CarPort

It’s probably a combination of heredity and environment. On May 9, 1930, my father Philip Foster, whose 96th birthday would be today, bought a new Model A Ford Standard Roadster from William T. Swackamer, of Long Valley, New Jersey. He explained to me once that he went out of town, rather than buying from the dealer in Morristown where he lived, because Mr. Swackhamer let him finance the car despite the fact that he was only 19 years old. He paid it off within nine months. The total delivered price, including a spare tire cover, spring covers and a “lever starter,” was $544.82.

The lever starter, which I’ve never seen on another Model A, operated the starting motor with a pull of the left hand, as opposed to pushing a toadstool on the floor with one’s right foot. Is this the “Upstarter” that I’ve seen mentioned in Model A circles?

Everyone knows the Model A story. “Henry’s Lady” made her debut on December 2, 1927, bringing Model T technology up to date and adding Lincoln style. A myriad of body styles became available, “Tudor” and “Fordor” sedans, roadsters and coupes, with and without rumble seats. For 1930, the design was freshened with a taller radiator and smaller wheels. A station wagon (first offered in 1929) was in the catalog, as was a Cabriolet with roll-up windows. Two of my favorite body styles are the two-door Deluxe Phaeton and the 400A Convertible Sedan. One of the least known is the 1931 Deluxe Pickup, with only 293 built. You don’t hear much about Model As in competition, but the Brits have been known to rally them.

Model A’s were simple technology. Fuel feed was by gravity feed from cowl-mounted tank that also served as the dashboard. The 200 cubic-inch engine had torque and spunk; my friend Gene and I collected a whole bunch of Model A’s in the days when $25 would buy a driveable car and became so familiar that we could fix them in our sleep. Alas, I don’t think any pictures survive from that Model A period of my life.

Dad’s Model A, however, was never available for experimentation. In the late 1930s he converted the rumble seat to a pickup box for his woodworking business (this picture is a rare view – in my memory it was never left out in the weather). It was the first car I knew, and the first I drove – sitting on Dad’s lap while he worked the pedals.

From the early fifties it mostly slumbered. Brought out in the early sixties for a stillborn restoration, it returned to the barn as I went off the college. In 1980 I took possession and moved it to my own garage. My parents got a chance to drive it in 1984, but by that time I had neither the money nor the time to complete a restoration. It slumbers still, straight, solid and dry. I will awaken it one day. Until then, each time I hear a Model A my heartbeat falls into its familiar rhythm.

DaimlerChrysler is teasing us with a new Imperial. I wonder whether it’s intended to be a Chrysler Imperial, or an Imperial Imperial. Poor Imperial has had an identity crisis for much of its intermittent life.

For its first 26 seasons, Imperial was the mightiest Chrysler. Introduced in 1926 as the Imperial 80, it bore hallmarks that set it apart from lesser Chryslers – a set of distinct bonnet flutes borrowed from Vauxhall. By the time of the Full Classic™ 1932 it was more like the rest of the line. In 1941, it was nearly traveling incognito.

By 1953, Imperials were getting their own faces, and in 1954 there was a different grille for each flavor of Chrysler. Small wonder, then, that 1955 Imperials not only had their own features, they had their own name as well. No longer sold as Chryslers, the cars with the microphone taillights of Virgil Exner’s d’Elegance were Imperial both in name and appearance.

In 1957 came distinctive roofs, microphones embedded in the new corporate fins, along with the first of the “doughnut decks” that the wags indelicately call “toilet seats.” For the first time a convertible was offered. The 1958 grille was mercifully bland compared to some of the competition, but I find the hungry grin of the 1960 models a bit overbearing.

For 1961 came what I call the consummate Imperial. The hanging microphones were a bit much, but the car’s lines were stunning. The free standing headlamps were exquisite, well worth the trouble it took to wash them. Nick Pagani’s ’62 Crown convertible, one of 554, is testament to this elegance, though the microphones had turned into gunsights. Sixty-three was an anticlimax, both in its grille and its taillights borrowed from the 1964 Valiant.

