CarPort

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 you care to call it that, began with a flourish, new, cleanly-styled cars called, appropriately, Kaiser and Frazer for the 1947 model year. Sales were satisfying in that car-starved postwar market. When marketing got a bit tougher, both Kaiser and Frazer received more interesting grilles and there came a trio of body styles unique to Kaiser-Frazer Corporation. The Traveler and similar Vagabond made up for Kaiser’s lack of a station wagon. A hatch opening at the rear (America’s first hatchback?) and a folding rear seat meant that what was otherwise a Kaiser sedan could carry as much as a station wagon, even, if you were clever, a pony. Kaiser didn’t have a two-door, so they used their four-door as a basis for a convertible, which, with a fixed roof, became a four-door hardtop.

In 1951, the Kaiser was restyled by Howard “Dutch” Darrin, who had penned the first cars. Joe Frazer had left the company and his higher-priced namesake car was due to be phased out, so a few left-over 1950s were given new outer sheet metal and sold as 1951 Frazers. New at Kaiser was a two-door sedan, which had a matching Traveler version.

Making a stab at the compact car market that had been successful for Nash, Kaiser brought out his own small car, the Henry J. The Henry J, however, was a fairly austere car with only one body style, no match for the fully-quipped Nash Rambler that came as a convertible or station wagon. To fill the void left by the demise of Frazer, Kaiser tried some new twists, like the gussied-up Virginian in 1952 and bamboo-like interiors in ’53. A Dragon model featured some even more opulent innards.

A new grille in 1954, and a plastic-bodied Kaiser Darrin sports car were last-ditch efforts. Kaiser couldn’t afford a V8 engine, so they offered a McCulloch supercharger on their ex-Graham, Continental-designed L-head six. None of it helped, and Kaiser sold the tooling to South America in 1955 and ceased to build cars in the U.S.

But that wasn’t the end of Henry J. Kaiser, the automaker. In 1953, in a much-leveraged buyout, he had bought Willys-Overland Motors of Toledo, Ohio. Willys had supplied engines for the Henry J, and did so for the Kaiser Darrin as well. Willys’ “Aero” passenger cars, while better appointed than the Henry J, were not doing well in the market, but the perennial Jeeps were often profitable. At the end of carmaking, Kaiser continued to build the Jeep line and, changing the corporate name to Kaiser Jeep, introduced the Jeep Wagoneer in 1963, arguably the first American upscale sport utility. The Jeepster Commando filled another niche, and the CJ series of Jeeps maintained their hard-core constituency.

Henry J. Kaiser may thus be called the godfather of the sport utility vehicle, ushering Jeep through an uncertain adolescence until its discovery by Roy Chapin, Jr. of American Motors Corporation. By this time, all American automakers were pumping out SUVs, the success of which led to Chrysler’s purchase of AMC in 1987 in order to get the Jeep name and product line. Failed automaker indeed!

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 factory. The White car was a bit more advanced than its main competition, the Stanley, using front mounted condensers from 1902 and fast-heating monotube boilers. But by 1910, the Whites could see that steam had a limited future and phased in an internal combustion car. The last steamer was built in January 1911.

The first White truck was a steam delivery van built in the second year of automobile manufacture. Increasingly larger trucks were offered, both steam and internal combustion, and the success of White trucks during World War I convinced the White Motor Company, as it was renamed in 1916, to concentrate on the heavy commercial market. White trucks were of conventional design, but through the 1920s incorporated a radiator of distinctive shape derived from the condenser of post-1904 steam cars. The White touring car atop this page is one of the last passenger vehicles, a 1917 model originally used by the U.S. Forest Service. It is currently owned by the County of Los Angeles and stored at LA’s Petersen Automotive Museum.

In 1936, Alexis de Sakhnoffsky restyled the cab of White trucks, a seminal design that would last into the 1950s. Specially-built White sightseeing buses became legendary at Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks, and when I was young a neighboring Connecticut town used nothing but White school buses. “White SUPER POWER” read the hood emblem, and diesel-powered trucks from 1949 proclaimed “White DIESEL POWER.” An attractive cab-over-engine model appeared around this time, and an innovative White Horse delivery truck, with rear-mounted air-cooled flat-four power, was produced from 1939-42 and in small numbers after the war. White was among the first to build tilt-cab trucks, introducing the 3000 series in 1949.

