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I am pretty sure this is the first car from my childhood that I can explicitly remember, though if it's not, it's a damn good guess, because Ford sold a boatload of these land yachts. Measuring nearly 19ft long (to put that in perspective, that's longer than a current Chevy Suburban) and weighing two and a half tons, and available with a 460cid V8, these disco era toddler barges were whales even by the standards of the day. The coolest features by far were the 3-way magic doorgate and the flip up third row seats. Although the "wayback" was big enough to host a threesome, The magic 3-way tailgate wasn't as kinky as it sounds. Though undoubtedly a double entendre, the 3-way referred to the ability of the tailgate to open like a door, or fold down like a pickup - which given my age at the time seemed magical enough. At the drive in we would park backwards, drop the tailgate down and the three of us kids would lie in the back in sleeping bags to watch the movie. As well as sledding innumerable families to the movies, the Country Squire appeared in well over 100 movies and TV series, and seems to have been especially popular with the producers of "CHIPS". |
| The Lyman Boatworks of Sandusky Ohio began building lapstrake (alternatively known as "clinker built" ) wooden boats some time in the late 1800's. I would hazard a guess that Lyman made more lapstrake boats than anyone by the time they effectively ceased wood boat production in the early 1970's. Although Lymans are/were most popular and numerous on the Great Lakes, it's a testament to their construction quality and popularity that they were also fairly common on the Atlantic seaboard. There were quite a few of these around Cape Cod Bay when I was a kid and I have always loved the look of these boats. The mahogany and teak woodwork was first rate and they just look "right". Oddly enough during the late 1970's early 1980's when most wooden boat manufacturers disappeared without a trace in the rush to build Corox bottle Bayliners and other Kia's of the nautical world, the Lyman factory was left more or less intact by an entrepreneur intent on resurrecting the brand as an upscale fiberglass manufacturer. Amazingly he never sold off or disposed of all the patterns, jigs, plans, tools etc. of the old wooden boat factory. For whatever reason his plan never came to fruition and he sold the whole works, kit and Kaboodle to a Lyman enthusiast named Tom Koroknay of Lexington Ohio. Tom has made a going concern out of restoration and parts services for vintage Lymans (after all, the parts are as close to original as you can get). A quick view of the astounding number of beautiful Lymans for sale on his site demonstrates his success. With the possible exception of Chris Craft's wooden speed boats, I doubt that there are as many well preserved wooden boats of any brand. Check it out, not only are there an incredible array of gorgeous wooden boats, but compared to a modern carpeted plastic boat, they are in general relatively cheap. http://www.lymanboat.com/default.html Oh, and BTW, for those wondering what the red thing on top of the boat above is, it's a wind powered spinner designed to frighten off seagulls. |
At 138db @ 100 ft these Chrysler V8 powered sirens generate what is purportedly the loudest signal sound ever made. How loud is 138db? Well, in Stereo terms 30,000 watts of sound energy, that's nearly twice as loud as the noise you'd experience 50 ft. away from jet fighter taking off at full boil. For a video of one of these being run up at a car show hit "more" More... |
Check out their site, the ICON FJ really needs to be seen to be believed. Link : ICON 4X4 |
| Unless you are a hardcore bike nerd or Danish (of the non-pastery persuasion), you have probably never heard of Nimbus motorcycles. Unlike the Nimbus 2000 of Harry Potter fame, this one runs on petrol as opposed to ye old magickal spelz. Note the unusual (for a bike) 4 cylinder inline motor. If you look closely, you will notice another oddity, these guys were shaft drive, even way back when. The Nimbus was made by a Danish company that also made vacuum cleaners and was manufactured from the 1920's until 1960. |
This pretty, little roadster was crafted at the behest of an American Porsche dealer by the Italian Design company Bertone, possibly best know for their out of this world Lamborghini Countach & Alfa Romeo BAT designs. In the end, only one of them was built and none were series produced, which is a shame, because I think it's a very nice design. To me, it looks to have influenced some of the 914 design elements (it came a few years later). VIA: Coachbuild a very neat site with lots of interesting articles and pictures-check it out, you will be glad you did. Update: Turns out Fiat just bought Bertone |
| In the late 70's and early 80's, these were the genuine old school preppy family vehicle of choice and they just oozed class (and smoke). People of lesser means (like our family) had to make due with Diesel Vdubs or Volvos. While comparable American cars were adding chrome, brougham and opera roofs, the period Benzes were ostentatious in their plain-ness. Detroit went to great lengths to make their hubcaps look like all manner of wire wheels, or alloy wheels, the W123's understated Fuchs alloy wheels seem to have been styled to resemble cheap hubcaps. It is the distinctive sound of the Mercedes diesels that I remember most about these cars, and to this day, I can still identify a Benz diesel of this vintage with my eyes closed, and no, not from the smell - "Ladies and Gentlemen, Pop Your Collars". |
| This is really pretty neat, I had no idea that the U2 flew THAT high, quite an achievement for 50 year old design. |
I love this plane, it's based on the original Grumman Goose which dates to 1937, the new Super Goose features modern avionics and reliable turbines instead of the original radial piston engines. I have always loved seaplanes and have long been mystified as to why there aren't more around given the number of tourist destinations that involve water and rich people. In any event, the vintage looks are very cool. |
