Archive for the ‘Cars’ Category

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 413

Tuesday, May 18th, 2021

Did you know that Chrysler built turbine powered cars?

I’m not talking about the one that raced at Indy: Chrysler had an active program from (roughly) the 1950s to 1979 developing turbine powered passenger cars. Between 1963 and 1964, they produced 55 cars.

“Here’s why the government made Chrysler destroy its 46 jet cars.”

(I know the numbers don’t quite match: Chrysler kept two, five are in museums, and two are privately owned.)

Bonus #1: “The Mazda RX-8 Is a Fun Car You Probably Shouldn’t Buy”.

Bonus #2: Breaking slightly from the car theme, but…”Evel Knievel: The True Story” from 1998.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 408

Thursday, May 13th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Since I know there’s at least one person out there who loves Greyhound (“…the awful smell of stale cigarettes, recirculated air with the BO of 50 other people that would linger for a day or two after my 6 hour Greyhound ride from college to home.“) here’s a promo film: “Would You Believe It?” from 1957, promoting the company’s “Escorted Tour” services. In color, even.

The one time I took the ‘Hound on the ground, it was only about three hours each way (Austin-Houston and back), and I think by that time smoking was verboten on Greyhound buses. However, in the interest of fairness…

Bonus #1: “10 BAD Things That WILL Happen on the GREYHOUND BUS” from the “Frugal Travel Guru”.

Bonus #2: This one’s a long one, but probably somewhat more pleasant than traveling by bus. Especially if you have a good car: a man with a good car doesn’t need to be justified.

“100 Years on the Lincoln Highway”, a Wyoming PBS documentary about the first coast to coast road.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 406

Tuesday, May 11th, 2021

I want to post some more safety related videos, but it feels too early for that. I am tempted to make “Safety Saturday” a thing. But I probably won’t, for reasons.

In the meantime, how about some cars?

No, the other ones. At least a couple of folks seemed to like that General Tire promo video I posted a while back (how can you go wrong with children and firearms?) so here’s something from DuPont: “Facts About Tires”.

Bonus #1: “Why the Ford Model A is the best American car ever made.”

I don’t know that I would call it the “best American car”. But there is something pleasing about the looks, you can work on it yourself…

Bonus #2: Speaking of working on it yourself, back in the day, my dad changed his own oil. And he always put STP into his cars. These days, you don’t hear much about STP. (At least, not the oil treatment. Maybe more the octane booster and gas treatment. You can get all this stuff from Amazon. (affiliate link))

“The Racer’s Edge”, a promo film about the history of the STP racing teams, featuring Andy Granatelli.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 404

Sunday, May 9th, 2021

Science Sunday!

My paternal grandmother was a teacher. There were always books and magazines around the house, many of which were appropriate for the younger set.

One book that I vividly remember (and wish I could find today) was a book published by Scholastic about the coelacanth: specifically, about how it was thought to be extinct, until a museum curator found one in the daily catch of a local fisherman.

I was fascinated by this. Still am: I haven’t found the original Scholastic book, but Samantha Weinberg’s A Fish Caught in Time: The Search for the Coelacanth (affiliate link) is a pretty swell book, and is targeted more at the adult reader. And I think my grandmother would have endorsed this (ditto).

(I was hardly a “reluctant reader”, but I believe the kids she taught sometimes fell into that category.)

“Diving With Coelacanths”. Be warned: the people in this video are doing highly technical diving at great depth. Which means mixed gasses. Which means they sound like Donald Duck. There are subtitles: but as some of the comments point out, what’s in the subtitles doesn’t always match up with what’s actually being said.

Bonus: Another one of the Scholastic books she had lying around was a biography of Clyde Tombaugh and how he discovered Pluto.

“Reflections on Clyde Tombaugh” from NASA.

And here’s an approximately 30 minute interview with Dr. Tombaugh from 1997, shortly before his death.

