CarPort

The General was in a pickle. The Volkswagen Beetle, and increasingly Renault Dauphine, were eating into his USA market share, and his reinforcement, the Chevrolet Corvair, would not be ready until the Fall of 1959. What do do? A well-equipped general reaches out to his legions, and that’s just what General Motors did, bringing British Vauxhall Victors to Americans through their local Pontiac dealers.

Vauxhall Iron Works built its first cars in South London in 1903. Moving to Luton, Bedfordshire in 1905, the firm changed its name to Vauxhall Motors in 1907. Notable Vauxhalls were the Prince Henry tourers, built for the 1910 Prince Henry Trials in Germany and sold as replicas through 1913. A successor, the 30/98 was built until 1922.

Small but still moderately profitable, Vauxhall was taken over by General Motors in December 1925. This led to a gradual Americanization of the cars, and a general move downmarket. Stately models of the early 1930s became middle class by 1938, though the hallmark bonnet “flutes” from early models remained.

After World War II, Vauxhall took on more GM family resemblance with the Velox of 1948-57. New for ’57 was the Victor, which, looking much like a miniature ’55 Chevy, was expected to appeal to Americans. In fact, it had been designed in Detroit, with postwar American idioms like wraparound windshield, three-on-the-tree and a dashboard that mimicked the front grille. Power came from a 1507 cc (92 cid) oversquare ohv four, rated at 55 bhp.

A new Series 2 Victor, with modestly updated styling, appeared in mid-1959, available, like its predecessor, as a sedan or estate wagon. Interestingly, while the Victor was US-designed, its upmarket sibling, the Cresta, reminiscent of a ’58 and ’59 Chevy styling, was not. Vauxhall did well in the United States, selling more than 17,000 cars in 1958, nearly 23,000 in 1959, but never posed a threat to VW or even Renault. GM’s other import invader, the Opel Rekord sold by Buick dealers, did comparably well, but that’s a story for another time. US Vauxhall sales continued into 1962, but by that time all emphasis was on the new Tempest intermediate car, introduced for 1961. The only subsequent transatlantic Vauxhall connection was Luton’s version of the T-body “world car,” produced from 1975 to 1983. It was called, appropriately, “Chevette.”

There are few reminders of Vauxhall’s short but successful foray to the Americas. The car that heads this page sits among the roadside weeds near Mansfield Center, Connecticut.

Vauxhall is still GM’s car for Britain, but most models are no longer built there. All Vauxhalls are now Opels under the skin, so all but the Astra are assembled in Germany.

Once Hudson Motor Car Company and Nash Motors went to the altar on May 1, 1954, emerging as Mr. and Mrs. American Motors, they decided to live in Ms. Nash’s Kenosha, Wisconsin, home and raise their children there. Mr. Hudson’s home in Detroit was deemed too costly and inefficient. So was the idea of building two entirely different lines of cars. And so it was that the basic Nash unibody skeleton was adapted to Hudson. The result is called, somewhat derisively by Hudson people, “Hash.” (If Nash people call it “Nudson,” they’ve kept it very quiet.)

This was not an unnatural evolution. Although Nash and Hudson came from different quarters, with a bathtub-shaped unibody and hallmark “Step-down” semi-unitary design, respectively, by 1954 both Nash and Hudson had migrated to slab-sided, more modern-looking bodies.

For 1955, the two cars were given individual faces, Nash’s adopting the inboard headlamps of the Nash-Healey, Hudson taking a new egg-crate grille design. Hudson cars continued to use the Hornet L-head six (still available with Twin-H Power), and Nash their ohv sixes. By then, though, any self-respecting American automaker needed a V8. AMC had none, so they bought one, the 320 cubic-inch ohv engine that Packard was using in the Clipper. By mid-1956, AMC’s own 250 cubic inch V8 was ready, and debuted in “Special” models of the face-lifted ‘56 Ambassador and Hornet. Unfortunately, Hudson stylist Frank Spring was infatuated with a V motif, which didn’t blend well with the Nash body. For 1957 this was smoothed out a bit, while the Nash boldly fitted quad headlights still illegal in some states. The AMC V8 was now enlarged to 327 cubic inches, making the Packard engine superfluous. You’ve noticed that the CarPort proudly banners a ‘57 Hash on the masthead. Discovered in a junkyard, it once enjoyed headier times.

