CarPort

Wayne Graefen is the CarPort’s Texas ranger. He roams the range in search of interesting automobiles, and this time he’s come up with a 1960 Mercury Park Lane Crusier hardtop coupe. It is, says Wayne, “one of those ’60 Ford products that were federally illegal to be on the highway due to width.” Indeed, the….
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It has become the conventional wisdom that Henry J. Kaiser, despite his success with concrete, shipbuilding and healthcare, was a failed automaker. Even with the help of industry veteran Joseph Frazer, formerly with Willys and Graham-Paige, Kaiser was unable to sustain what author Richard Langworth has called the “last onslaught on Detroit.” The onslaught, if….
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Chances are, if you’re of certain age you associate the name “White” with trucks. For over seven decades, the White Motor Company built commercial vehicles, with very few exceptions. In the beginning, however, White vehicles were passenger cars. In 1900, Rollin, Walter and Windsor White began building steam cars in their father’s Cleveland sewing machine….
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This car sat for years beside the road in Hyannis, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Car spotters easily identified it as a 1957 Ford. Closer inspection reveals an unusual fuel door location and a distinctive roofline, both hallmarks of the Skyliner retractable hardtop, a “new kind of Ford” that year. The Skyliner returned for the 1958….
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In October 1999, two venerable automotive historians were pondering the upcoming execution of Plymouth, announced a month earlier in the motoring press. Mike, ever the romantic, remarked that Plymouth’s Mayflower badge still shone brightly, despite erosion of the car’s product line. Fred, the pragmatic realist, said it was all about bottom line, and some hokus-pokus….
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It used to be the conventional wisdom that no one would ever collect cars from the 1970s. I have never believed this – every car will some day have its moment of collectability – but I once said I hoped I’d never see a Pinto at a car show. I ate crow for that statement….
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Are you overwhelmed by your motor mall megadealer? Are you cowed when you go to the antiseptic parts and service department, where you’re never allowed to talk to the mechanics? Maybe you should be taking your car to Nick Pagani at Ace Auto Service in New Rochelle, New York. Established by Nick’s grandfather in 1920,….
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Jill and I were married 32 years ago today at the Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul at Stoke Lacy in England’s border county of Herefordshire. It was not what you’d call an old car wedding; the bride rode to the church in a Peugeot 304 and we made our getaway in a year-old….
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Sedan Delivery Edition, that is. Fred Summers, the CarPort’s redoubtable St. Louis Bureau Chief, liked the issue on sedan deliveries. He believes he’s gone us one better, however, with this 1950 Pontiac sedan delivery with rear side windows. He spied it at a Kruse auction in his city some years ago, and was told it….
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After gloomy, wet skies on Saturday, the Greenwich Concours d’Elegance was brightened on Sunday by occasional sun and a bright little star, the Stellite car. Built by a subsidiary of Vickers for Wolseley, the Stellite was produced from 1913 to 1919. This 1914 Stellite, one of a handful to survive, was owned by Scott Isquick’s….
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