CarPort

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 that each car should have a “good, clean ‘Mechanical Conscience’,” and that they should bring it about by doing their very best at all times.

Oakland introduced a six in 1913, along with a vee-shaped German Silver radiator. In 1914, it offered five models, the Six-Sixty and Six-Forty-Eight, along with three four cylinder cars, Models Forty-Three, Thirty-Six and Thirty-Five. Interestingly, the sixes had left-hand drive while the fours were right-hand driven. By 1916, sales had risen to some 30,000, at prices from $795 to $1,585, between Buick and the new Chevrolet.

In 1918, to concentrate on quality, a single-model policy was adopted, with six-cylinder cars built on a 112-inch wheelbase. Significant changes were made in 1924: a new L-head six, automatic spark advance and DuPont’s new Duco nitrocellulose lacquer in a shade called “True Blue.” The biggest news concerned four-wheel brakes, which the company demonstrated by having a new, four-wheel-brake car supply all the stopping for itself plus a 1923 two-wheel-brake car in hilly San Francisco.

Body styles included a touring car, roadster, coupe and sedan, priced from $1,095 to $1,645. Sales rose to nearly 57,000 by 1926 and stayed above 40,000 through 1927 and 1928, the year of the All American Six.” In 1929, however, Oakland sales sank by nearly half. The problem was Pontiac, Oakland’s lower-priced “companion car,” launched in 1926. Pontiac, a six, had sold like gangbusters from the outset and moved nearly 200,000 cars in 1929. Management tried to give Oakland its own niche, with exclusive V8 power in 1930 and ’31, at a reduced price, just above Pontiac’s. It didn’t help; sales continued to slide.

In 1930, Pontiac, while suffering in the deepening depression, still cranked out three times as many cars as Oakland. For 1931, Pontiac differed from Oakland only in wheelbase and engine. In 1932, the remaining V8s were badged as Pontiacs and Oakland became a memory. By 1934, Pontiac had a new straight eight that set the pattern for the next two decades, along with sixes that returned the following year. By 1937, sales had risen above 200,000 and Oakland, the Car with a Conscience, had all but disappeared from everyone’s consciousness. Pontiac had become not only the most successful “companion make” but also the only one to kill off its parent.

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 mainstay of the carnival crowd, useful for pulling all sorts of fair equipment to a show and equipped with a generator for lighting and other electrical needs. The Pride of Worcester, an 8 horsepower Showman’s Road Locomotive, was built in 1907 by C.Burrell & Sons, and has seen war service as well as show biz.

Ploughing engines were used to till the soil. Too heavy to pull a plough (they would pack the dirt), they ploughed in pairs, pulling the plough back and forth between them by means of a cable and winch. General purpose engines are useful for any number of tasks, such as threshing. Steam rollers, of course, are essential to any nation that travels. “Patricia,” an Aveling-Barford, was used by Durham County Council from 1937 to 1963. Miniature traction engines were also represented.

Britain also had fleets of steam-powered lorries (trucks), and Hanbury had examples of the most popular Sentinel and Foden types. For good measure, there were a few petrol-powered rollers. And not forgotten was some real horsepower.

Fairground organs always give me goose bumps. Thankfully, Hanbury had several, including two Gaviolis, an 1890 89-key unit originally built for a European dance hall, and a 1902 98-key with ornate animated figures. I stood between them for about half an hour watching children ride the Helter Skelter, a kid-powered slide. Upon paying the entry, one picks up a mat, climbs the stairs and slides down on it, arriving promptly and excitedly at the bottom. It’s ecofriendly, uses no hydrocarbons, and all who slide pay for the ride. Complementing the mechanized organs was a proper organ grinder, but, alas, no monkey.

The Hanbury rally is about more than steam, though. There are vintage bicycles, motorcycles (and at least a few scooters), military vehicles and tractors. Among the latter were several strongarm-type Fordsons (which we’ve examined before), a single-cylinder Field Marshall, even a John Deere. Stationary engines were there aplenty, pumping water, vacuum (for milking cows), and generating electricity. Celebrity of the lot was a monstrous V-12 diesel, whose dramatic contribution was simply to run.

You can’t have a vintage event without vintage cars, and Hanbury had plenty, from Austin Seven to Morris Traveler, Wolseley to Jowett Javelin, even a barn-fresh Model T Ford. Steam cars were not forgotten. There was a solitary Stanley on display.

Because traction engines travel so slowly, workmen and showmen alike usually pulled their living quarters with them. Rally-goers still do. On display was a showman’s living van, conveniently set out with all the comforts of home, even a showman’s cat. Another genre of living van is the gypsy caravan, inevitably horsedrawn, several of which were on display.