In the 1950s, White Motor Company went on a buying spree. The firm gobbled up Sterling in 1951, the same year a sales arrangement was inked with Freightliner. Autocar came into the fold in 1953; Reo in 1957 and Diamond T the following year. Engine manufacturer Hercules was purchased from Hupp Corporation in 1966, but spun off a decade later. In 1968, White took on General Motors’ off-road brand Euclid, though The General continued to build some products under the Terex name. That same year, Western Star was created as a model of White, producing heavy highway haulers for markets in western North America.

By the 1970s, the great White fleet was coming apart. Diamond Reo, as the two makes had become, was purchased by an Alabama investor in 1971. Euclid was sold to Daimler-Benz in 1977; it’s now owned by Hitachi. In 1981, bankruptcy became unavoidable. Sweden’s Volvo AB bought the remains, forming Volvo White Truck Corporation. Western Star was spun off in 1983 (with Freightliner, it’s now part of DaimlerChrysler), and in 1986 Volvo White took on GM’s Class 8 truck business and badged the vehicles WhiteGMC. Now part of Volvo Truck Corporation (Volvo cars having gone to Ford), Volvo Trucks North America is headquartered in Greensboro, North Carolina.

A number of the photos in this item have been linked from Hank Suderman’s voluminous website hankstruckpictures.com, a veritable cornucopia of commercial vehicle knowledge. Access to these images is gratefully acknowledged.

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 season, and one final time in 1959, after which it departed the catalog. The unusual roof mechanism, in which the “trunklid” opened from the front to swallow the roof, carried on in 1958, ‘59 and ’60 “squarebird” Thunderbirds, but with a soft top, and had a final fling on the 1961-67 Lincoln Continental convertible, of which this 1962 is a good example.

The collapsible hard top was not meant to be a Ford feature at all. Intended for the 1956 Continental Mk II, an unbadged Lincoln, it was judged too costly for a limited production car. It was hoped that the greater production volume of the Ford would better amortize the development costs. Ford had a couple of Mk IIs softtop-converted by Hess and Eisenhardt (now armored car constructor Centigon) in 1957, but the model never entered production.

It is well that the Skyliner was touted as a new kind of Ford, as it wasn’t a new kind of car. Peugeot had a retracting hardtop on the Éclipse model in the 1930s. Designed by French dentist Georges Paulin, the system was built into a few Peugeot 301 models in 1934 by Parisian coachbuilder Marcel Pourtout. Later Éclipse décapotables (crudely translated as “able to remove the cap”) were built on the larger 601 model and finally a series of nearly 500 on the 402. The Éclipse is fondly remembered at Peugeot, so much so that the company has put modern versions, the 206CC and 307CC into production recently, although Mercedes-Benz would have you believe the SLK is the only such collapsible in the world.

But even Peugeot was not the first with a retracting hard top. In 1922, B.B. Ellerbeck of Salt Lake City, Utah, built one on a Hudson Super Six. Not as sophisticated as either the Eclipse or the Skyliner, its top had the same curvature as the rear of the roadster body. It merely pivoted back and down. A clever hatch in the top allowed the use of the rumble seat when the roof was down. a feature missing on Peugeot and Ford.

At $2,942, the 1957 Skyliner was nearly 20 percent more expensive than the canvas-roofed Sunliner. The price premium, the complexity of the top mechanism, and the nearly-unreachable luggage space combined to limit sales to barely a quarter of Sunliner volume. At 20,766 units, though, the Skyliner is not the rarest ’57 Ford. The Fairlane Town Victoria achieved but 12,695 and the Custom Business Sedan, a “Tudor” without a rear seat, only 6,888.

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 called “brand management” that was sweeping the industry. Apparently Plymouth’s brand managers hadn’t managed very well.

Plymouth had come in on a rising tide. Introduced on July 7, 1928, it was a modern four-cylinder car, first in the low-price range with four-wheel hydraulic brakes. The PA model, new for 1931, brought style, further enriched by the PB of 1932. In 1933, Plymouth went to six-cylinder cars across the board. Over the years, Plymouth had a number of distinctive models, such as the only 7-passenger sedan of the Low Priced Three (this is a 1940), and the Suburban, the first all-steel station wagon of the Big Three manufacturers.

The 1953 and ’54 Plymouths are often considered “stubby,” but I find them well-proportioned. Virgil Exner’s Forward Look for 1955 vindicated Plymouth’s beauty, and the “Suddenly it’s 1960” styling of 1957 established Chrysler Corporation as a trend-setter. Plymouth lost third-place standing (to Rambler) in 1960 and ’61, and slipped further from 1962-69, but it remained Chrysler Corporation’s best-selling make. The compact Valiant (initially not badged as a Plymouth) was more distinctive than its Falcon or Corvair competition, and the glass-back Barracuda had no match in the industry. By 1970, Plymouth was back in third, but more storm clouds were brewing.

