History We ALL Love a DARE! PIX of TRULY Extinct Makes?

Love the Stude Ute.

Here's another Ute that was US Based - the 1959 Pontiac "El Catalina" - Extinct?

Two were built originally? Jay Leno has a custom built version, but, it isn't one of the originals (???).



http://www.pickuptrucks.com/html/news/chevrolet/elcamino/saywhat.html

 

Here's a different take on Extinct.

The Kieft DeSoto.

Here is a photo and story of one (a replica?) that has been built.




http://www.yamc.com.au/Featured cars/206999EF-663A-467B-B4A5-58F79F4C6D6E.html

http://www.bordermail.com.au/news/local/news/General/race-to-the-finish-line/1485576.aspx?src=email


Any photos of the original?

 

Not sure if this photo is the Kieft DeSoto or anothe Kieft:

















http://www.coldplugs.com/research.htm

 

1967 Shelby GT500 Hardtop - "Little Red" - EXTINCT (Crushed)?



"A '67 GT-500 Hardtop too? There was also one prototype GT-500 hardtop, a supercharged 428 vinyl-topped terror called "Little Red". Unlike the convertible, Little Red was shown off to the press and then disappeared forever. Most likely another unfortunate victim of Fords crusher."

http://www.dearbornflashback.com/xfiles.asp

 

Fascinating, and I'd love to drive it. But we'd better stick to '65 and earlier, 'cause it's the HAMB.

 

Here's another few shots. It was called "Safari".

 

-------------------------
.....And (un)fortunately, every bit as
practical and useful as modern-day
electric cars.....112-plus years later!
In answer to yuppie enviro-nazis and
their question "who killed the electric
car?" - the simple and short answer
- "the laws of physics"!

Mart3406
========================

 

------------------
Very cool! I remember in the late '70's
(1978 perhaps?) Pontiac unveiled a similar
'one-off' concept vehicle using Pontiac
Grand Prix front sheet-metal and trim on
a Chevy El Camino shell. Needless to say,
like the '59 version, it never reached
production either. I think Pontiac missed
the boat on both of these by not producing
them.

Mart3406
=====================

 

Not extinct, but in the rare (1) category - Studebaker Lark fitted with a 356 Porsche engine.



http://www.flickr.com/photos/mazdamiata/1114084280/

http://www.studegarage.com/porsche.htm

"In February, 1959 Curtis-Wright bought a new Lark with a Champ 6 engine from a local dealer and modified it. A used engine from a 1953 Porsche was rebuilt by Porsche and installed along with the torsion-bar rear suspension and transaxle. Wheels and gear reduction boxes from a VW bus were used to optimize the drive line. This engine was placed in what had been the trunk of the Lark after removing the Champ 6 and automatic transmission from the front of the car. In addition, since Curtis-Wright had taken out a license to build Wankel rotary engines, an adapter was prepared to install a small Wankel engine in place of the Porsche engine. This car may have been the prototype for the sub-compact touted two years later."

 

Cool piece of HISTORY right there on the '59 "Larsche," MrFire! Look at all the working room in there! Where's the Lark now, South Bend?

 

I don't know, one link says South Bend, the other says it appears at shows in New England. .

 

The Studebaker 542 - Extinct?



A colour photo, but no further information:



http://www.worldcarfans.com/206041312379/75-years-of-porsche-engineering-services

More/similar info on this link: http://www.studegarage.com/porsche.htm








Photos of engines for the project.

http://ranwhenparked.blogspot.com/2010/03/designing-for-south-bend-in-stuttgart.html

"Even in the early 1950s, the writing was starting to appear on the wall; &#8220;compact&#8221; cars were going to be the next big thing in the auto industry. Certainly the Europeans had a good handle on this, but as we know, Detroit is often a little slow on the uptake. GM, Ford, and Chrysler had yet to downsize their monstrous cars. American Motors was beginning to make smaller cars and Studebaker (still independent at this time) took notice. <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = O /><O></O>
Ferry Porsche came to the United States in 1951 for the first time since WWII. Evidently Porsche&#8217;s designs for the Germans impressed some of the opposition as Ferry was contacted by the US for a military project. While in New York, he met with his importer Max Hoffman. Porsche expressed interest in more consulting work stateside and Hoffman knew just the right person to contact. <O></O>
Richard Hutchinson, head of Studebaker exports, was a friend of Hoffman&#8217;s who took interest in having Porsche design a small car more in-line with American market tastes. Even though Hoffman struggled to sell VWs and only distributed them from 1950 to 1953, Hutchinson liked the idea of the Volkswagen and personally had one of the first Beetles shipped to him while VW was still under British control after the war. His plan was for Studebaker to become the exclusive importer of Volkswagens, and he tried very hard to do so, but the firm&#8217;s bosses disagreed. (Imagine if they had signed the deal &#8211; by the time Studebaker closed, VW had sold well over 100,000 Beetles in the US.) Nevertheless, Hutchinson still arranged for Porsche to meet with Studebaker officials in 1952.<O></O>
Ferry Porsche, Erwin Komenda, Karl Rabe, Leopold Schmid, and Max Hoffman drove a 356 coupe and their latest sedan prototype, the Type 530, to South Bend, Indiana. The 530 was not overly impressive to the Studebaker people, but Porsche&#8217;s potential prevailed and an agreement was reached."