Amongst all the glorious machinery, one could buy stuff, eat, drink and be merry. As the sun began to set I reluctantly took my leave. Hanbury is just off Junction 5 of the west country M5 motorway. Check it out next September.

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 or Darracq? No prob!

The Automart, a British incarnation of the car corral, offers fare from restored DeSotos and Whippets to restorable hulks like a 1946 Wolseley, which on closer inspection was found to have no engine. On the Saturday afternoon, Bonhams holds an auction. This year’s offerings included a well-conserved steam Locomobile, a curved-dash Olds, and a Crossley Ten just exhumed from a chicken house. Looking intensely more elegant was a 1933 Invicta, a bargain at £8,050 ($16,341 US) with buyer’s premium. More of a project but attracting much interest was a 1913 Cadillac Model 30, its copper-jacketed engine a tourist attraction. It sold for £13,800 ($28,014 US). Auctioneer James Knight coaxed £141,200 ($286,636 US) from a buyer for a Sunbeam Super Sports, high sale of the day.

As at Hershey, clubs and marque registers have a presence, and one can buy toys or, perhaps, a Bébé Peugeot. The minimalist might like a Sinclair C-5. Trudging the fields of Beaulieu can be exhausting, but worth the effort if a sought-after part is found. If the prizes won’t fit in a wagon, a friend might lend a hand. Alternatively, heavy parts can be left for later collection and free transport to the parking areas.

The forty-second Autojumble will be held September 13-14, 2008. Start planning now.

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 the ‘teens, when Henry Ford and his chums Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs, often accompanied by the venerable Thomas Edison, went roughing it in style.

The movement had its own magazine, Motor Camper and Tourist, and that may have been where Victor Toillon saw an ad for the Zagelmeyer Auto Camp Company of Bay City, Michigan. Zagelmeyer offered camping trailers as well as camper conversions on Reo and Chevrolet chassis. What caught Victor’s eye was the Kamper-Kar, a camper body for use on a Model T Ford chassis. Victor already had a 1923 Model T touring car and he longed to travel, so he ordered a Kamper-Kar and installed it himself. As the ad said, the “top automatically rasies to full standing room as berths are thrown open.”

Victor and his wife made one trip in the Kamper-Kar, an 1,100-mile journey in 1926. Afterwards Victor became a farmer and never had another vacation. The Kamper-Kar sat in a shed. Collector John Grunder bought it in the 1960s and gave it a freshening, but it’s still largely original. It has a gasoline stove, storage in back for utensils that can be opened, chuck wagon style, and a radio that Victor built himself. The radio antenna is in the roof. A zinc-lined iced box keeps things cool.

When collapsed for traveling, the Kamper-Kar is hardly larger than a Model T Ford van, but it doesn’t drive as easily. Zagelmeyer said the Kamper-Kar weighed the same as the Ford touring body. That’s an outright falsehood. The Model T’s 22 hp engine has a hard time moving it along, so a two-speed Ruckstell axle has been added along with a Moore auxiliary transmission – giving eight speeds forward.

No, it’s not as comfortable as a Winnebago, nor does it move as fast. But for auto camping in the 1920s the Zagelmeyer Kamper-Kar was mighty up-to-date.

A tip of the hat to Joris at PreWarCar.com for inspiring this CarPort.

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 “Man on a Tractor,” the new emblem symbolized a person driving a tricycle-style row crop tractor, the dotted “i” representing the driver’s head.

The symbolism was apt. IHC had pioneered the row crop tractor in 1924. Called “Farmall,” the new machine ran high off the ground, and was configured so that its wheels fit easily between rows of corn or other agricultural crops. The Farmall, retroactively called the “Regular” once other models were introduced, had a 221 cubic inch ohv four developing 13 horsepower at the drawbar. Most of them had steel wheels. In 1929, IH introduced the F-20 Farmall, named for its drawbar horsepower. It had a more powerful engine and a four-speed transmission, but had the same no-nonsense appearance as its predecessor. Some 136,000 were built before World War II.

In 1932, a smaller version arrived, the F-12 with 12 hp at the drawbar. The F-12, with an economical 113 cubic inch engine and three-speed transmission, was built alongside the F-20. Top of the line was the F-30, actually a 25 hp machine. An intermediate F-14 was produced in 1938 and 1939.

In 1939, all the Farmalls got a makeover. Much the same mechanically, the fashions of the times called for covering up the F-series’ exposed innards. Raymond Loewy got the job of devising a tough, yet streamlined package. The result was the classic Farmall that everyone over 50 now remembers, a smooth envelope ending in a rounded fuel tank. The nose was blunt, with a slotted grille.