In the early 1980's, Subaru, VW and eventually Chrysler released El-Camino like variants of their compact cars. In Chrysler's case, that effort yielded the Dodge Rampage and it's cousin the Plymouth Scamp. The answer to a question nobody asked, namely - Q: "Wouldn't an Omni GLH Make a Great Truck? A: "WTF? Did You Fall and Bang Your Head"? |
| When I was in college, I had a grey 1969 MG BGT that I had purchased off an acquaintance for somewhere on the order of a few hundred $US that had a bad clutch. In a nutshell, here is what happened; I acquire said imported British sports car at some point in the summer, and get everything apart to replace the clutch and then have to return to college. Meanwhile the garage space occupied by the B and it's transmission is required by my brother (not in school at the time) who needed to perform some similar mechanical transplantation. So, he rolls the B out of the garage and boots the tranny and other assorted pieces parts off to the side to make room for his car, and here is where things begin to go pear shaped (as they say). More...I had put all the bolts, nuts washers, pins etc. into a bowl pilfered from the kitchen. My Brother, upon finding said nuts and bolts, dumps the whole kit and kaboodle into what we referred to as the "Bolt Box". The Bolt Box was wooden box about half as big as an US Army footlocker that was filled with about three generations of nuts and bolts left over from various mechanical endeavours. The total population of nuts and bolts must have numbered in the tens of thousand. The Bolt Box was a priceless source of ass saving spares for the inevitable stripped, lost, broken or tapped out nut or bolt that would otherwise derail any mechanical project. Suffice it to say that after my Father and Brother had spent a winter digging through the Bolt Box for spares, my British nuts and bolts were thoroughly mingled with thousands of similarly sized U.S. bolts and nuts. The problem of course being that British Whitworth and American SAE threads are extremely similar and sometimes interchangeable to a point, but fundamentally different. The US bolt might screw in a 1/2 inch or so and bind ever so slightly, leaving the wretched wrencher to have to decide, is it seated and ready to torque down or about just about to strip. How much this sucked cannot be sufficiently conveyed. To add to the issues, the BMC Corp used a real mish mash of fasteners to fit any single component. While an American transmission might be attached with 1 or possibly two bolt types and sizes, the MG might mix fine and course threads of differing lengths. Needless to say, it took me the better part of the summer to locate all the needed fasteners to put the old B together again. I loved to drive that car, and not because it was a great car, it wasn't, but rather, simply because it was fun in a way that transcended the mundane act of driving. It reminded me of nothing so much as a WWI biplane. Between it's Sopwith Camel like, loping idle (accompanied by the lively motion of the Smiths dash gauges) and it's unique odor of hot oily metal, moldering wool and leather, the whole vehicle was unmistakeably a human "contraption" in the best sense. A contraption in that every moment that it ran was like a minor miracle brought forth by human sweat and toil, both of which the car required more regularly than it did gas or oil. Driving that MG was like discovering that the cable company left HBO on from the previous tenants, you felt lucky and a little giddy knowing that at any moment it might come to an abrupt and possibly unpleasant end. And so it did, all over my future mother in laws pristine suburban driveway. |
| What a bummer, while it is true that the station jumped the shark when Charles left and they started airing Stern and catering to frat boys, but still, it's the end of an era. I listened to BCN for years, had their sticker on my car in H.S. I have fond memories of the Cosmic Muffin, The Big Mattress, Patrick's traffic report with "Grossmans Gulch" , The "Spring Time for Boston on BCN - Boiiing" and my all time favorite "Tank Phillipi Ryan", and of course winning a few concert ticket's and being exposed to great music in the 70's and 80's. |
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| I really like the design of this Cottage/Cabin and I think Mr. Mulfinger absolutely nailed the look and feel of a turn of the century Craftsman/Victorian summer vacation cabin without adding to many modern gewgaws which would spoil it. You can purchase study and construction plans and look at the interior photos, elevations and floor plans at the link below. Link: Architectural House Plans |
There are plenty of obscure cars, but few can match the Goggomobile Dart for sheer improbability. The original Goggomobil was a post war German microcar with a 2 cycle 250cc 15hp motor. So what about the Dart? Well, believe it or not the Dart originated in Australia,by way of Dingolfing Germany. More... At the time, Australia had prohibitively high import taxes imposed on foreign cars. Bill Buckle of Sydney discovered that he could circumvent the tariffs by importing the chassis and mating the chassis to an Australian made body. Apparently Goggomobil maker Hans Glas was the only manufacturer which would go along with this scheme, and Buckle Motors became the sole purveyor of fiberglass bodied Goggomobil clones down under. Not content with the rather pedestrian Goggomobil Sedan & Van, Buckle also had a sports car body designed for the tiny Goggomobile chassis by a race car engineer. The result is the Goggomobil Dart, the knee high 750lb door-less Micro Sportscar pictured above. |
Now here is something you don't see everyday, a motorcycle with a rotary engine driving the front wheel. It's not a Wankel rotary engine (a la RX-7), but rather a radial rotary of the type found in early airplanes. In this instance the crankshaft is actually the front axle and the engine rotates with the wheel. The crank was hollow and did double duty as an intake manifold. It seems crazy now, but the Megola was actually competitive in racing and won the 1924 German Championship. While the engine may look small, it is actually 640cc, about the same as a modern midsize bike (though it only produced 14hp). According to the Wiki's 2000 Megola's were made, but only 10 serviceable examples remain. If you would like to see a restored one in action check out this youtube video here |
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