Simply put, for the next three decades Plymouth was on a starvation diet. From 16 models in 1970, Plymouth was down to three within a decade. With the exception of the street rod-inspired Prowler of 1997, Plymouth never again had a distinctive model. As time went on Plymouth had hardly any models at all, and when the cute little Neon said “Hi” in 1994 the only difference from Dodge was a glued-on emblem. The model even had to share its name with big brother. The corporate strategy became clear when the PT Cruiser was introduced in 1999 as a Chrysler. The car that should have been a Plymouth, because it looked like one, was kicked upstairs.

When the last Plymouth, a silver Neon, left the line in June 2001, Dodge became DaimlerChrysler’s price leader. Plymouth had not had its own division since 1961, and had never had a separate dealer network, so corporately there was little to lose. Still, there were unintended consequences. Most Mopar outlets in our area now sell Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep (and sometimes many, many more), but our closest Chrysler-Plymouth store happened to be next door to the Dodge dealer. With the loss of Plymouth, in order to keep the low-priced showroom traffic the Chrysler guy took on Kia. Apparently Kia has been a success, so much so that he’s ditched the Chrysler franchise. What hath brand management wrought?

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 a long time ago. Today there are Pinto clubs and Pinto posses, and Ford’s little subcompact has a culture all its own.

The Pinto came on the scene in 1971, following the Falcon-replacement Maverick and undercutting it in size and price. Once problems with fuel tanks and broken door handles were overcome, the Pinto proved a reliable and economical little car. Performance of the first cars, with 1,600 cc British-built “Kent” engine, was a bit underwhelming, but a 2-liter ohc unit from Ford of Germany was soon substituted. By 1974, Pintos were being propelled by a husky 2.3-liter ohc four built in Ohio, an engine so sturdy that it found its way into third-generation Mustangs and, with turbocharger, Thunderbirds and the German-built Merkur XR4Ti. A 2.8-liter V6 followed the next year.

Diane Mierz has always wanted a Pinto. Two years ago she found one, a low-mileage 1973 Squire wagon, with 2-liter engine and automatic transmission. She and her husband Steve took it to Hershey that autumn, and entered it in the car show. Steve, webmaster for the Shoreline Antique Auto Connection, soon set up the Connecticut Pinto Registry, an online news and information resource for Pinto partisans.

Three weeks ago Connie and Bill from Glastonbury, Connecticut, organized a Pinto stampede at the regular monthly cruise night on the green in Colchester, held by the Good Times Motoring Club. Seven Pintos came to celebrate the Summer solstice, including Connie’s own 1978 runabout, Bill’s 1977 sedan with T-Bird turbo engine, and Diane’s Squire wagon. Glenn and George from New London showed up with no less than four: a mint 1972 sedan that was my first car-show-Pinto sighting in Norwich a few years ago, a 1976 Squire runabout with factory V6, a Cruising Wagon and a ’77 sedan into which they have stuffed a 302 V8.

Pinto’s swan song was the 1980 model. Fred Summers, our St. Louis bureau chief, ordered a Cruising Wagon for his wife Sharon, without the wacky graphics package that was available. Cruising wagons had a special interior with tachometer and rally steering wheel. When the 1981 model year came around, the Pinto had been replaced by the front-wheel drive Escort, billed as a “world car” because the same model was made in Britain, Germany and several other countries. The Pinto had done well, with two million sold in ten years, and its reputation intact. Its competition, the rough and rusty Chevy Vega with an unlined aluminum engine, a type better suited to a lawn mower, must be green with envy.

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, Ace Auto is Westchester County’s oldest family-owned service facility. During the 1950s, the business included a Hudson dealership. At Ace Auto you can talk to the mechanics at their work benches, and customer policies are plainly posted. The parts department doesn’t need a computer; the parts are easy to find in the loft or hanging from the rafters.

Most of the cars at Ace Auto are old. That’s because they’re Nick’s. Many are Buicks, like this ’54 Roadmaster sedan with rare factory air or this ’64 LeSabre wagon. There’s a 1939 Century that looks like it’s nearing the end of a restoration, and a ’61 that simply sits. Many of the cars work for a living. “Hollywood Nick” has a movie rental business specializing in 1950s and ’60s cars like this 1960 Chrysler hardtop wagon and the 1963 Mercury Meteor that doubles as America’s most unobtrusive collector car. Nick’s 1935 Packard limo does double duty as movie maven and wedding car.

