CarPort

“Do you still drive a Studebaker?” On the rare occasions when I’m in touch with college classmates this question often comes up. It shouldn’t surprise me, I suppose, because my undergraduate years, 1962-66, are what I call my “Studebaker period.” It started by happenstance. I was dating the daughter of a Ford dealer, and was….
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Few, I suspect, are the carfolk who know that Florida’s Amelia Island is named for the second daughter of England’s George II. Fewer still, I’m quite certain, are those who don’t associate the community near Jacksonville with the southeast’s premier automotive concours d’elegance, worthy of mention in the same breath as Pebble Beach or Meadow….
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It all started aboard the Queen Elizabeth (if the current ocean liner is “QE2,” can we call its predecessor “QE1”?). Donald Healey, the British designer who had been building limited-production Riley-engined Healey Silverstone sports cars, Westland roadsters, Abbott dropheads and Elliot saloons, was on his way to America in search of Cadillac engines to pep….
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Willys-Overland eagerly touted the luggage capacity of the new Aero models in 1952: “24 cubic feet of space – ample for a large family.” They even bragged about the primitive exterior hinges: “outside where they can’t bite into luggage.” That’s quite remarkable for what was a comparatively small car; the Packard Patrician rated but 30….
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Chances are you associate Consumer Reports with boring, sensible cars – transportation appliances. Chances are you also, like me, sneak off to the library to consult their ratings when buying your own daily driver, whether it’s new or, like mine, well used. Yesterday CR opened their test site to the automotive and mainstream media, giving….
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I come from a Franklin family. Not descended from Ben, the Foster household had several Franklin cars during the 1920s. The last one, a 1928 sedan, was owned by my grandmother into the mid-1930s (interestingly, she never drove, nor did my grandfather; they had a chauffeur and in later years their children took over the….
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The weather forecasters promised us a blizzard this past Sunday, and a blizzard, of a sort, is what we got. “Blizzard” is defined as “a violent windstorm with dry, driving snow and intense cold.” The National Weather Service quantifies this as 35 mph winds and quarter mile visibility or less (there is no specific temperature….
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Wayne Graefen has a keen eye for old cars. He spotted this Pontiac sedan delivery from the fast lane of I-35 while towing a new acquisition home from his Kansas vacation. Closer investigation showed it to be a 1950 model, of which 2,158 were built, some (perhaps most), like this one, with six-cylinder engines, others….
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On January 26, 1906, Fred Marriott became the first person to drive an automobile more that two miles in a minute, when he was timed at 127.66 mph in the Stanley “Rocket” racer on Ormond Beach, Florida. Exactly a century later, his great-grandson Robert Landry, Jr., re-enacted his feat (at a slower speed) in a….
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I’ve always had a fondness for the Edsel. As a car-consumed young person, I eagerly followed the gestation of Ford’s “E-car” in the press and broadcast news reports. When the car was unveiled on September 4, 1957, just five days before my 13th birthday, I was elated. The car was dramatic in a way that….
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