CarPort

Fred Summers faults me for not including Studebaker with the cars of 1940 offering sidemounts. Truth to tell, I avoided mentioning Studebaker in the CarPort installment on fender-mounted spares because I wasn’t sure just when the South Bend automaker took them off the options list. To prove his thesis, Fred sends pix of this
’40 President State Sedan he found a few years ago in Paducah, Kentucky.

Thankfully, he pointed out how to distinguish it from a ’39, as the changes were very subtle. Most obvious, even if you don’t know your Studies, are the sealed beam headlights, which all but a few automakers adopted for the 1940 model year. Careful comparison with the
1939 President will also show different bumpers, hood side trim, and elimination of both the emblem on the stainless trim separating the grilles and the hood ornament.

Although, as many cars, Studebakers were often equipped with sidemounts in
1931 and
’32 (even the low-priced “companion”
Rockne offered them), by
1935 they were seldom seen. Even the catalog, which listed “two spare wheels mounted in mudguard wells” as Deluxe Equipment for all but the entry level Champion model, illustrated them only on one car, the
President Regal Limousine.

So if Studebaker,
Buick, Cadillac and Packard were the last US cars to offer sidemounts pre-war, when did the others abandon them…Olds and Pontiac, for example? DeSoto and Dodge?

Fred has another question for the CarPort: which American marque was the first to take all spare tires indoors, on all models, with no option for sidemounts or outside rear tire, and in what year? I think I know, but I’d like to know what you think. Email your answer to the CarPort.

Our culture deems that when one year gives way to another we take stock and resolve to better ourselves for the next twelvemonth. In 1978, I resolved to build a garage.

My car collection was under cover, but it was 25 miles away, which meant I spent more time driving to and fro than I did on the cars. The only solution was a garage on home turf, one big enough to shelter not only my collectibles but also the everyday cars. I spent the spring drawing plans for a two-story structure to fit at the
back of our lot.

When summer came, the
excavators showed up and dug a big hole. At the bottom we poured
stout footings, then the
foundation contractors put up the
reinforced concrete walls. For the main level we used
steel joists, covered with a
concrete deck. Steel I-beams supported the attic floor, for a clear span interior.

The
framing I did myself, constructing
four bays on the upper level, The
lower level was one large open area, accessed from the end. The finishing touches were complete on Christmas Eve 1979, in time for
Angus, my 1925 Hudson, to take up residence before the
first snowfall. For Christmas my wife Jill gave me a
weathervane with Angus’s silhouette, which she had spent hours making when I was not at home. We installed it atop a martin house
on the roof.

In Foster fashion, we’ve spent 25 years filling it up, so now most of our everyday cars
sit outside. I’m installing new overhead doors and it’s about due for a new roof. My worst habit is a tolerance for
clutter, and my garage has it. If you don’t have a garage, perhaps your resolution for 2006 should be to build one. If you have a garage and it’s
messy like mine, resolve, like me, to clean it up. Happy new year, and may all our resolutions come true.

Frank McMullen’s
DeSoto is not a trailer queen. It’s not even a beauty queen, and he likes it that way. His
1941 S-8 Deluxe sedan is one of two older cars he uses as daily drivers (the other being a
1960 Chrysler Windsor). Re-painted and re-upholstered by some previous owner, it’s otherwise unrestored and turned
100,000 miles not long ago. Frank drives it more than 3,000 miles a year.

As a driver it’s kept in good mechanical condition. Frank rebuilt the braking system when he bought it eight years ago. He’s currently contemplating an engine swap, as an interim measure while he rebuilds the original powerplant. Mopar heart transplants are fairly straightforward, as the four ChryCo siblings share a lot of DNA. Frank’s 228 cubic inch S-8 engine is a shorter stroke version of the six used in 1940-41 Chryslers. In fact, any later Chrysler or DeSoto six through 1954 is a bolt-in, as the differences were all internal. A later engine could be as large as 264 cubic inches; engines from 1949 on have full-flow oil filters.

Frank’s DeSoto is driven, but not as much as Jon Robinson’s
1950 Custom Club Coupe. Jon has put 170,000 miles on it since purchase in 1990, when the odometer read 72,000. For nearly four years it was his only car. He lives in California’s Mojave Desert, which means the car sees plenty of hot weather, and he’s driven it to western Washington State, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Texas. The farthest east he’s taken it is Albemarle, North Carolina.