Some cars await attention, like this 1960 Cadillac limo with flaccid air suspension. His Hudson Commodore is being restored while keeping company with a ’58 Olds. There are some surprises, like a Mercedes SL coupe (“I don’t know why I bought that thing”), some alternative transportation and a few shifty characters loitering about. Once in a while he even fixes a modern car.

There’s something for everybody at Ace Auto. While groping behind this ’55 Buick Roadmaster, Dennis David was happy to find the pulleys he needs to install power steering on his ’59 LeSabre.

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 Triumph Toledo. Serendipity was at work, however, the full significance of which became apparent as the years passed.

Stoke Lacy was the seat of the Morgan family, whose scion, Henry Frederick Stanley, founded the Morgan Motor Company, makers of three– and four-wheel cars. The Reverend Prebendary Henry George Morgan, HFS’s father, was rector of Stoke Lacy for 50 years, and his grandfather, the Rev’d Henry Morgan, for 16 years before that. Jill grew up just down the lane from the church, at Stoke House, built for HFS’s sister Dorothy, an enthusiastic Morgan driver herself (seen here chauffeuring her father in a “coal scuttle” Morgan). One of Jill’s jobs as a teenager was to tend the Morgan family plot in the churchyard

After the Morgan factory at Malvern Link in neighboring Worcestershire, the church and Old Rectory at Stoke Lacy are the most popular Morgan shrines, Morgan owners the world over including them on their pilgrimages. It was appropriate then, after Peter Morgan, HFS’s son and successor in the business, died in October 2003 that he be laid to rest in the family plot. Seeking a more prominent memorial, the Morgan Sports Car Club commissioned a memorial window for the church porch. Dedicated on September 17, 2005, the stained glass window is a trefoil design with a bust of PM, as he was fondly known, above an image of the Malvern Hills, which overlook the factory. Below the hills are PM’s own Plus 8, known by its registration as AB 16, and a view of the works. The window compliments an earlier one in the opposite wall, remembering Morgan three-wheeler enthusiasts from California.

I’ve never owned a Morgan, and Jill hasn’t either. Serendipity is at work there, too. Her Aunt Cicely (at right) often rode in her Uncle Sam’s Morgan car, and Cicely’s daughter Alison and husband John Smitheram bought a Plus 8 more recently to celebrate John’s retirement. Until 1995 I had not even sat in a Morgan, but serendipity – being in the right place at the right time – allowed me to spend an afternoon at the helm of PM’s own AB 16.

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 had been used by a florist who catered to the carriage trade. Indeed it may have, but its origins are in the “professional trade,” as auto enthusiasts call the hearse and ambulance brigade.

The clue is on the front fender. If one looks carefully, one can see the name “Barnette” in script above the trim strip. Guy Barnette and Company was a Memphis, Tennessee, builder of funeral cars and ambulances, one of several such outfits in that city. Gregg Merksamer, the CarPort’s Professional Car Consultant, says in his book Professional Cars (Krause Publications, 2004) that “the 1949 debut of an inexpensive Streamliner sedan delivery …insured that Pontiac would remain the industry’s most popular platform for low-cost professional cars.” The Barnette Pontiac at the St. Louis auction perhaps began life like this Pontiac ambulance used by the Forestville Volunteer Fire Department in Prince George’s County, Maryland.

Some Pontiac sedan delivery conversions were made for “combination” hearse-and-ambulance purposes, like this eight-cylinder model, carrying both the funereal landau irons and white cross window insignia. Due to its window placement and lack of Barnette script, Gregg thinks this is from another conversion company, probably Memphis neighbors Weller Brothers, although Economy Coach (later Memphis Coach Company) also did Pontiac conversions.

Barnette did long-wheelbase conversions, too, like this 1951 Pontiac combination coach that Gregg snapped at Hershey in 2004. The seller was asking $8,500, and Gregg remarked that the “illuminated Indian chief hood ornament was a nice little add-on for the price.”

I remarked in the earlier sedan delivery episode that vans from Ford, Chevy and Dodge ultimately did in the truck-based panel deliveries. In like manner, commercial versions of minivans, like this Dodge Caravan Cargo Van, took over from the sedan delivery. Minivans, too, have lapped up the small-hearse market, witness this Chrysler from Royal Coachworks. One thing we should notice about Fred’s Barnette Pontiac is that the rear windows go down. In the days before Pontiac offered air conditioning, it was important that a patient-in-transport got some fresh air.

