Vintage shots from days gone by!

ole mazooma posted that over 2 yrs ago,,
thats cool,

 

Wouldnt you love to have Paul Harvey give an update like "the rest of the story"
just to know what happened to that kid

 

A few more from the WWII era:

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Scouting pics from past years:

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If you pre-heat the steering parts, will it handle better? If the drag link gets too hot, does it reverse reality? Ha ha. Even the LIFE guys screw up now and then. Gary

 

Empire, one cold beer and five minutes in front of these images have made my day......and my eyes

 

Have you ever read how Smokey Yunick made his Hudson engines run backwards for torque off the corners? ALL engine parts at that time had to be factory made. HE recast cams with the altered lobes with factory part numbers. After each race the winner's engine was torn down by factory engineers. THEY never found it and I don't think he was ever caught.

 

around 1950, location unknown, anyone recognize it?

 

So, did he race in reverse in with one forward speed? There's gotta be more to the story.

Bob

 

Ha, yeah I missed that one! I noticed several other of LIFE's posts printed in reverse and have 'fixed' a few of them. I guess that guy's wedding band on his 'right' hand is another telltale sign that the pic is reversed.

 

Probably a misspelling on the postcard.
Bixby?
Or more likely Bisbee AZ

 

A friend of mine down in York PA still has his Corvair he raced regularly at York US 30 dragway. Has a bunch of awards and memorabilia he has displayed at the US 30 reunion.
Corvairs are very consistant!

 

Kaiser Frazer prototype

 

I think I read that flipping the rear ends upside down solved that problem.

 

Northern Automobile, Detroit

Packard

 

I did read in his book that he did the teardowns, the nascar inspectors wanted to see clean parts. He had a solvent tub that he used that had dirty gas, or whatever in it. And stock parts in the tub. He'd put the modified parts in and take out the stock parts for the inspectors to check. He specificaly mentioned doing this with the camshaft for the Hudson.

 

don't that look like the Tucker tailights used as a front light on this, or this light used by Tucker for his tail light.

 

As with anything Smokey related there's more to the story. I'm guessing flipping the ring gear side to side would have fixed the one speed forward problem. He also pumped an abrasive slurry through the intake and head to open it up as they weren't allowed to port anything. But that and more is for the Smokey cheeting thread.

 

A friend of mine used to drag race his fathers 63 Corvair. On week ends he would put on a different set of tires and wheels that were 5.20x12 which he scrounged from a junk yard. The tiny tires were easier to spin, plus the fact that they were a lot shorter made the car act like it had lower gears in the rear end. It worked out very well with almost no money outlay. Surprised a lot of people.

 

Looks like some head bolts are missing ?

 

Farmer's Bank and Trust, later Indian River Citrus Bank in what was downtown Vero Beach in the '20's, '30's '50's, and 2000's. My mom worked as a teller in that bank '58-'61 (it was basically the only bank in town) and used to cash paychecks for Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale and all the other L.A. Dodgers who came to Vero (which is the spring training home of the Dodgers at Holman Field). All the other teams would come to play pre-season exhibition games, including the Yankees. I once had a program autographed by both Mantle and Maris but my mom threw it out as junk kid's stuff later was I was living away from home. Would be worth well into five figures today....
It was almost nothing to go over to the dugout and talk to those guys...B'Ball was not a big money sport back then and everyone was approachable, even to a nine year old. Their paychecks didn't amount to a lot either, my mom told me, though it was a lot to us. For a couple of decades, pretty much everyone in baseball passed through that bank...even sports stars have to cash and write checks.

Just down the street can be seen the theatre where I saw such classics as "X-15" starring (among others) Charles Bronson and Mary Tyler Moore...I don't think they did a lot of pictures together. Also all those Roger Corman-Edgar Allen Poe classics like "Pit and the Pendulum".