History back in the day

Well, I guess it's time for me to contribute a little something to the mix. I am not really a motor head in the classic sense, I have to admit there was a time I swore I would never crawl under a car again; I was that sick of it. I had bought my first new car, a 1989 Plymouth Colt turbo, so I dumped the ratty 1974 Karmann Ghia in a metaphoric ditch, and said: WTF, the Japanese have won this war, at least I get to drive in a car that works, has heat (and goes real nice too).

There has been some water under the bridge since then, but I admit I haven't any interest in spending money on the big stupid clunky peices of shit coming out of detroit. I drive a Subaru Forester and love it. It actually seems designed to please me, not anger me with it's incompetence.

OK, I have maybe pissed off a few of you, don't really mean to, but so be it. The point is, about a year ago, I got this weird itch to have a hot rod. Why, I don't know. Probably some sort of escape fantasy. Anyway, the fantasy wasn't a Subaru hot rod (well, maybe it was a little, more on that later).

You see, I was kind of brought up in a weird world of automobilia. My grandpa was a car collector and an artist very interested in the early automobile races. He had grown up in NYC at the turn of the last century, and he knew the old guys- Joe Tracy, Ralph DePalma, George Robertson, and he painted those early car races. He was good, real good. And my Dad was into it to.
Growing up, I would go upstate 'to the country' and see my grandparents. There was a barn full of cars- in the downstairs was my dad's Model T from when he was a kid, that he had made into a speedster, there was a 20's Pontiac straight eight Roadster, a 20's straight six Hispano Suiza, and a huge wierd white car in the back that was reputed to be Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (it wasn't). Upstars was a ~1912 Mercedes touring car, the Mercer, and the 1906 Locomobile 'Old 16'.
Now some of you older guys probably have seen Old 16 running at one time. When I was a kid, once in a while we would pull the tarp off, put some air in the tires, polish a little brass, charge the battery a bit, then my dad would crank over the car, fire it up, and drive it over to Pittsfield or Long Island or some other car meet. It was very cool. It was unrestored, with original paint, original leather, and very original balls to the wall attitude.
And make no mistake about it, it was powerful and fast. It weighed in at a metric ton (~2200 lb), was rated at 120 hp, had a 16 liter 4 cylinder engine which (I think) had a max rpm under 2000. But so much torque, at 60 mph you could still hear the individual cylinders firing.
Anyway, I was a kid, I never drove it, and now it sits in a museum in Dearborn Michigan. Maybe I will go see it someday. But it won't be the same of course. I remember as a kid helping my dad make a new aluminum pulley for the water pump, on the old east bend lathe that he inherited from Joe Tracy, one of the original drivers of the car.
Well, I started out going to tell you about my hot rod itch and got side tracked, but alas my whiskey glass is empty, so I will get back to that another day.
Oh, you could check out
http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z10059/Locomobile-Old-16.aspx
to see what I am talking about.

 

very cool.

do you have some photos of the other cars or your grandfathers artwork?

 

So I got this idea to build a hot rod. Where do these ideas come from anyway? It's not like I have a lot of time on my hands, and I don't really know much about it. About 1989 I had really had enough of crawling under cars and getting covered in oil and stuff, and I bought my first new car, a Plymouth Colt turbo (ok, Mitsubishi really). That was a fun car, but I digress.

Another idea I had had for a while was to get a hold of some smallish 4 wheel drive car, and turn it into a sort of hill climber, like maybe get one of those Toyota 4x4 pickups or a Subaru outback, and put something like a homemade Allard J2 body on it. Always liked the look of the Allards, they were pretty crazy cars. I read somewhere that Sidney Allard made his 'independent' front suspension by taking a Ford axle, cutting it in half, putting pivot points in the middle, and (I guess) using coil springs. They were pretty hairy in the corners. And I never did anything on this idea, but I still think it is a cool idea.

About 5 years ago, pursuing the basic escape fantasy, I built a kayak. This was a totally different experience for me, I am used to things with straight lines and right angles, and there are none of these in a kayak. The technique was really cool, it is called strip-built, basically you take many thin strips of wood, form them carefully around a temporary skeleton, and then fiberglass inside and out. This makes a very light, strong and even beautiful structure, though it is labor intensive. One of the things I learned with the kayak is I am a land lubber, had more fun building it than actually paddling around in it. But the fact that a shell (think 'body') can be made out of wood, is real interesting. check out:

http://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/chassisNum.aspx?carID=12699&iDNumID=798

BTW the strip built technology is in commercial use today, I read somewhere that the rotor blades on those huge wind turbines are made this way. Oh, and interestingly, a friend bought one of those plastic (think really big Tupperware) kayaks. Guess which was lighter: his 14' plastic kayak or my 17' wooden kayak? And I was laying on extra layers of fiberglass, I am not exactly a light guy, I wanted a strong boat.

So no, I am not building a Subaru based, wooden bodied thingamabob (what exactly would you call it?), but maybe someday.

I am building a 1930 AV8, or trying to anyway. I bought a 'mostly finished' 1930 model A roadster on HAMB about a year ago. Apparently in this case 'mostly finished' did not mean 'nearly ready', it meant something more like 'almost nothing left' or 'just about warped, rusted, mangled and buchered out of existence'. So that was a learning experience. A used car is a used car, even on HAMB, and let the buyer beware. But there was a some salvagable stuff on it, it's not a total loss.

About 2 months ago I aquired the lower half of another 1930 model A, this one in vastly better shape. So right now I have a very decent frame up on the table, I have channeled the subframe onto the frame, and I am resurecting the cowl and body panels, replacing the lower portions partly with 14 guage sheet metal and partly with store bought panels.

What I really need to come to terms with is a transmission. I want to find a later model Ford transmission that will be happy in between my ~1952 flathead and my 1930 rear. I figure I can fabricate a cross member, seems like the 32 K-members are way pricey these days. Maybe I will figure out how to post a few pictures in a day or two.

I was inspired by what I saw on Zach Suhr's website, I believe I have seen his or his friend's Model As on display at Hershey, and they are very cool. Very simple, basic, appealing. I am almost tempted to keep the 4 banger...

 

Well, I officially joined the ranks of the unemployed yesterday, so the way I see it, there is much less to distract me from the hot rod project. Less money to spend, it's true, but that just means being more resourceful. Now if only I had that transmission...