The CarPort also thanks Ed Defort, publisher and editorial director of American Funeral Director, and Steve Lichtman for use of illustrations. Fanciers of Barnette combination and funeral coaches will gravitate to the Professional Car Society; does any PCS member have one?

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 father in the 1940s. Scott, in searching for “a car like Dad’s,” found the exact car on a farm in England, bought and restored it. Complete with umbrella, dickey seat and 1,100 cc F-head four-cylinder engine, the Stellite easily won its class. Although the Stellite was contemporary with Elwood Haynes’ discovery of the cobalt-chromium alloy of that name, there’s no apparent connection in use of the name.

With drier skies, entrants set about polishing their cars, Dennis and Ann Marie Nash grooming their Mark VI Bentley. Bugattis included Types Type 44 and 73C, and Amilcar, the quintessential French sports car, contrasted a 1924 CGS3 Kellner-bodied boattail with a Pegase roadster eleven years newer. Black beauties included the superbly-proportioned Talbot-Lago T-150 coupe and striking Maserati 450S Costin-Zagato. Enigmatic among Maseratis was the 5000 GT, its comely coupe body by Touring contrasting with an odd porcine snout. In coordinated dark crimson were the sultry Bentley R-Type Continental and martial Mercedes 300 “Adenauer” convertible. Much sportier was the Abarth 207A spider, and from another planet the 1936 Austin “Low Loader” London taxi. Rare fare at a concours was the Saab 93B sedan, and perhaps contesting the Concours d’Marine section for vintage yachts was the outrageous Amphicar, secured from rising tides by mushroom anchor. Soulmate for the Amphicar was a Tupolev N007, an air-powered boat for retrieving Russian cosmonauts.

With a drier field, drive-by awards were possible, and videographers captured chairman Bruce Wennerstrom presenting Malcolm and Natalie Pray an award for their BMW 507 sports car. Sunday’s Concours Europa repeated Saturday’s black-on-black theme, awarding Best of Show to the H6B Hispano-Suiza owned by Frank and Milli Richiardelli.

Greenwich Concours d’Elegance benefits disaster relief agency Americares. The 13th Concours will take place on June 2nd and 3rd, 2007. Bruce and Genia have ordered perfect weather.

The Greenwich Concours d’Elegance is all about circles. Cars are arranged in circles of their peers on the picturesque waterfront of Roger Sherman Baldwin Park in Greenwich, Connecticut. This past Saturday opened the twelfth edition of the Nutmeg State’s premier car event, the brainchild of Bruce and Genia Wennerstrom.

With six duPont cars on the field, belonging to several members of the duPont family, it was fitting to put them together in a DuPont Circle. The duPont, a low production luxury car, was built at Wilmington, Delaware, from 1919 to 1931. Interestingly, although five of the Greenwich duPonts were 1929 Model Gs, no two were alike. The speedster at the top of the page shared its bull nose with the four-place speedster. The convertible coupe and tourer had similar radiators but dissimilar ornaments. The sedan had yet another style radiator and a regal rooster ornament by Lalique. This contrasted with the gun on the speedster, and the roadster had another outlook entirely. Rounding out the circle of duPonts was the solitary Model H extant and two “Baby duPonts” built for children in 1930.

This was the second year for a Christie’s auction at Greenwich, featuring cars from the collection of the late renowned tenor Sergio Franchi. Among Sergio’s cars were a magnificent 1930 Castagna-bodied Isotta Fraschini boattail convertible ($666,200 including buyer’s premium) and an enticing unrestored 1925 Murphy-bodied Mercedes (unsold). His 1958 Mercedes 190SL, which the Brits would say needed a “bit of tidying,” went for $17,625. Among non-Franchi cars were a cute 1922 Renault Model NN town car ($21,120) and Earl Johnson’s “Janie,” a 1978 Checker that was the last of the breed in taxi service in New York City ($9,400).

Several carless exhibitors were on hand; one of them would teach you how to make fenders with an English wheel.

Some of my favorite concours cars were the 1937 right-hand-drive Oldsmobile with Redfern body by Maltby, and the timeless 1952 Chrysler Ghia Special, a car that looks as contemporary today as it did when new. The 1947 Plymouth station wagon of Henri David took Best Woodie. Best of Show for Saturday was the stealthy 1929 supercharged Lancefield-bodied Stutz owned by Skip and Judy Barber.

Foreboding weather forecasts kept many entrants at home, but it was midday before rain began in earnest. Cars donned raincoats and the spectators raised their umbrellas. Despite the precipitation, everyone had a good time, and hoped for a brighter day on Sunday.