Reportedly the car was a mint, low-mileage original until 1982. Thereafter it suffered both body damage and mechanical deterioration, to the point where every exterior panel was scarred. The
body and paint were restored in 1993; the engine has been rebuilt three times. It’s currently running a 1953 251 cid unit because, according to Jon, “it happened to be available.” He’s found that a 1957 Dodge rear axle, with 3.36 gears, gives his DeSoto much longer legs for distance travelling. He figures he’s saved the drive train some 44 million revolutions over the years.

I can’t compete with Frank or Jon. My only DeSoto, a
1940 S-7 Custom purchased for $30 in 1960, didn’t get driven very much. In the process of repairing a blown head gasket, I did a much-needed valve job but discovered other internal injuries beyond my skills and my pocketbook. I retreated to the family
Nash Rambler. The
DeSoto became an organ donor, helping to restore cars from Massachusetts to Texas.

The
windmills in the background of Jon’s pix are in the Tehachapi Mountains that separate the Mojave from the San Joaquin Valley. They provide an apt simile for the DeSoto: Driven like the Wind.

Tomorrow evening will mark the first anniversary of the CarPort. I’d like to thank Joris of PreWarCar.com for inspiration, Dave of DeSotoLand for helping me get started, and my son Nick for showing me the joys of html. Happy New Year!

Winter officially rolls in at 1:35 PM today. In northern climes, of course, folks have been experiencing
winter for some time. Northern Connecticut has plenty of snow for Chris David to try out the Ski-Doo
élan that his father, popular Mustang and Tonka authority Dennis David, purchased from a neighbor who was clearing out his shed.

“Ski-Doo” is so well known that it’s become almost a generic substitute for “snowmobile.” That’s with some justification, since Ski-Doo is made by Bombardier Recreational Products. Armand Bombardier formed L’Auto-Neige Bombardier Limitée in Quebec in 1942 to manufacture tracked vehicles for use on snow, of which the Ski-Doo is a direct descendant. The
B-series Bombardier, powered by a
rear-mounted Ford V8, was used extensively in the Canadian north – I came across this one in Newfoundland in 1993. The concept was also applied to farm tractors, and accessory “Bombardier tracks” were popular with Ford tractor owners who operated on wet ground. Today, Bombardier, Ltd. makes trains and boats and planes, including transit cars for cities in Europe, North America and China and regional and business jet aircraft. The latter include the well-known Learjet line. During the 1980s, they built a version of the Volkswagen Iltis for the Canadian armed forces.

Bombardier Recreational Products, purchased from Bombardier, Ltd. by the Bombardier family in 2003, includes not only Ski-Doo but also Sea-Doo personal watercraft and sport boats, and Johnson and Evinrude outboard motors. The latter two nameplates were acquired when Bombarder purchased Outboard Marine Corporation in 2001.

The élan, built from 1971 to 1996, is a lightweight machine, very popular in the snowmobile boom of the early 1970s and with sufficient following to stay in production for 25 years. The engine is an Austrian-built
single-cylinder unit by Rotax, another Bombardier company. The
controls are simple, and the
seating is roomy enough for two.

Is the Ski-Doo an automobile? Well, it’s a self-propelled land vehicle and it does have
wheels, although they don’t actually touch the ground. I consider it an automobile, but it remains to be seen if Dennis will add snowmobile appraisals to his lines of business.

I’ve always been glad that, in several erratic attempts to market a little Lincoln, Ford Motor Company has not wasted the name “Zephyr.” Both the Versailles and the more recent LS seemed a little too commonplace to claim the name of the revolutionary low-priced Lincoln introduced for 1936. The Versailles was a Ford Granada with a bustle; the LS an S-Type Jaguar masquerading as a Mazda. Thankfully the Mercury Zephyr, a Fairmont with gills, was eminently forgettable. But now there is a new Lincoln Zephyr. Does it deserve the mantle?

The first Zephyr was right from outer space. Based on John Tjaarda’s streamlined “Sterkenberg” studies of the 1920s, it was given edgy lines from E.T. Gregorie’s pen. “Bob” Gregorie, the former yacht designer hired in 1932 by Edsel Ford, formed Ford’s first styling studio and was responsible for the Model Y Ford
for Britain, scaled up for the 1933-1934 Model 40. Gregorie’s cues for the Zephyr were applied to the 1937 Ford, and of course from the Zephyr sprang
Edsel Ford’s immortal Continental.