"According to the contract, the car, which would be known as the Type 542, was to be a front-engined sedan, rear-wheel-drive, and use a six cylinder (air cooled) power plant. Porsche embarked on a radical design for the time in terms of the engine. The initial proposal was an entirely air-cooled 120° 3.0L V6. This wide angle was chosen due to its inherent balance and required a less complex crankshaft. Studebaker was concerned about trouble with interior heating and noise from an air-cooled unit. Subsequently, Porsche also proposed a similar V6 using water-cooled cylinders and air-cooled heads. The heated water would then be used for a more conventional heating system, but Studebaker still felt the blower fan was too loud. Ultimately, a final entirely water-cooled iron block version of the V6 was decided upon. Iron was chosen due to obvious cost restrictions, but also because Studebaker was not well equipped to work with aluminum castings. Regardless, all versions of the V6 used aluminum heads and pistons. Fuel was fed through a single Stromberg carburetor, though Porsche had also experimented with using six Zenith carbs and even Bosch fuel injection. The engine produced 106 hp at 3,500 rpm and weighed 455 lbs
."

"Studebaker supplied Porsche with numerous parts (including wheels, brakes, handles, a transmission, and steering gear) for the car from their existing inventory to keep costs down and some similarity across the brand&#8217;s lineup.<O></O>
The suspension was fully independent all-around. The front was rather unique in that it combined trailing links like a Beetle with coil springs. The rear was similar in design, also using trailing links with coil springs &#8211; something that would not appear on a Porsche model until the 914 in 1969.<O></O>
Studebaker had always used body-on-frame chassis designs before, but the 542 called for unit body construction. While parts were constructed in South Bend, Studebaker wanted to be able to transport the unfinished cars to a final assembly plant in California. As a result, Porsche developed a removable front section that bolted on at the firewall. This allowed Studebaker to transport the bodies by special railroad cars that they had developed for their other vehicles.<O></O>
Styling wise, Studebaker preferred their designer, the famed Raymond Lowey. For the prototype though, it was necessary for Porsche to have an entire car due to the unit-body construction. This was produced by Reutter who was of course also building 356s. <O></O>
The 542 was completed in 1954 and after some testing in Europe, was shipped to the United States.
Unfortunately, Studebaker was struggling too much with finances due to poor sales from quality control issues and stiff competition from Detroit and that same year merged with Packard. The new management lost interest in the project as it would have been too costly to produce at the time. Studies had also shown that now the public preferred cars like the Beetle when it came to smaller cars. Porsche had been afraid of this and even proposed yet another design to Studebaker-Packard, the Type 633. This concept was surprisingly similar to the yet-to-be-born Corvair &#8211; rear engined, air-cooled, and smaller. Studebaker-Packard could not afford further development however."

http://ranwhenparked.blogspot.com/2010/03/designing-for-south-bend-in-stuttgart.html

 

There was one of the two for sale in the classified in L.A. about 7 years ago, wanted to buy it but didn't for lack of room... It was advertised as one of the two built with tags and registration as genuine Pontiac.
So it's probably not extinct.

 

I know a Canadian Pontiac front clip would bolt on to a 59 Elco...would make building a clone of this a little easier...

 

Thought you history buffs might find this 1914 Ford document interesting.

 

Barry, VERY fascinating historical marketing piece! Had you not posted this, it would have been an EXTINCT chapter of auto history, at least for me.

So, I trust that Ford DID sell at least 300,000 Fords for the '15 model year? If so, I wonder if there's any hard historical evidence that Ford "paid off" on that promise to those who returned the card (?).

 

---------------------------
I had never thought of that before - of using
a Canadian Pontiac front clip on a El Camino.
It's sounds right though, as the Canadian-built
Pontiacs in those years used Chevy chassis and
running gear, so the Canadian Pontiac front ends
would have been "sized" to fit the Chevy frame
perfectly. I'm wondering about the doors - if
they'd need to be changed as well, to get the
body lines to match up with the Pontiac fenders?
If so, what doors would fit the El Camino body?
2 dr sedan doors, 2 dr hardtop doors or ????
Another thought too. Besides the El Camino,
Chevy made 2 door sedan deliveries in '59 and
'60 as well. Somebody could build a phantom
'59 or '60 "Pontiac" 2-dr. sedan delivery the
same way - by using a same-year Canadian
Pontiac front clip on a Chevy sedan delivery
body shell. How cool would that be....especially
if you completed the 'transformation' by
swapping in a Canadian Pontiac dash and U.S
Pontiac interor parts and a real 389 Pontiac
engine!!!

