CarPort

This past August, Jill and I spent nearly three weeks in Kenya, visiting our daughter and son-in-law, who were working there with the US State Department. Generally considered a developing nation, Kenya has a long and interesting history, which involves, not surprisingly, the automobile. Kenya’s British colonial heritage dictates that traffic keep to the left.….
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After our second child was born, it became apparent that not all of us could ride in my standard cab pickup truck. There were times when we wanted to haul something with the whole family aboard, so I started looking at alternatives. A crew cab pickup would have solved the problem, but in 1980 there….
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New Britain, Connecticut is known as “The Hardware City,” home to the Stanley Works and the Corbin Lock Company (later part of American Hardware), Fafnir Bearing, North & Judd and Landers, Frary & Clark. Stanley, North & Judd and Landers concentrated on building, household and marine products, but Fafnir bearings often found their way into….
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October 3, 1963, is a red letter day for many car enthusiasts, but few of them know about it. It can be considered the birth date of the Pontiac GTO, as far as the public is concerned, but because the GTO was a stealth project its actual “birth” came unheralded on new-car-introduction day, a check-box….
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Byron Carter was a clever guy. He patented a three-cylinder steam engine, and with two friends he organized the Jackson Automobile Company in Michigan in 1903. By September of that year he had built a two-cylinder runabout for himself using a friction-drive transmission of his own invention. The concept was extremely simple: two large discs….
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About three years ago I told the story of my first car, a 1937 Ford convertible sedan. It’s been a while since the subject came up, but recently Dennis David, the CarPort’s western Connecticut scout, sent me a photo of his first car, a 1963 Mercury Comet. The Comet, of course, was basically a stretched….
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The Overland car, volume seller from John North Willys‘s Willys-Overland Corporation, held a steady second place to Ford during the ‘teens, but sagged measurably in the early 1920s. So in 1926, Willys came up with an inexpensive car, the Whippet. Small and swift, like the canine whose name it bore, the Whippet caught on quickly,….
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Stutz was the “Car that made good in a day,” turning in a creditable performance in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911. It is the Stutz Bearcat, of course, that became best known, despite the fact that there were Stutz sedans and touring cars throughout the car’s life. In the 1920s, the “Safety Stutz,” with….
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I’ve heard it said that in the upper reaches of collector car circles it’s considered coarse and crass to refer to a Rolls-Royce as a “Roller,” although “Rolls” is generally acceptable. The same goes for Hispano-Suiza: “Hispano,” certainly, but never “Hisso.” Why, then, does everyone refer to a Duesenberg as a “Duesie”? In fact, the….
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When I was young I used to wonder why a company called Autocar built only trucks. One frequently saw Autocars then. They were as popular as Federals and Brockways, if not as common as Reo or White. My father explained that once upon a time Autocar had done just that: built cars. The Autocar Company….
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