The
1936 Lincoln-Zephyr (FoMoCo hypenated it – usually) is the purest form of the design, with its
pointed prow and
sloping tail. The
spare tire hides just inside the trunk, just waiting to burst forth, Continental style (which, in fact, it must if one is to stow any luggage). The
interior is Ford gone ultra art deco, to the extent of Aiflow-like
chomed seat frames. To be a Lincoln in 1936 meant
V-12 power, and the Zephyr got a 267 cubic inch unit owing much to the
Ford V8. The little 12 had a reputation for frailty, but driven hard with frequent oil changes it gave good service.

The new Zephyr draws mixed reviews. Based on the Ford Fusion, which is in turn derived from the Mazda6, it’s hardly revolutionary. AutoWeek summed it up as a kinder, gentler Fusion. Automobile magazine (January 2006) panned it, saying the Fusion and its cousin, the Mercury Milan, are “better deals for buyers of any age.”

Which leads us to ask: What Would Gregorie Do? For one thing, he’d put a point on it. No faceless blobs for Bob Gregorie, let alone a caricature of the
’41 Lincoln grille made to resemble a
cowcatcher. No corporate Duratec V6, either. The car should have an aluminum V-12 with lots of camshafts, though perhaps not the 4.3 liters of its ancestor. Even a small V-12 is probably impractical for transverse front-wheel drive, so make it a rear-driver, through six-speed automatic. Put the spare tire in a pointed tail, and make sure the seats have chrome frames. And do it all without making it look “retro.” A tall order? Let’s ask Robert Cumberford.

Peugeots and I go back a long way. The year I graduated from elementary school, my parents bought a new
Peugeot 403, one of the
first imported to the USA. When I got my driver’s license almost three years later, I was allowed to drive it on special occasions (my everyday wheels being either the
Nash Rambler or
DeSoto you’ve seen in earlier CarPort installments). The 403 remained in the family until it rusted voraciously away.

The French have a way with car design: utterly unconventional by American standards, but resulting in excellent handling with a very comfortable ride. This has been true of all our subsequent Peugeots, a
1979 504 diesel sedan that my wife Jill bought in 1986 and the
1985 505STI and
1987 505STX that succeeded it (the latter with the bulletproof
Peugeot-Renault-Volvo V6 engine). These later Peugeots have been reliable, too, the 505s recording over 200,000 miles each. Peugeot’s
rearing lion mascot is well chosen.

I have not, however, had much experience with prewar Peugeots, so I was anxious to sample the 402 berline owned by my friend
Victor Lane. Victor, an American living in Wales, is an eclectic collector, the inhabitants of whose garage are constantly changing, and a person who enjoys sharing his treasures with his friends. An afternoon with Victor is a car person’s delight.

The
Peugeot 402 was manufactured from 1935 until production halted during World War II, nearly 80,000 cars in all. Looking akin to a
small Chrysler Airflow, the 402 is streamlined and
distinctive, one of its hallmarks being
behind-the-grille headlamps. It turns out to be, interestingly, the comsummate car for touring in Europe. Nimble on its Michelin shoes, it also boasts the French standard for
comfort. A
2-liter engine provides plenty of forward movement, through gears stirred with another French innovation, the
push-pull-and-twist shifter. This odd-looking device is nowhere near as clumsy as it looks.

The ultimate Peugeot 402 is the Eclipse Décapotable, a retractable hardtop anticipating the
Ford Skyliner by over two decades (here’s a
similar body on the 1934 601 chassis). Eclipses are understandably rare, but “ordinary” 402s are frequently available and for less than a king’s ransom.

Not all Peugeots are wonderful. I suffered a long year with a notoriously unreliable
405, the model that pretty well ended Peugeot’s presence in North America. In a way I miss it. Though underpowered and inappropriately geared, it, too, had nimble handling and the most comfortable seats of any automobile I’ve ever owned.

Wayne Graefen has found this
nifty little custom in Junction, Texas, one of the hamlets in Greater Wayne’s World, which comprises much of the central part of the Lone Star State. Built probably in the 1950s, it’s based on a 1941 Ford coupe body and sports a ’53 Studebaker windshield and
1935 Ford wire wheels. The lines and the workmanship are both pretty nice, better than found on many customized automobiles. The
instrument panel reprises the
front end theme, a nice touch. Original power came from a 354 cid Chrysler hemi, through original Ford trans to
Columbia overdrive. The car now has a
428 cid Ford engine and 9-inch rear.