AMC founder George Mason died unexpectedly in October 1954, and his successor, George Romney, decided to kill off the “senior” cars, putting all his effort into Nash’s compact Rambler. For 1958, there were many sizes of Ramblers, but no Nashes nor Hudsons.

Did Hudson traditionalists take to the new Hash recipe? Well, yes and no. The Hashed Hudsons were not in great demand, but a rebadged version of the Rambler Cross Country station wagon was very popular, selling nearly twice the volume of any other 1955 Hudson. Romney’s little Ramblers proved to be just the ticket for the Eisenhower Recession of 1958, and actually elbowed Plymouth out of third place in sales for 1960 and 1961.

Actually, it’s 88 horses, but that doesn’t have the right ring to it. I came across this automobile while walking down Bloor Street in Toronto a couple of summers ago. At first glance, at least to the uninitiated, it looks like a 1928-29 Model A Ford roadster. Closer examination, however, shows certain differences in detail from a real ’29 roadster, although the overall proportions seem right. Most CarPorters know already that we are looking at a Shay Reproduction Model A Roadster.

Harry J. Shay, a former auto industry engineer, formed the Model A and Model T Motor Car Reproduction Corporation in February 1978. He had developed a prototype car over the previous six years and began taking orders for fiberglass-bodied roadsters that would use Pinto drivetrain and suspension parts. Taking advantage of a relationship developed with Ford Motor Company, the cars were to be sold by Ford dealers. With orders coming in, Shay opened a plant in Battle Creek, Michigan, and the first cars emerged in August 1979. Prices were to start at $5,950, then about the price of an entry-level Thunderbird. The following summer, 2,000 had been built, and Shay’s company claimed to be the sixth-largest auto manufacturer in the US, but prices nearly doubled, encroaching on Lincoln territory. Cash flow problems, however, caused plant shutdown in March 1982, and liquidation that summer.

Shay Model As were reportedly reliable, and offered the impression of vintage motoring with modern comforts and service support. The cars fooled few, however, as the interior, particularly, was nothing like the original. The Pinto engine, too, while smaller yet more powerful than the old Model A unit, had a different feel and less low-end torque, though the shiftless could order an automatic transmission. Shay’s careful replication of proportion, however, avoided pitfalls of the Glassic, an International Scout-based caricature of a Model A roadster built by Jack Faircloth’s Glassic Industries in Florida from 1966 to 1972. Glassic also offered a two-door phaeton, no more faithful a reproduction than the roadster.

Shay Model As have a certain following, even now, and the Shay Owners Club International maintains a substantial website with historical and technical information. Glassic, too, has a web presence.

Both Shay and Glassic were later resurrected, briefly, by others, to no avail. Maybe this demonstrates that boutique manufacturing of automobiles is no longer viable. Or perhaps most people just feel as I do: If you want a Model A you’re just as well off with a real one.

You’ve seen a car like this before, back in February 2005 when the CarPort told the story of Chrysler’s “little limos.” That was about Dennis David’s low-mileage, mint condition 1985 Executive Limousine, one of 759 built that year. This car, though not as pretty, is far more rare.

The first front-wheel drive Chryslers were introduced for 1982. Carrying the same name, LeBaron, as the 1981 rear-drive Aspen/Volare clone, the new cars were basically badge engineered versions of the new-for-81 “K cars,” the Dodge Aires and Plymouth Reliant. The Chrysler Ks, however, added a convertible body style and a fake-wood Town and Country wagon, and had available leather interiors. For 1983, a stretch K was developed, in two versions. The Executive Limousine carried seven passengers on its 131-inch wheelbase, two of them on jump seats. The shorter, 124-inch wheelbase Executive Sedan seated five. Both cars had the 2.6-liter Mitsubishi four. The sedan was dropped for 1985, and in 1986 a mere 138 limos were built (with a turbocharged Chrysler 2.2-liter four) before production halted.