Mart3406
========================

 

Einheits Anphibians - Extinct?



"The most important MAN military prodect became taking a part in the design of a standardized 2.5-ton range Einheits-Diesel (6x6). MAN created 6-cylinder engine HWa-526D (6.2 liter, 80 hp) with direct fuel injection for this range. Among the first prototypes Einhcits Diesel were four original 4.5-ton 8x8 chassis with a 120-hp V8 diesel engine and independent suspension of all wheels. In 1939-40 two of them were turned into the amphibious trucks, which became the world's first military amphibian with the wheel configuration 8x8. The trucks were equipped with an open hull, 150-horsepower engine, two screw propellers and the hoists. In 1940-41 these prototypes had been testing in Austria."

http://www.trucksplanet.com/catalog/model.php?id=669

 

Grahame, THAT is another "lost" piece of history you've brought back to life, bro! Seems that this would have been a fairly noisy contraption, so I'm wondering how the nazis (I refuse to capitalize the spelling) envisioned using it in combat. Given amphibious capability AND drive to ALL eight wheels, maybe it was intended for striking in locales where a strike SEEMED impossible?

NOT to get off topic too far, but I trust Gold Coast is NORTH of the current flooding in Queensland?

 

I'm guessing, always a bad move, the Anphibians were probably to expensive to produce in numbers, but, it would be great if anyone has any further information on the Einheit Anphibians.

(Jimi, thanks. All OK at the moment. The floods are to the North and West of the Gold Coast. Currently an area the size of the whole State of Texas is flooded).

 

Ford was very cleaver with their advertising. That, combined with the Model T's simplicity, durability and the fact that it was dirt cheap, is the reason 14,689,520 "Tin Lizzies" rolled off the assembly line 1909 and 1927.

And yes, they did meet their goal. Ford produced 308,162 Model T's in 1915.

 

See this page of this forum for more Pontiac El Caminos and a link to more El Camino Mutations.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4836744&highlight=elcamino#post4836744

 

MrModelT: Henry really was quite an opinionated and unique individual, wasn't he? But I find his overall behavior very pragmatic. To that extent, he had totally changed the face of the U.S. auto industry by the '20s, and he was very successful. Thankfully, his son Edsel loved automobiles too and carefully persuaded Henry to redesign the products and broaden the offerings. Buying and improving Lincoln, introducing the Zephyr/Continental line, and bringing back a new six-cylinder by the ealry '40s all helped FoMoCo stay viable and, by about 1950, to reclaim the number-two spot behind GM.

 

I had afriend in high school that had one. Drove it to school every day. Looked totally "factory" built....but wasn't.

 

Nice February 1932 Saturday Evening Post ad for the new
Hupmobile line. Below, from January 1932 Collier's magazine.
Clearly, the well-respected Hupp line was putting its best foot
forward. But the still-high prices as the Great Depression was
starting to hit bottom boded ill for the company. Nice ads,
and both are offered on eBay currently, if a HAMBer wants
to buy them for framing.

 

We are circling back again but that is fine with me. I really like the 32/33 Hupp a lot!

 

1936 Pierce Arrow Coupe and Limo

This pair of 1936 Pierce Arrows has been sitting in the Southern California desert for years after being purchased out of the Los Angeles area.

One is very rare rumble-seat coupe, the other a 19-foot limousine, with one straight-8 engine and transmission between them. These cars are thought to have been owned by Hollywood actors but there is no documentation beyond one previous owner.







More pics here;

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37210452@N06/sets/72157625634355275/

More Info Here;

http://bringatrailer.com/2011/01/06/bat-exclusive-1936-pierce-arrow-coupe-and-limo-projects/

 

A couple of more...

 

Super cool! But, the cost of restoration would make buying the V12 Coupe for 375k look like a good deal.

 

AJ, by "circling back," I hope you don't mean I showed the same illustrations again. I hope I didn't drop the ball like that. I do think it's legit to show pix that haven't been posted before. The '32/'33 Hupps were just gorgeous, so if I repeat, cue me in and I'll delete them.

Given LEAD time (planning starting 1929), it struck me that Hupp was, unfortunately, bringing UP-scale cars to market at the WORST possible time. So I thought it was relevant to why the company's sales just tumbled through the '30s. Following on the successful Century, these beautiful cars (arguably Hupp's best EVER) helped seal their fate (IMO), and they spent the mid-'30s trying vainly to get back in touch with the real-world market.

One of the most memorable mid-'30s efforts was the so-called "sad-eyed" Hupp which Jim posted a while back. By '38, we know that the factory had to shut down for several months, followed by the last-ditch joint effort with Graham, leading finally to less than 500 Skylarks being built. Though the '30s was most of a decade for Hupmobile, it seems like a period of steady decline with only the end in sight. Sad end, given the make's track record for excellence. Just my take.