Wayne’s only quibble is with the
vestigial sidemount bulges, which he says are “too far back in the fenders to possibly hold tires – if they are going to be there they should be functional.” I agree, and would add that the
refrigerator-like door hinges look tacky, too.

Sidemounted spares are an American institution. Conceived as a simple and functional way to carry a spare tire,
sitting on the running board and lashed to the body, as time went on they
nestled into the
front fender and became more streamlined, finally fully-enclosed in
metal covers. The last General Motors cars with sidemounts were the 1940
Buicks and Cadillacs, by which time the tires were mostly styling devices. Packard, getting full use of the old-style bodies on their senior series, used them until 1942.

This little Ford custom is not the last American car to use sidemounts, though. Racing driver
John Fitch, who after retirement from the track built modified
“Sprint” versions of the
Corvair with handling enhancements and
four-carb engines, envisioned a more sophisticated car. The
Phoenix, also Corvair-based but with
special body penned by Coby Whitmore and built in Italy by Frank Reisner’s Costruzione Automobili Intermeccanica, featured real sidemounts,
gentle blisters on the front fenders but with
real tires under
removable covers. The concept was intended to house different size spares, as the Phoenix was to have narrower tires on the front than on the rear. In the end, it didn’t, and production never started because Federal motor vehicle standards inconveniently intervened.

The Phoenix was built in 1966, and I believe it to be the last American car with sidemounts. If you can think of a later example, please contact the CarPort.

Thanksgiving is a time to express gratitude for the good things in our lives. A modern expression of the harvest festivals that have taken place since the beginning of civilization, it recognizes the role of the sun, moon and rain that have brought plenteous crops and raised fatted beasts, as well as the divine providence that caused them to arrive in the correct proportions. In our post-industrial age, however, the plenty that feeds us is rarely grown in our back yards. More often it comes in boats and trains and planes – and automobiles. Thus it’s appropriate to give thanks, too, for our self-propelled transportation.

I was given a car when I was fourteen. It was not my first car – I had purchased a
1937 Ford when I was nine, but it was not sufficiently complete to function. This second car had belonged to Stanley Pratt, a family friend, and we had agreed that when he entered the Army after high school I would buy it for $75. When enlistment day came, however, the car refused to run, and a few weeks later his father pushed it down the road to our house. He was so glad to see the end of it that he refused my $75.

My benefactor had left me a
1947 Ford Super Deluxe fordor sedan. It was not rotten, but was rather
battered and the
interior was a shambles. It didn’t take much to get it running – a fresh battery and a new fuel pump made it start; a
rebuilt carburetor made it run fine. I
read extensively about what
made it tick, and drove it in the fields near my home for over two years.

Thinking it might be more useful as a truck, I
cut off the back end and constructed a
dump body out of 2x6s and plywood. In theory it was fine, but in practice I had failed to allow
clearance for the rear tires when the suspension was loaded, so its useful capacity was less than a wheelbarrow’s worth of sand.

When I finally received my driver’s license I wanted a car fit for the road, one with an interior that my friends might want to ride in, so I bought a
1940 DeSoto for $30 and gave the Ford to a friend. When he moved out of town he gave it to our high school as an auto shop project.

I’ve been given other cars in my lifetime, some
in need of surgery (and which I later put
on the road), and some as running parts cars (which I didn’t). I’ve also given away a
Rover that I drove for 15 years, its companion
parts car and a
Ford van that was an arrested project. If you’ve got a car that’s surplus to your needs and doesn’t owe you any money, consider giving it to a young person who can learn from it. That boy or girl will thank you, even if their parents don’t.

Come to think of it, I’ve got a
car to give away, and I’d be thankful if you wanted it. Contact the CarPort for details.

Eighty-five years ago today, Gertrude Marguerite Bates was born in Morristown, New Jersey. Called “Bunny” by the family, a tradition accorded the youngest child, she was known to kith and kin by that name her entire life, since she never had younger siblings.

She didn’t have a particular interest in cars, but she drove them from the time she was eligible for a license, and Philip Foster often lent her his Model A Ford during their courtship. Their firstborn arrived in 1944, and showed an immediate and unexpected attraction to wheeled vehicles, including the 1935 Ford sedan, which he called “Mommycar” and the Model A, dubbed the “Little Truck” because Dad had installed a pickup box to make it useful in his woodworking business. The war was on, and she, a horticulturalist, grew Belladonna and other medicinal plants for the armed forces while his wood shop built test models of radar antennas. She started to write a book on herbs, but put it aside when her son began escaping his basinette.