For ’64 it was ex-Ex and all Engel, as in goodby Virgil, hello Elwood. Elwood Engel, newly from Ford, liked perpendiculat themes, though he allowed himself a bit of a bustle. By 1968, Imperial was into Chrysler’s cubist period, shorn of the bum bump but keeping the Electrolux motif. The end came in 1975, by which time Imperial was into standup grilles.

To be sure, there was a brief revival from 1981-83 with a coupe that crossed Cadillac Seville sculpture with Lincoln Mark VI coziness – most memorable was the Frank Sinatra edition with “blue eyes” interior and full set of FS audio cassettes. Thereafter, Imperial became just another Chrysler K-car model.

So what to make of this new Imperial concept? I see it as muscular, a mighty fortress, styled, perhaps, by the person who did Rolls’ New Phantom (and who, I suspect, formerly worked at Freightliner). Maybe it should be called “Imperial Majesty.”

CarPorters with Imperial aspirations should visit the Online Imperial Club, from which some of our illustrations are linked. Imperial Club is a cybermeetingplace with vast resources, like a complete catalog of models, spotter’s guides and information archives. Dave Duricy’s Imperialist is a intellectual information center with multimedia methods. Check ’em out.

International’s building pickups again. Perhaps we should say PICKUPs, as the smallest one comes in at 14,000 lbs. GVW. They’re a far cry from the K-1 “Cornbinders” my generation saw on the road when we were growing up.

Actually, it’s not out of character. Although the first International trucks were light duty high wheelers, from 1915 to 1931 International Harvester built nothing smaller than a 3/4 ton truck. The S (for “Speed) series of 1921 became popular, culminating in the Six Speed Special of 1928, with four wheel brakes and a two-speed rear axle that doubled the ratios from the three-speed transmission. At the dawn of the 1930s, the 3/4-ton A series chassis was the smallest truck in the catalog.

The first half-ton International was the Model D-1, introduced late in 1932, essentially a “badge engineered” Willys C-113. International’s own C series debuted in 1934, and remained the mainstay of the light-duty line until introduction of the stylish D-series in 1937. The new barrel-front K series bowed in mid 1940. The K-1 at the top of the page was offered at the Mansfield, Massachusetts, swap meet a few years ago for $750, a reasonable price considering the rare “man on a tractor” IH-logo grille guard.

After the war, the K became the KB, with the addition of some chrome trim and higher prices. The first postwar redesign came in 1950 with the more muscular L-series, now with overhead valves. With minor styling changes the L became the R in 1953 and the S in 1956.

To mark its first half century, International returned to the beginning of the alphabet and rolled out the A-Line Golden Anniversary trucks in March 1957. To keep up with Chevrolet and Ford’s flush-sided pickups, the A-Line was available with a cab-wide pickup box, two-toned if desired. A quad headlight B series was produced in 1959 and 1960, and a C series from 1961 to ’63. A succession of new grilles distinguished the 1965 D series through 1968. V8 engines became available in pickups in 1959.

The last new “full size” light duty International was introduced in 1969. Cued from the slab-sided Scout, it remained in production through 1975, after which the stretch-tail “Terra” version of the Scout became the sole International pickup.

One can wonder why, with pickups in the ascendant, International chose to exit the market at that point. Perhaps they could see that mass production would be the province of the Big Three and they couldn’t compete. Why, then, these big pick-em-ups now? At 14,000 lbs. GVW the MXT rivals Ford’s F-350 and F-450; the RXT and CXT, at 25,000 and 25,999 lbs. respectively are in a class by themselves. Or are they trying to head off DaimlerChrysler’s Freightliner?

CarPorters interested in International trucks should visit the Old IHC Special Interest Group, from which some of the illustrations are linked. Those who need to know more should seek out Fred Crismon’s book International Trucks, published by Motorbooks’ Crestline imprint in 1995.

