CarPort

The years 1963 to ’68 are what I call my “sports car period.” That interval of youth might, for reasons I’m about to impart, also be called the “Spridget years.” During the winter of 1964-65, my younger sister bought a well-used Austin-Healey Sprite. One of first to reach our shores in 1959, the Sprite had….
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Today we instinctively think “green” at the words “car with a conscience,” something like a Toyota Prius hybrid or one of GM’s much-ballyhooed Flex Fuel vehicles. In 1911, the car with a conscience was the Oakland, a thoroughly conventional four-cylinder gasoline car, part of Billy Durant’s new General Motors empire. Oakland explained to its employees….
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My favorite British vintage event, after Beaulieu Autojumble, is the Hanbury Steam Rally. Fortunately, the steam rally directly follows Beaulieu on the next weekend, so one can cover both events without losing any steam. Stars of the Hanbury show, naturally, are the steam traction engines, which come in many flavors. The showman’s engine was the….
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As in Ruby Anniversary. The Beaulieu International Autojumble marked its fortieth birthday a weekend back. Held annually on the Beaulieu Estate of Lord Montagu in England’s New Forest, the Autojumble offers some 2,000 vending spaces were one can buy brass lamps, hampers, picnic sets, car mascots or spanners. An engine for your Riley or DeDion….
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If you grew up during the 1960s you may be excused for thinking that Winnebago invented the motor home. So metoric was that company’s rise that the name took its place alongside Kleenex, Kodak and Xerox as a generic description of their product (and many other people’s). In fact, motor camping was well established by….
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In 1947, International Harvester debuted a new logo. Instantly recognizable as the corporation’s initials, IH, it was the work of Raymond Loewy, the renowned industrial designer who had already put his stamp on the Gestetner mimeograph machine, the Coldspot refrigerator and the Lucky Strike cigarette package. There was a deeper meaning, however. Given the nickname….
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I’m suspicious of any museum with “transportation” in its name. Usually, either the mission is too broad or8-2 the museum is so large that the exhibits boggle the mind. A nice compromise is the Owls Head Transportation Museum in the Maine village of the same name. Although the museum concerns transportation on water, rail and….
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In April 1941, Packard Motor Car Company introduced the new Clipper model. A single streamlined sedan on the wheelbase of the traditional One-Twenty, its four-month sales equaled those of the One Twenty, itself a successful foray into the medium-priced field introduced in 1935. The One-Twenty was so successful that a six-cylinder version became available in….
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Many of us talk about driving old cars, but few put significant mileage on them. The dean of old car motorists has to be British motoring historian and journalist Mike Worthington-Williams, who until last year drove his old car about 10,000 miles every year. For Arthur, his 1927 Austin 20, it was a genteel retirement,….
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Not to put too fine a point on it, but the air flows differently than the eye expects. That was the premise of Chrysler Corporation’s Airflow models, introduced for Chrysler and DeSoto in 1934. Scientifically designed to be slippery, and engineered with a truss bridge frame to be sturdy , they were technological marvels. Unfortunately,….
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