CarPort

Wayne’s World, which comprises most of central Texas, is rife with hibernating cars, and Wayne, who runs it, knows where to find them. This time, with help from long-time area resident Phillip Koch, he’s come up with a whale of a stake truck. Everything is so specialized now that few people not living on farms….
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John Steinbeck was a car guy. We know that from his novels – how else would he have been able to make automobiles such realistic characters? His word pictures of Lincoln-Zephyr, Hudson and Dodge touring car in The Grapes of Wrath, and the Model T Fords in Cannery Row and East of Eden demonstrate that….
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You’ve seen this car before. It was in the way when Wayne Graefen went to retrieve “Ivy,” his 1932 Plymouth convertible sedan. At last report, it was still sitting in the same Southern California rest home for old automobiles. Wayne notes that it’s the convertible coupe style without side windows for the rear passengers. That….
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Last month we spent a weekend in upstate New York, cheering our daughter Harriet as she competed in the second annual Musselman Triathlon at Geneva. The thought of running 13 miles after swimming for over a mile and biking for 56 boggles the mind, but she finished in good, if not record, time. It was….
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Larz and Isabel Anderson bought their first car, a Winton runabout, in 1899. They never sold it. Over the years they acquired many more cars and kept most of them, too. Each car had not only a name but a motto. This 1905 Electromobile, with British chassis and body by Kellner of Paris, was called….
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Wayne Graefen spotted this long-nose beastie while combing the Texas scrapyards (it’s an honourable profession – somebody’s got to do it). Doubly intriguing is what seems to be the anchor for a sidemount spare. Wayne describes the machine as a hot rod, but what to make of that long hood? He muses “how great it….
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World War II began to affect 1942 U.S. passenger cars even before the order came to suspend production by February. In October 1941, the War Production Board forbade the use of bright trim on other than bumpers and bumper guards. Plated parts could be used if painted over; Oldsmobile had perhaps the only ad showing….
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Rich Miller recently sent me some photos of his new 1942 Mercury. A low mileage car from Colorado, it benefits from a recent restoration, enhanced by having led a sheltered life. The ornate dashboard plastic, for example, looks virtually new. I’ve always had a fascination with 1942 cars. Because the model year was cut short….
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It took my friend Dan Ditullio a little over twenty years to restore his Cord 812. The result is well worth the time and expense, but he learned a few things in the process, some stories worth retelling. This, friends, could happen to you. He purchased the 1937 Beverly, the more upmarket of Cord’s two….
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Doesn’t everyone? Of course, a parade must have marching bands, baton twirlers, fire engines and celebrities riding in parade phaetons. What kind of parade phaetons? Well, didn’t Chrysler build the best parade phaetons? One of the best known is “Famous Fanny,” a Crown Imperial built by Derham Body Company of Rosemont, Pennsylvania for New York….
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