Richard Guerrera, Sr., loved trucks. As he built his hauling business from one truck to a fleet, he began collecting them, particularly trucks of the 1950s. “The trucks of the 50s had souls; they were alive,” he said. “They had a different look to them and a different sound.” In 1998 he formed the Golden Age of Trucking Museum to preserve them and others like them. He died before construction began on the museum, but his widow and family dedicated the new facility in Middlebury, Connecticut, in 2002.

Today the Golden Age of Trucking Museum is home to more than forty vehicles, including the Guerrera collection of trucks and boats. They range from a tiny Crosley to Guerrera’s own International tractor, and from a rare unrestored 1917 Republic to a 1974 Dodge Bighorn. There are military trucks and a Jeep, and Tractor Mac, a Farmall Cub that’s been immortalized in a children’s book.

Small museums have a tendency to put too much in too little space. Golden Age of Trucking has managed to avoid this pitfall, saving open spaces for visitor touring and viewing. Other celebrities on show include a two-cylinder Autocar bus, once owned by the late Henry Austin Clark, Jr. and a regular at Hershey. Nearly forgotten trucks include a 1928 Pierce-Arrow and a Norwalk, Connecticut-built Barker. Local history is represented by a 1941 Federal that once hauled for the Thermos plant in Norwich, and a cab-over-engine 1953 Fageol van from Hartford’s Barrieau Moving and Storage.

Truck museums often overdose on Macks. Golden Age has the obligatory bulldogs, but seasons the mix with other makes like Sterling and Autocar, and more commonplace working trucks like a barrel-front Ford wrecker. Recently, the trucks have been joined by a retinue of local race cars. The demonstration engine is a favorite of popular author and lecturer Dennis David.

The Golden Age of Trucking Museum is located at 1101 Southford Road in Middlebury, half a mile from Interstate 84. It’s open year round Thursday though Sunday, except for major national holidays.

Lee Iacocca denies fathering Ford’s Mustang, and, referring to the numerous other men who have claimed paternity, implies that Mustang’s mother was a tart. While the the matchmaker responsible for Mustang’s conception remains elusive, the car’s DNA leaves no doubt about its parents: in horsebreeding terms, it’s out of Falcon by Fairlane.

The original Mustang was a parts-bin special, but in the way that a child can be more than the sum of its parents so was the Mustang more than its ancestors. Neither economy car nor intermediate family sedan, the Mustang ran the gamut from a $2368 “secretary’s car” to a hairy-chested 271 hp Challenger High-Performance V8. Mustang used not only the Falcon/Fairlane running gear; it utilized the parent cars’ architecture, evident from an under-the-hood peek. While slightly different in shape, the shock towers and cross bracing of the Falcon appear prominently in Mustang. In effect, the Mustang is a Falcon extruded for short butt and prominent proboscis. Its name and wild horse logo gave rise to the term “pony car.”

Introduced April 17, 1964 at the New York World’s Fair, Mustang found instant acceptance and sold 418,000 cars in the first twelvemonth. Mustang interiors were trendy and elegant. An attractive fastback 2+2 coupe arrived in September and on March 2, 1966 the millionth Mustang was minted. Carroll Shelby prepared the hearty GT350 Mustang for racing, having 100 cars for homologation at the beginning of 1965; in ’66 Hertz offered a rent-a-racer version (reprised for its 40th anniversary at the 2006 New York Auto Show).

Mustang grew two inches for 1967, and a further four in 1969. Big block engines arrived with a 390 in ’67, 427s and 429s in ’68. Boss versions, 302 and 429, had sports car racing heritage, Mach 1 was a stiff-suspension 351 V8 car, and a dressed-up Grand&eacute model was available with most power train options. One of the strengths of Mustang was its diversity of models, one, to paraphrase Alfred Sloan, for every purse and proclivity. Big block engines disappeared after 1971, but even in the final model year of first-generation Mustang production, 1973, power choices ran from a 95 hp six to a 156 hp 351 cid V8.