Models were now identified by letters. The A was a 17-hp machine, four-wheel configuration but offset. A Model B was similar. The mid-range tractor was the H, with 25 hp. At the top was the 33 hp M (diesel version illustrated). A 15-hp C was introduced in 1948. With more horsepower, all but the B were given “Super” prefixes. In 1947, for the rural householder or small farmer, the Cub was introduced. Although the Cub became eponymous, remaining in production until 1979, the other models were replaced with numerically-designated facelifted models, starting in 1954.

My Farmall period started when I was about fourteen and went to work for Bob Frueh at Misty Meadows Farm. His workhorse was a Farmall F-12, in whose seat I spent many hours plowing, harrowing, cultivating, mowing, raking and harvesting. At the Historic Construction Equipment show held in July at the Zagray Farm Museum in Colchester, Connecticut, I was overcome with nostalgia. The Zagray brothers had a fetish about old Farmalls and acquired about 80 of them. The museum has kept a few of them in a Forest of Farmalls. I couldn’t resist taking a few minutes to once again be a man on a tractor.

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 even space, it’s mostly about automobiles and airplanes, with a few bicycles and motorbikes (and a sleigh) thrown in for balance. A common curse of auto museums is the tendency to put too many cars in too little space. The larger exhibit area required for airplanes all but eliminates this problem.

The charm of Owls Head is its eclecticism. In addition to the obligatory Duesenberg, Pierce-Arrow and Flying Lady-adorned Rolls-Royce, one finds a jaunty Léon Bollée tricar, massive Panhard touring car and rare Stevens-Duryea tourer, the latter once the property of artist Melbourne Brindle of Packard advertising renown. There’s a nearly-complete collection of the works of James Scripps Booth, a Rocket cyclecar, Model C runabout and enigmatic Bi-Autogo. The designer of the Bi-Autogo, William B. Stout, is represented with his Stout Scarab, and there’s the Eliot Cricket, an innovative automobile with aircraft-type controls. H.P Hood, the New England dairy, is present in the form of a Divco milk truck, and one can ask the man who owns one about his Rollson-bodied 1939 Packard. Next year will be the centenary of the Ford Model T, so Owls Head is preparing a T exhibit, including ane “ice T” for harvesting ice from Maine’s many ponds.

You can’t interpret manned flight in the United States without the Wright Brothers (theirs is a replica), but Owls Head is similarly diverse in its flight path. The magical Ornithopter is a mechanical bird, the Gazda Helicospeeder, an experimental craft from an Austrian-born inventor, and the Curtiss JN-4 “Jenny” (shown here with Jill) an icon of early American aviation. Of local interest is the Milliken M-1, a home-built craft that crashed on its maiden flight.

Before leaving, visitors should visit the Engine Room, where exhibits range from a giant Corliss steam powerplant to a tiny Locomobile steam engine and include internal combustion engines of inline automotive, radial aircraft and Wankel configuration.

Located two miles south of Rockland, Maine, the Owls Head Transportation Museum is open 361 days a year. Allow most of a day for a leisurely visit – finish up with a walk to the picturesque Owls Head lighthouse on the rock-bound coast. Or come for one of the museum’s many special events. You’ll have a great time.

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 1937. But while these “junior Packards” were keeping the company afloat in the Great Depression, there was no mistaking a Six or a One-Twenty for one of the “Senior Packards,” like a Super Eight or a Twelve.

In 1942, “Clipperized” styling proliferated, including a new coupe model. After World War II, only Clipper models were built, the Senior cars having been dropped. (A persistent legend holds that their tooling was sold to Russia. If so, it wasn’t used, because the ZIS, the USSR’s Packard look-alike, shares no sheet metal with any Packard model.)

Packard introduced the new Twenty-Second Series “Pregnant Elephant” cars in 1948. There were three lines of cars, Eight, Super Eight and Custom Eight, but aside from different grilles and wheelbases, there was little to distinguish them, despite prices ranging from $2,275 to $4,175 (for standard wheelbase four-door sedans). They were competing with cars from Buick Super to Cadillac Fleetwood 75. Put another way, the Packard Custom Eight looked very much like the Eight but cost almost twice as much, whereas even the cheapest Cadillac, the Series 61, had character much different from a Buick. Alfred Sloan’s “Car for every purse and purpose” was much more than a trite slogan.

With the Twenty-Fourth Series in 1951, the situation was the same, the $3,662 Patrician 400 being only subtly different from the 200 Business Coupe, which sold for $2,302. James Nance, the Hotpoint executive who became Packard’s president in 1952, believed that Packard needed a “Buick.” He re-introduced the Clipper name for the cheapest 1953 cars, then further differentiated the 1954 Clipper from the Patrician with its own tail treatment.