Bonus #2: This is borderline science and/or technology, but I have a reason for posting this. A week ago Saturday, for some reason, we got into a discussion of auto racing and racing technology. I mentioned, but could not recall the details at the time, that there was a gas turbine powered car that competed in the Indianapolis 500, back when you could still do stuff like that. You know, before everything became standardized and homogenized and experimentation was limited…

“The Silent Screamer”, a short-ish (17 minutes) documentary about Andy Granatelli’s turbine powered car at the 1967 Indy 500.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 403

Saturday, May 8th, 2021

There have been a couple of incidents recently involving old guys falling off boats into the water and dying.

I’m not making fun of them: mad props to these guys for being out there. But, as Lawrence put it: “Important safety tip: try not to fall off the boat.”

From the National Safety Council, circa 1972: “Find a Float”.

Bonus #1: in honor of the late Bobby Unser, “Hazards of Mountain Driving”.

Bonus #2: “Blasting Cap Danger” brought to you by the “Institute of Makers of Explosives” circa 1957.

I remember when I was young and reading “Boy’s Life”, every now and then they’d have a public service advertisement depicting various types of blasting caps and warning young Boy Scouts not to mess with them. My question was: why? Was there a real problem with people just leaving blasting caps lying around for kids to find?

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 386

Wednesday, April 21st, 2021

You know, I could almost do a day of great TV theme songs from the ‘Tube. I don’t think I’m going to, but I could…

But today: “Pattern For Progress”, “…which shows how machines increase the power of farming operations, therefore increasing production and revenue.” This is a product of the Ethyl Corporation and Esso.

Bonus #1: I’ve never heard of “Combat Dealers” before. It might be on Quest TV. It might also need subtitles.

I’ve noted before that I think an old VW Thing would be fun to hack around in, if I could afford one. Someone a while back recommended a used Jeep Cherokee as another fun hacking around car.

So: “American Jeep Vs German Kubelwagen”. Neither of these is exactly a Cherokee or a Thing, but they’re kind of within shouting distance.

Bonus #2: I’m actually going to link to an entire playlist here, for bookmarking purposes and because I can’t pick just one.

There’s a guy named Felix Immler who has a channel devoted to pocket knives. Of special interest to me: his “Victorinox customize & maintenance Workshop” and “Victorinox uses and techniques“.

These are fairly short, but there are a bunch of them. Just to give you a taste: “4 Special Tricks with the Victorinox Toothpick” that don’t involve picking your teeth with it.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 371

Tuesday, April 6th, 2021

Car talk!

Great and good FotB RoadRich sent this one over: “Master Hands”, a 1936 documentary about the Chevrolet manufacturing line: “from foundry to finished vehicles”.

Not only is this another fine piece of work from the Jam Handy folks, it is also on the Library of Congress National Film Registry.

Bonus #1: “Rare 1970 Plymouth Superbird unrestored”. I was out driving to an appointment a while back, and drove past one of the local auto repair shops. This one has some interesting and exotic stuff from time to time: that day, they had a Superbird in this exact color scheme (but seemingly restored) parked out front. I don’t think it was there for repair or restoration: I think someone was showing it off, and I nearly stopped to ask permission to take a photo. But I was running behind schedule…

As I’ve said before, I’m not a Mopar guy, but there’s something about the Superbird that grabs me.

Bonus #2: I’ve done Plymouth/Chrysler. I’ve done Chevy. How about Ford?

“The Hunt for Little Red”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 358

Wednesday, March 24th, 2021

Let’s take a coffee break.

“The £299 Aldi Espresso Machine – How Bad Could It Be?”

Oddly enough, I don’t shop at Aldi either, and for the same reason: the nearest one to us is about 30 miles away.

Bonus #1: Since we’ve talked about an espresso machine, how about we talk about a can opener? A very specialized can opener, that is: this one opens powder cans for the 16″ guns on the Battleship New Jersey.

Bonus #2, and a little shout-out to the Saturday Night Movie Group. From the “Old Car Memories” channel, Jim Rockford’s Firebird.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 350

Tuesday, March 16th, 2021

I got dragged into a meeting that took a lot longer than I expected. Which means I’m starting my lunch a lot later than I expected. Which means I’m queuing up this post a lot later than I expected. Which means a handful of random today.