You’ll never get a Mustang jockey to admit it, but they’re all really long-nosed Falcons.

BONUS QUESTION for the CarPort’s Mustang Mavens: The two-millionth Mustang was a 1968 coupe. On what day did it come off the line?

I thought about it, though. I used to pass a Fiat dealer on my way to work, during the period when the 131 Mirafiori had come on the market. My Rover 2000 was a few years old, and I noted that the 131, later called “Brava,” had twin overhead cams, to my Rover’s single, and an extra speed in the gearbox. On the other hand, the Fiat’s solid rear axle was antediluvian compared to my Rover’s DeDion setup, and its drum rear brakes were retrograde, too.

Friends of ours had a 128 coupe, and told us they “loved the car, hated the service.” It didn’t take much for me to abandon my Fiat fascination. My family was not Fiat-deprived, however. My cousins lived in a two-Fiat family; Uncle Tom had a 600D coupe and Aunt Beezie drove an 1100 (the Millicento), albeit a wagon. They were, no doubt, lured into the showroom by the sporty 1200 Spyder in the window. The contemporaneous 600 Multipla which heads this page was an early minivan of sorts, ideal for all sorts of activities.

Fiat, actually an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino (Italian automobile factory in Turin), is considered the Italian national car. The various 500 series in the 1920s and ’30s were the sturdy transportation workhorses of the day. This 1927 509 saw taxi service in Sicily. After World War II, the Topolino (Little Mouse) was the darling of Europe, this 1951 Giardinetta Legno a mouse in a wooden house. The 600 also came as a Giardinetta, clad in steel. There were larger Fiats, like the six cylinder 2100, that never came to the New World, and even V8s, called “8V” (Otto Vu) to avoid possible trademark conflitto with Ford.

Sporting Fiats of the 1970s were the 124 Spyder and 850-successor X1/9. These were sold with Pininfarina and Bertone badges, respectively, when Fiat S.p.A. abandoned the US market after 1983. A co-worker with a 124 Spyder reported that the lower door hinges rusted off when the car was but four years old.

I don’t regret not owning a Fiat. General Motors made a “strategic alliance” with Fiat in 2000, raising speculation on a return to USA. The General then bought its way out of the deal five years later. It took the recently-divorced Chrysler Corporation to re-introduce us to Italianate automobiles. Fiats are being sold in North America again, but the Fiat dealership I used to pass is now a Honda store.

On Independence Day 1894, Elwood Haynes took his new car for a ride. Haynes, of Kokomo, Indiana, had the car, which he designed and had built over the previous winter, towed out to the country behind a team of horses, so as not to cause a commotion in town. It started easily, and took the pioneering engineer for a short ride on Pumpkinvine Pike. The car seen here is a replica, currently at Kokomo’s Automotive Heritage Museum; the original is in the Smithsonian Institution.

Haynes was firmly of the opinion that he had invented the automobile, reportedly oblivious to the fact that J. Frank Duryea had made a similar excursion the previous autumn in Springfield, Massachusetts (or even fellow Hoosier John Lambert, whose motor tricycle was on the road in 1891). With his successful ride behind him, Haynes teamed with the Apperson brothers, who had built his car, to produce the Haynes-Apperson car for sale to the public. The Appersons soon split to build a car under their own name, which they did until 1926, using as a mascot the impudent jackrabbit. Haynes, meanwhile, continued in production making successively larger automobiles, billed as “America’s First Car.” Six cylinder cars were joined by a Light Twelve for 1917 to 1922. The last Haynes cars were built in 1925, the year Elwood died.