This car, a 1984 Executive Sedan, is one of 196 built that year, as opposed to 594 limos. It has the optional leather seats and is in better condition than first glance suggests. Although it needs cosmetics and bears an inappropriate trunk lid from a New Yorker sedan, it’s a basically sound car, albeit slowly sinking into the ground.

Is it collectible? Well, the comparable prewar model, the 1941 Crown Imperial 8-passenger sedan, was built in 205 copies and is now recognized as a Full Classic™ by the Classic Car Club of America. This one is hardly likely to receive fractional classic recognition, but it deserves better care. I found it in West Kingston, Rhode Island. If you covet it, look here.

We lost our HoJo’s about ten days ago. I say “our” HoJo’s as it was the last Howard Johnson’s restaurant in Connecticut, one of four in the world. Open since 1957, the Waterbury eatery was of the classic mid-1950s style designed by Rufus Nims, but with the later stylized cupola atop a signature orange roof, although it advertised some very un-HoJo-like entertainment.

Howard Deering Johnson ran a small drug store in Wollaston, Massachusetts, south of Boston. He acquired a recipe for high butterfat content ice cream, which proved so popular that he opened a beachfront stand offering 28 flavors. More beachfront stands followed, and in 1929 he opened a sit-down restaurant in Quincy. In 1932 he made franchising history by licensing a friend to open the second HoJo’s restaurant in Orleans, on Cape Cod. By 1939 there were more than 100 restaurants; in 1979 when Johnson’s son sold out to Imperial Group PLC there were more than 1000 restaurants and 520 motor lodges across the United States.

My region is a hotbed of former HoJo’s. Oldest is the New London store, dating from the early 1940s and now an Italian restaurant. Retaining its period curved roof (now painted green), it has been updated by removal of the original dormer windows and cupola and addition of a green-toned stone front that was a 1960s HoJo feature. Original eyebrow dormers on the east wing remain, however.

Across the river in Groton, a building born as a HoJo’s, then converted to the companion chain Ground Round, is now a bank. Another few miles east in Mystic, the HoJo’s was converted to a Bickford’s Grille, but retained the stone front where the anchors for the Simple Simon logo could still be seen. The youngest southeastern Connecticut Howard Johnson’s is the most distressed. Standing vacant near the Rhode Island border, it’s an example of the late “mansard style” HoJo’s. Most recently an independent restaurant, it’s been seeking a new owner for years.

There’s a cult following for HoJo nostalgia out in cyberland. Fascinating websites include HoJoLand and Under the Orange Roof. The Nahant, Massachusetts, community pages include many historic photos of Howard Johnson stands and restaurants. The only remaining restaurants are in Bangor, Maine, and Lake George and Lake Placid, New York. Howard Johnson Motor Lodges abound, but they were split off from the restaurant business years ago.

Alas, progress keeps passing us by. The Mystic Bickford’s is now closed, undergoing renovations that will make it all but unrecognizable. Dennis David stopped by the Waterbury eatery the other day as the new sign was going up. All vestiges of HoJo’s, save for the orange roof and base of the cupola, are now gone. He and I went there for dinner in January after a gig at the Golden Age of Trucking Museum in nearby Middlebury. I had fried clams. They were just as I remembered them.

Alain Cerf is a man with a mission. Designer of packaging equipment made by his company Polypack, Inc., in Pinellas Park, Florida, he is understandably interested in innovative machinery. As a collector of automobiles he favors those with distinctive engineering: front-wheel drive, rear engines, unusual engines and suspensions. A native of France, he has a particular fascination with his countryman Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot.

Alain has ensconced his collection of cars at his Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, an eclectic assembly of engineering masterpieces. Not surprisingly, many of them are French, including the groundbreaking Citroën 2CV, a Peugeot Darl’Mat, Voisin C7, Amilcar Compound and the last car of Emile Claveau. Perhaps the most striking is the Panhard Dynamic, a magnificent art deco masterpiece with center steering.