The three of us moved to Connecticut in the summer of 1946; my sister arrived in December. We had a small farm at Falls Village, with room to grow seed crops and create a show garden which she enjoyed showing visitors. The next year her journalistic engery found an outlet in The Herb Grower, a small quarterly they would publish for the next forty years. Dad bought a printing press and other publishing machinery, and production of the magazine became a family affair. Her book was finally published the year I graduated from college. Her articles on herbs also appeared in magazines such as House Beautiful, Flower and Garden, The Herbarist, and occasionally in the New York Times, something her son has never achieved.

In April 1954, quite out of character, Dad bought her a three-year-old red Nash Rambler convertible. She was very fond of it, passing it on to her children when they learned to drive. Her last car was a Volkswagen Beetle, purchased new in 1965. She drove it until the onset of Alzheimer’s took her off the road in 1991. My daughter Harriet is presently in the process of restoring it.

In 1975, Gertrude “Bunny” Foster was honored by her colleagues in the Herb Society of America with the Helen deConway Little Medal of Honor for her years of growing, researching and writing about herbs. After her passing in November 1997, HSA’s Connecticut Unit established the Gertrude B. Foster Award for Excellence in Herbal Literature in her memory.

She loved her grandchildren, teaching them important life skills as they grew older. We don’t have too many pictures of our whole family, since someone was usually behind the camera operating the shutter. This one, taken by visitors at Cape Cod in 1954, shows my sister Rosemary in the middle and me at lower right. At left are Dad’s friend Ralph Musser and his daughter Nancy. The Chevy wagon is Ralph’s; he worked for GM’s Turnstedt hardware division.

Fosters value their heirlooms. Many things from this picture are still in the family. The desk, the chair, the lamp and the cuckoo clock are here with us, the hutch cabinet, which we called “Welsh dresser,” is with my niece in Colorodo. And we still have the Nash, too.

In 1907, Edward and Mary Harkness bought a
summer cottage at Waterford, Connecticut, on the shore of Long Island Sound. They named it “
Eolia,” after the Greek god of wind, appropriate since the sea breezes and gales were ever whistling though their
porch.

Edward S. Harkness was an heir to the Standard Oil fortune, Mary Emma Stillman Harkness the granddaughter of Thomas Greenman, prosperous shipbuilder of Mystic, Connecticut. Their principal residence was in New York City, but they spent their summers at Eolia, where Mary had landscape architect Beatrix Jones Farrand design extensive gardens. The Harknesses were quiet, unassuming people, and very philanthropic, contributing some $120 million to various causes during their lifetimes. Edward Harkness died in 1940; his widow left the 200-acre Eolia property to the State of Connecticut upon her passing in 1950. It is now Harkness Memorial State Park.

Although Eolia,
the mansion, is the centerpiece of the park, it is not a museum, per se. The grounds are open year-round, for walking, picnicking,
kite flying, enjoying the
restored gardens. One day each year, however, the Friends of Harkness, a volunteer support association, holds Harkness Family Day, giving tours of the mansion and outbuildings. It is then that the true nature of early Twentieth Century understated elegance can be seen. The
carriage house (which, given that it was built in 1906, must have soon become a motor house) is fitted with a
turntable made in Canton, Ohio, so that neither carriages nor automobiles had to back out into the yard. The
tools left behind by the Harknesses are carefully preserved, along with certain machinery, such as a
gasoline-powered water pump. A feature that would give today’s fire marshall a fit is the gas pump carefully concealed in a closet.

The Harknesses’ automobiles are long gone, but the estate’s
1932 Ford Model BB truck is there, in much the same condition as when it plied the Boston Post Road (aka U.S. Route 1) to New York, taking Connecticut-grown produce to the house “in town.” It has a
platform stake body, a type once common but seldom seen today. Its garage mate is a
McCormick Deering 10-20 tractor, a series built by International Harvester between 1923 and 1940. In ingenious Connecticut Yankee fashion, it has been fitted with a
winter cab and an attachment for plowing snow.

Family Day is held the second Sunday of September every year. It’s a rare opportunity to see how modest millionaires lived.