Today, Kokomoans refer to the Haynes as “America’s First Mechanically Successful Automobile,” on the basis that the Duryea’s production history was peripatetic and short. Elwood Haynes’ accomplishments, though, are legion, and are celebrated at the Elwood Haynes Museum, located in Haynes’ last dwelling on South Webster Street. On display is a 1905 Model L Haynes car, a sophisticated machine with tilt steering wheel and well-balanced two-cylinder midship engine. On a recent visit, Society of Automotive Historians directors Arthur Jones and Joe Freeman gave it thorough scrutiny.

Elwood Haynes’ lasting legacies, though, are his metallurgical inventions, stellite and stainless steel. A successor company, Haynes International, Inc., headquartered in Kokomo, produces them, along with other nickel- and cobalt-based alloys. Kokomo’s industrial heritage also includes tires, canned tomato juice and the mechanical corn picker.

Pumpkinvine Pike is now called East Boulevard, but the section on which Elwood rode is still a country road. A monument to his feat is located in front of the Foursquare Gospel Church, proclaiming it the “birthplace of a new era.”

Easter weekend brings the International Auto Show to New York’s Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. This year, skies are blue regardless of the weather, as Saturn livens its image with a “Red Line” intercooled turbo version of the Sky roadster introduced at Detroit in January. Joining it are the new Aura mid-size sedan and Outlook crossover SUV.

Toyota is busy hybridizing its entire product line, so it was no surprise to see press days kicked off with a new Lexus hybrid, the top line LS600hL, to arrive in showrooms in six months. Mercedes has an updated E-Class, shown in 320, 550 and 63AMG variants. Acura touts the RDX, a turbo 4-cylinder “premium crossover” vehicle, and shows a concept of a new MDX 7-passenger V6.

Ford brought veteran racer and car tuner Carroll Shelby out for a cameo announcing the Shelby GT-H, a 40th anniversary rent-a-racer to be available at selected Hertz counters. Infiniti rolled out the next generation G35, along with a new Altima, and promised a “refined” 2007 Maxima by early summer.

The only Chrysler debut was a double Jeep whammy, the Wrangler Unlimited, dubbed a “four door convertible,” and the 4-cylinder CVT-driven Jeep Patriot, which, claims its manufacturer, creates a new segment in the industry. Popular Jeep personality Patrick Foster made a guest appearance to critique the new vehicles.

Scion showed a new FUSE concept vehicle, a chop-top coupe with quirky features, while Bentley flashed the Royal Warrant to roll out the new Continental GTC. Curiously, BMW used its press conference time to sing the praises of internal combustion and straight six engines, promising dual-fuel (gasoline or hydrogen, at the flip of a switch) 7-series within two years, glossing over the dearth of hydrogen stations anywhere on earth. It was somewhat refreshing, then, to come back to earth with Maserati, whose biggest news was a Master Driver School at Road Atlanta.

Other intros included Mazda’s first crossover, the CX-9, a new Kia Sorrento, a bigger Hyundai Elantra, an “SC” dressed-up Honda element, and an Equinox-derived Suzuki XL7.

Noteworthy, if not new, were the far-out fantasies of Toyota, the parlor-like F3R concept and four-wheel-steering Fine-T concept. Most arresting among the exotics is the revival Spyker, sumptuous inside but rather beastly from twenty paces.

Sponsored by the Greater New York Automobile Dealers Association, the New York International Auto Show runs until April 23rd at the Javits Center, easily reached by M42 bus from Grand Central Station. C’mon down!

You’re the top; you’re a Brewster body,” wrote Cole Porter in 1934, to rhyme with “You’re the top; you’re a Ritz hot toddy.” The custom coachwork business at Brewster & Co. was waning, but the American public knew that a Brewster body was indeed “the top.”

The Brewsters began building carriages early in the nineteenth century. In 1905, Brewster built its first automobile body, and by 1911 was out of horse-drawn carriages entirely. Having imported the French Delaunay-Belleville for a time, in 1914 Brewster took on the Rolls-Royce franchise. Not surprisingly, American Rolls-Royce cars often wore Brewster bodies. In 1915, Brewster began to manufacture whole cars, with Knight sleeve valve engines and a distinctive oval radiator. Most were town cars, like this one built for Vernon C. Brown of New York City and now in the collection of The Henry Ford.