Nineteen fifty-five brought a new skin on the old body, V8 engines and “Torsion Level” self-adjusting suspension, though entry-level Clippers made do with a conventional coil-and-leaf spring setup. Clipper trim, particularly in the rear, was completely different from that of the Patrician. For ’56, Nance went all the way, taking the Packard name off the Clipper entirely, and forcing dealers to sign new Clipper franchise agreements. An upscale Executive model on the Clipper’s wheelbase was introduced in March, selling for $700 less than the Patrician. Whether the Nance dance could have helped Packard we’ll never know. Time had run out, Nance was sacked and 1957 Packards became gussied-up Studebakers, all of which were Packard Clippers. By July 1958, they too were gone.

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, for Arthur spent nearly a half century – and a million miles – in taxi service at Henley-on-Thames, England. In Mike’s care from 1982 to 2006, he was a regular at British motoring events like Beaulieu Autojumble. The start of any journey includes checking the oil and filling up with petrol (that’s 99 pence per litre, about $6.50 a gallon).

Packing is challenging, as Arthur’s trunk is small. The route is scenic, including stretches of the New Forest, where we share the road with animals, and historic, as in Downton, once home to Downton Engineering, tuners of Minis. While at Beaulieu we refresh at The Musketeer, the best pub in Lymington, and spend our days looking for interesting car parts.

Our return journey takes us through Pennsylvania and over the Batheaston toll bridge, where the bridgetender cheerfully takes our toll. We are soon back in Wales, where signs are bilingual and the language is excessively consonant (actually, “w” is a vowel, so “Bwlch” is pronounced “Boolk.”) As we enjoy our al fresco lunch, Arthur has a nap in the shade.

Driving an old car in modern traffic calls for healthy brakes, and reliable power. Arthur’s sidevalve four is Model A-sized, and works and sounds like an A, too. At day’s end we are home again. Arthur has completed 24 round trips to Beaulieu in as many years, and around 200,000 miles of around-Britain travel. That’s what I call really driving an old car.

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, they were sales flops, as the eye saw them as blunt instruments. DeSoto sales fell by nearly half compared to the attractive 1933 models. Chrysler did better, but only because they had retained a “conventional” line of six-cylinder cars, that outsold the Airflows two to one. DeSoto had to suffer Airflow alone. Product planners finally put a fine point on it in 1935, peaked grilles for both Chrysler and DeSoto, and there were DeSoto Airstreams as well as Chryslers.

Spares rode outside or in, depending on model, but only with Chrysler’s touring trunk was there any useful luggage space. Engines sat right under the hood, requiring low-profile hoses, and access produced a huge yawn. Interiors were spacious and comfortable. Ingenious were the two-way vent wings that could be opened or lowered.

In 1936, Chrysler’s Airflow and Airstream shared a grille theme, but DeSoto’s Airstream took on a flair of its own while the Airflow retained its funky outlook. For 1937, DeSoto had only a conventional car, while Chrysler kept an abbreviated Airflow line that mimicked its other cars. And then the Airflow was gone. Chrysler had learned the hard way that change can be risky. But whereas the Airflow had been a sales disaster, Lincoln’s technically-similar Zephyr had improved sales sixfold. One wonders why. Maybe that was the point.

That’s what separates, we are told, the men from the boys. You’ve seen our exposés on Tonkas and Doepke toys, so it won’t surprise you that when I learned the national meet of the Historic Construction Equipment Association was being held nearby wild tractors couldn’t keep me away.

As you’d expect there were trucks and cranes, graders and road rollers. There were tractors of all descriptions: John Deere, Farmall, Ford and Oliver. There were funky machines like a Fordson with tracks and a limbo dozer. There were Caterpillars from Ten to Sixty and everything in between.

But most delightful were the action figures, doing what construction equipment is meant to do: grading, earth moving, bulldozing, alone or in teams. The power shovels were shoveling, loading trucks, even the Beverly Hillbillies came out to play. Star of the power shovels is the Northwest D80, a much more imposing sight than the modern loader. Of a different persuasion is the dragline shovel, good for digging in hard-to-reach places. There was even a gravel sifter in motion, sifting, screening and loading one of the many dump trucks.

The event was held at the Zagray Homestead Museum in Colchester, Connecticut. The late Zagray brothers were eccentric collectors with a fetish for Farmall F20s. They reportedly had more than forty of them in a forest of Farmalls.

Jill remarked that we hadn’t seen many girls. It wasn’t long before we learned why. The organizers had set up a play area for children. Boys, it seems, are content to look at other people’s machinery, but where the kids dig dirt girls rule.