Front-wheel drive is showcased by a pair of low-slung closed cars taking pride of place: a rainbow-hued US-built Ruxton sedan and a Tracta Type E, the latter designed by Frenchman Jean Albert Gregoire. Tracta is also represented with a 1929 Type A that raced at LeMans. Gregoire’s last car, the cast aluminum chassis Hotchkiss Gregoire with cantilevered flat-four engine, is also on display. British front drive appears in the form of BSA three- and four-wheelers, the latter a Scout, and a rare Alvis with supercharged engine and unusual leaf-spring independent front suspension.

A phalanx of Tatras promotes rear-engine, rear drive. Brainchildren of Czech engineer Hans Ledwinka, Tatras are usually V8-powered, though the Tatraplan model makes do with four cylinders. We don’t associate Mercedes-Benz with rear engines, but the 130H of 1934-35 is so configured. For good measure, Alain has acquired a Delorean to round out his parade of pusher power.

Many museums claim to be unique in ensuring that all their cars run. Alain’s cars not only run, they’re all registered for the road. He delights in starting them up and giving them exercise. You will not be able to drive them yourself, but you can visit the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum any day but Tuesday or holidays.

It’s Cugnot, however, that’s Alain’s current quest. When he learned that the 1771 fardier on exhibit in Paris is not the only one extant, that a 1930s replica survived in Germany, he persuaded its owners, the Deutsche Bahn Museum (German Railway Museum) in Nuremburg, to lend it to him. He has studied it carefully and manufactured certain missing parts. He intends to make it work. So if you see a Frenchman steaming a wooden automobile up I-275 in Tampa…

Easter weekend traditionally brings the auto show to New York City. On the days preceding the show, manufacturers reveal their latest models to the press, a few of them concepts but the majority new cars due in showrooms later this year. Twelve manufacturers made debuts today, and another seven are due for revelation tomorrow.

Saying “small can be cool,” GM introduced a trio of Chevrolet concepts styled in Korea. The Groove is retro-styled, the Trax an urban crossover and the Beat a techno-hatchback. Audi’s newbie was the S5 coupe, and Ford had a double whammy. Carroll Shelby was on hand to unveil a new GT500KR on the fortieth anniversary of the first, and the Flex, an Element-fighting F-box, was trundled out for eager scribes.

While BMW was matter-of-fact regarding the new 5 series, and touted diesels and hydrogen over hybrids, Mercedes-Benz celebrated the new C350 and CLK AMG with pyrotechnics. Infiniti showed a new G37 coupe, due out in summer, as well as an EX concept coupe crossover.

Jeep tested the journos’ mettle by demonstrating the new 2008 Liberty’s Sky Slider™ vinyl sunroof in the pouring rain. Lexus outdid itself with a new LX570 Luxury Utility Vehicle, and Subaru atoned for past indiscretions with a new Tribeca which thankfully dispensed with the old model’s anteater snout.

Rounding out the roll-outs were a new Brooklands coupe from Bentley and a Volvo XC70. Hyundai finished the day with the luxury Genesis concept, a V8-powered sedan with six-speed Shiftronic transmission. A number of antique and classic cars are on exhibit from the LeMay Museum in Washington State, and a Taxi 07 exhibition outside the main lobby includes cabs of the past, present and future.

Prominent journalists at press days included the CarPort’s professional consultant Gregg D. Merksamer, seen taking notes and photographs, Jean Jennings, editrix emerita of Automobile magazine and recipient of IMPA’s 2007 Ken Purdy Award, and popular Connecticut television personality Dennis David. Auto industry veteran Steve Rossi conferred with show director Candida Romanelli after the Subaru press conference.

The 2007 New York International Auto Show runs from April 6th to 15th at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, 34th Street and 11th Avenue. C’mon down!