First off, you know I had to include this, even if it does draw a little too much on random gun crankery: Lena Miculek shoots her mom’s “Space Gun”. Which is actually a custom Remington XP-100 chambered in 6mm BR.

Bonus: here’s something for Lawrence, and for other “Simpsons” fans: “Worker and Parasite” exists. No, really. And I’m not talking about this:

This is something called “The Millionaire”, an animated Soviet propaganda cartoon.

What the Hell was that?

Bonus #2: “Inside The F1 Medical Car”. This is fairly recent, and also fairly short.

Bonus #3: I’m not a real big car guy, but I found this video weirdly compelling. I think there’s actually something compelling in general (well, at least for me, but it seems like I hear this from other folks, too) about watching people do teardowns. In this case, the presenter is tearing down a Corvette LS7 engine that is totally locked up: it won’t even turn. But why?

Bonus #4: “C’est un Nagra. C’est suisse, et tres, tres precis.”

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 344

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

I’m going to start out today with a little advertising.

From StudioCanalUK, “The Making of the Dam Busters”. I’m classifying this under “Movies” rather than “Military History”, so I can avoid having more than one military history per week. Also, I think it more appropriately belongs there.

Here’s the advertising: there’s a new US region blu-ray of “The Dam Busters”, which was released yesterday. This is something I think everyone in the Saturday Night Movie Group wants to see, and I will be ordering it directly. (There was a 2018 blu-ray, but it is region B/2 according to Amazon.)

(No, we do not have a region free blu-ray player.)

Bonus: since I want to stay away from military history, and sort of keeping thematically with the previous post: “This Is Triumph”.

I confess to a sneaking fondness for the TR7 back when I was a young lad…

Bonus #2: Why not? “Life In the Fast Lane”.

Oh, wait. I’m sorry. That was the wrong one. This one is from 1981, and discusses the US freeway system.

I may not be terribly bright, but honestly, I did not know about the odd/even numbering distinction. Or if I did know, I’d forgotten it.

Things I did not know. (#5 in a series)

Wednesday, March 10th, 2021

There is a National Historic Vehicle Register.

In March 2013, the HVA [Historic Vehicle Association – DB] entered into a collaboration with the U.S. Department of the Interior to explore how vehicles important in American and automotive history could be effectively documented and recognized. This project is the first of its type to create a permanent archive of significant historic automobiles within the Library of Congress.

In my humble personal opinion, this is really an aesthetically pleasing site that does justice to the vehicles in the registry. And I think almost all of the choices in the registry are good ones.

(This by way of the NYT obit for Bruce Meyers, inventor of the fiberglass dune buggy.)

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 340

Saturday, March 6th, 2021

Here’s a couple more random things I pulled out of the big bag o’ random.

First off: “Turn On With AC – AC Tough!”. This is from 1973, and if that’s not enough of a warning for you: this is full on “Joel, am I tripping?” fodder. The best way I can describe it is as an early 1970s variety show (or a parody of same) promoting AC products. Not AC-Delco: they didn’t become AC-Delco until 1974.

I’m not necessarily saying that you should watch this, but it is only about 17 and a half minutes, and is so bizarre that it should make the younger set say, “What were they doing in the 1970s?!” (Answer: cocaine. Lots and lots of cocaine.)

Somewhat more serious bonus: “The Bomb Disposal Men”, from the British Army Documentaries channel. This dates to 1974, and deals with the work of bomb disposal men (“Ammunition Technical Officers”) in Northern Ireland.

Somewhat more serious bonus 1.5: “The Long Walk”. This is a more recent BBC documentary “following three retired bomb disposal officers as they recount their experiences in Northern Ireland during the IRA bombing campaign of the early 70’s.” It covers some of the same ground as “The Bomb Disposal Men” (and even uses some clips from it), but I find it kind of interesting to have this historical perspective.

Somewhat less serious bonus #2: “The Making of The Hunt for Red October”. Exactly what it says on the tin.

I should pick that up. I don’t think I’d put it in my top ten, but I have really fond memories of seeing that film in theaters, and would not mind seeing it again.