When Rolls-Royce opened a plant at Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1919, they established a line of standard bodies for the American-built line, many of which were built by Brewster on Long Island. The relationship of the two firms grew closer, and in 1925 Rolls bought Brewster. Popular body styles were the Speedster tourer and the Newmarket convertible sedan on Phantom I chassis. For the Phantom II, Brewster built such models as the Dover sedan and Newport town car on imported chassis, as manufacture at Springfield had ceased.

All custom body houses were struggling by the early 1930s, and Brewster entered receivership in 1934. John Inskip, Rolls-Royce of America executive and dealer, took over the firm and started building some low-priced custom jobs on American chassis, mostly Fords but occasionally Buick and other large cars. Most of these bore distinctive flying fenders and heart-shaped grilles. They came as town cars, phaetons and even roadsters. A few, like a ’34 built for Edsel Ford, had conventional grilles. Some find the heart-shaped Brewsters lovable; others think they’re arresting, but everyone agrees they’re distinctive. You can read more about them at the Brewster Car Society web site.

It couldn’t last. In August 1937, Brewster’s assets were sold at auction. To put it Porterly, they were “just about to stop; But if, baby, I’m the bottom, You’re the top!”

“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 eager to pass the family Nash Rambler down to my sister. My girlfriend’s father had taken a ’57 Ford Ranch Wagon in trade, which appealed to me, but it was sold before I could put in my bid. The next car in my price range was a ’57 Studebaker that had belonged to the local deputy sherrif. I handed over $300 and it was mine, with 30,000 miles, believed correct, on the clock.

It was what we call a “stripper,” the bottom-feeder model with rubber window moldings and virtually no trim. It didn’t even have a passenger sun visor. Studebaker pretentiously called it “Custom Commander” (the upmarket model being, curiously, “DeLuxe”), but it had the virtue of being the lightest V8 sedan of its model year, which meant that it could win stoplight drags, or, at the very least, burn lots of rubber. While no stylistic icon, its basic body dating from 1953, it looked far better, particularly in top-line President trim, than the rather grotesque 1958 facelift.

During the summer of 1964 I noticed a ’53 “Loewy coupe” at my local garage (that’s not Raymond Loewy in the photo, it’s Studebaker president Harold Vance). The car had been in an accident, and the engine and transmission had been removed. The garage owner was happy to tow the carcase to my house – gratis. I spent that summer and the next working evenings in a paper mill and restoring the car during the day.

I briefly entertained thoughts of building a Studillac, but found a “Sweepstakes 259” engine in a local junkyard, the “power-pack” version with a Carter WCFB four-barrel, removed from a ’56 Commander sedan. I bought two parts cars, one with an overdrive transmission, the other with straight sheet metal to replace the damaged panels on my car. I acquired a second-hand Hurst shifter, made brackets to adapt it to the Studie transmission and ordered a dual exhaust kit from the Montgomery Ward catalog. The car was on the road in time to take me back to campus for my senior year in September 1965 (and my sister took over the ’57).

It was not the sought-after pillarless Starliner hardtop, instead the “post” Commander Regal Starlight coupe. What it lacked in style was made up in sturdiness – the Starliners had a reputation for rattles. With a 185-hp engine and a wealth of ratios, thanks to the overdrive, it would not only win stoplight drags but also achieve 25 mpg on the highway. The pot metal trim was pitted, so I took most of it off and filled the holes. It gave the car a cleaner appearance, at a cost of losing the rare “inverted Mercedes” emblems from early 1953 production.

Alas, all things end and so did my Studebaker period. Once I had graduated and earned some money I lusted for something more modern, sportier. Eschewing a new car and payments, I bought a used Austin-Healey Sprite. I sold the Studie to a middle-aged woman, a writer who thought it looked “Italian.” She promptly wrecked it.