We lived in farming country when I was growing up, so getting milk was but a short walk across the lane. My first experience with milk delivery came the summer I turned eight, when we went to Cape Cod. Our cottage colony was served by competing dairies, H.P. Hood & Son and White Brothers. Milk, eggs and cream came in little snub-nose milk trucks called Divcos, whose operators drove most of their routes while standing. I was transfixed.

I’d never heard of Divco. Eventually I learned it was an acronym for Detroit Industrial Vehicle Company, formed in Detroit in 1926. Divco’s objective was to produce a truck as versatile and maneuverable as a horse-drawn milk wagon, according to designs of George Bacon. Bacon’s concept used electric propulsion, but very quickly Divco moved to gasoline power. Early Divcos included the 1929 Model G, which could be driven from either the left or right step.

The archetypal Divco, the Model U, arrived in 1937. An upright box with a snub nose to house the engine, the U and its successors would be an icon for home delivery until the 1980s. Drive trains varied, with four- and six-cylinder engines from Continental, Hercules, Ford, Nash, Perkins and Detroit Diesel; gasoline and diesel fueled, overhead valve and L-head, driving through three- and four-speed transmissions. The cargo area was configured to hold milk crates securely, and refrigeration was provided with ice. Divcos left a trail of water wherever they went.

The key fascination for a young man, one yearning to drive and experimenting with every vehicle he could get his hands and feet on, was the way the milk men (I remember no milk maids or milk ladies) deftly maneuvered their Divcos while standing. I spent many hours trying to figure out how it was done.

John Rienzo of the active and enthusiastic Divco Club of America, explains: “There are several drive combinations and brake options: sit drive, as in any vehicle; stand drive; or combination stand and sit drive. When you sit drive in the combination truck, you use the standard pedals on the toe board, clutch, brake and gas. You shift with the steering column mounted shift lever. The long lever that you see to the right of the steering wheel is a “snubber brake” that is used to slow the truck. It actuates the hydraulic brake system at the wheels. This is an option and was on the left side of the steering wheel in earlier models.

“When you stand drive, the pedal on the kick panel is both the clutch and brake. Halfway down is the clutch and the brake is all the way down. There is also a ratchet dog that locks the brake down. This is why you need to use the snubber brake to slow the vehicle. Since you cannot use your left foot on the clutch/brake and the right foot on the gas at the same time (small round pedal on the floor that you can use as the gas when you are stand driving but not shifting) the column shift lever has a stippled grip that allows you to shift using a normal pattern and twist the shift handle which controls the gas.

“That is the basic operation, but there are several slightly different combinations based on the options, model and year.” I can only imagine the instinctive reactions that one would have to learn to drive a Divco like a pro.

Divcos are, as the saying goes, “America’s favorite milk truck,” despite the fact that most home delivery of milk ceased decades ago. Jim Merrick discovered this one at the Windsor (Maine) Fair a couple of years ago; it reminded him of his late uncle who used to drive one for this same dairy. The 2006 AACA show at Hershey was well attended by Divcos, including a Twin Coach, for a time twinned with Divco. There’s an excellent book on Divco, which John Rienzo co-authored with Robert Ebert, available from the publisher.

Well, now that I understand how those mysterious controls work, I want to try them myself. Who’ll teach me to drive a Divco?

Emergency vehicles – ambulances, fire trucks, police cars – spend their lives racing to the aid of people. But when emergency vehicles fall ill, who looks after them? Well, people of course, people like Mike Riefer. Mike, of Owensville, Missouri, rescued this 1952 National Pontiac ambulance that had done double duty as his town’s primary responder and been ignominiously retired to a barn.

As hearse and ambulance maven Gregg D. Merksamer writes in his book Professional Cars (Krause Publications, 2004) Pontiac was “the most successful medium-priced professional car platform of all time.” This reputation dates from as far back as 1930, when this Oakland ambulance, by Pontiac’s parent, was built. (Note the clever removable door post to facilitate side loading.) From the 1930s through the ’40s, Pontiac professional cars were built by such specialty houses as Superior, Flxible and Eureka. It was the sedan delivery model, new for 1949, that put Pontiac proudly in the professional class. Some builders, like Guy Barnette and Company of Memphis, converted the delivery in its original form as a compact responder. Barnette and some others, like Memphis neighbor Economy Coach, did stretch models as well.

