before and I always assumed that it was a battery cart (batteries in the bottom and maybe the "tank" part was used to store tools) that was plugged into the car to start it. But now that I look at it I'm starting to wonder if the top "tank" of the cart was somehow under pressure and that the car had a pneumatic starter. Does anyone here know for sure? Thanks....

 

South Australia! My home state. Late 50s early 60s.

 

Clive Birtles at the wheel of the car with the dog, Wowser.

 

POST#94778........ Love the three windowed coupes.

 

Don't think I've ever seen that model of Stude before !
...Jay

 

I was thinking it was pneumatic started also. But upon further investigation I'm thinking it was electric started. The first shot is a close up of the motor (note the prototype Hilborns) and it looks a lot like a electric starter. The second shot shows the connector and I'm thinking it is similar to what you would find on a electric forklift recharger.

 

Another reason I think it's electric is that I don't think a portable compressor that small would have enough "umph" to start it reliably. The Novis used a compressed cyl. (aprox. 2000 psi) to spin them.

 

Bill, it would seem that this pic is not "our" famous motoring explorer. Frank Birtles was a bit rougher around the edges in all the pictures I have seen of him.
This site gives a different name to the driver in the pic. (and the dog).
http://www.retronaut.com/2012/09/bud-the-first-dog-to-drive-across-america-1903/
I have several books on Mr Birtles, and the young man in your pic doesn't look like him.
Here is a picture of Birtles :



regards,Rod.

 

My ol 51 in 61

 

Good eye, Rootie. You are absolutely correct!

 

Mark Birtles the great great Nephew owns the Sign place just down the road from here"

Still a neat shot though"

 

OK, back again with another happy hundred, hand-picked, sized, cropped, and exposure-corrected for your pleasure. This time from archives in Vancouver, Maryland, and Massachusetts including some neat Kodacolor images of early fifties Baltimore and vicinity (hometown inspiration of directors Barry Levinson and John Waters!). Part 1:




















How many matches?? Zero. Where's my new Admiral?
More on the way...

 

Part 2:







(^^^ NC16071 above, Mainliner Los Angeles, still survives today at the Science Museum in Wroughton, England - the third-oldest DC-3 remaining.)













Still more coming...

 

Part 3:




















(sorry - fell asleep for a bit)
And that isn't all...

 

Part 4, or "HAMB! HAMB! HAMB! went the trolley":




















Final part coming up.

 

Part 5:





(^^^ Douglas Sleeper Transport NC16003 - taken over by the Army as a C-49 during the war, then back with American Airlines until April 1949, then sold to Rutas Aéreas Mexicanas as XA-HOS - they were out of business by 1950; trail goes cold after that, probably scrapped in Mexico)













I can't end this with Dick Nixon! So let's end it with beer and cheesecake. Goodnight folks.