National Body Manufacturing Company of Knightstown, Indiana, was one of these, offering an Ambulette model on the standard wheelbase, an Imperial with 30-inch stretch, and variations in between. In 1952, Milford H. Winter, operator of the Gottenstroeter Funeral Home in Owensville, ordered this National Pontiac, the first dedicated ambulance that Owensvillians had ever seen – earlier operators used combination coaches, hauling both the living and the dead as needs dictated. Winter used it until 1960, when he bought a new air-conditioned National Chevrolet. The Pontiac went to Owensville’s volunteer fire department where it served until 1971. Sold for $101.00, it soon suffered a cracked cylinder head and was put into storage.

That’s where Mike found it some years later. Convincing the owner to sell, he extricated the car and began a two-year restoration. Although as the owner of an auto repair shop Mike plenty of has experience, many of the unique items on the National ambulance presented special challenges. Wood framing for the interior panelling called for the services of a cabinetmaker, and some materials proved unobtainable so substitutes had to be found. By 2003, Mike had completed the restoration and showed it to an approving Mr. Winter. That year the car earned a Gold Award at the Pontiac Oakland Club International meet in Illinois. Immaculate both inside and out, it won Best of Show in 2005 at the International Meet of the Professional Car Society.

National Body Company, through a couple of name changes, continued to build on Pontiac and other chassis, finally moving to Chevrolet Suburbans as car-based ambulances gave way to heavier chassis. Professional Pontiacs, too, faded from service, some of the last built by Superior in the early 1970s. This 1975 minihearse by A.G. Solar of Dallas represents the last throes of Pontiac professional cars.

The CarPort is indebted to professional advisor Gregg D. Merksamer and to Mike Riefer and Steve Loftin for the use of illustrations in this feature.

As tradition tells it, Fred Tone was watching the unloading of automobile chassis when he had one of those “better idea” moments. The frames were stacked upside down. Why not build cars that way, he reasoned, with axles above the chassis. They would have a much lower center of gravity and thus better handling.

Tone was the chief engineer for the American Motor Car Company of Indianapolis, Indiana. Formerly with the Marion Motor Car Company, he produced his first design for American in 1906, an underslung roadster. While “American Underslung” is now treated as an automotive make, in its time it was known merely as “The American,” appropriate since not all Americans were underslung. The Tourist touring car and Limousine, for example, were of conventional design. The Speedster, Roadster and an attractive Coupe held to the underslung design. An eagle, naturally, was the car’s emblem, appearing on the hubs and on the gas cap, though the radiator mascot seen on most Americans today is not shown in period images.

The car atop this page is a 1910 Traveler underslung tourer, one of two known to survive. Formerly owned by Connecticut collector Richard King, it is now seen on the concours circuit (Amelia Island 2006) under new stewardship. Cars of this ilk are brass-intensive, including headlamps, sidelamps and horn. Its engine is a 499-cubic-inch L-head four, which takes a hefty swing to start. Once running, however, its 50 hp propels the car with great elan.

Billed as “A Car for the Discriminating Few,” it sold for $4,000, about the price of a Packard. Alas, the American fell victim to the misfortunes of its manufacturer, latterly called “American Motors.” Money ran out in 1913 and refinancing failed, so receivership soon followed. The last car was built in 1914.

As not all Americans were underslung, not all underslungs were Americans. Regal, in particular built a number of underslung models, also sold in Britain as the Seabrook RMC. The traditional Morgan, too, used an underslung rear suspension.

There have been quite a few “American” cars in the history of the automobile, among them the American built 1917 to 1924 in Plainfield, New Jersey, and whose first chief engineer was Louis Chevrolet. It, too, used an eagle as its mascot. More recently, the other American Motors sold a Rambler American. But those pale in comparison. It’s the underslung cars from Indianapolis that make one most proud to be an American.