Found! and Lost!

Take a good hard look at this picture. Do you see a couple of million dollars in this picture?

I'm with you; I see an episode of "Hoarders".

But buried under all of that random junk is a 1966 Ford GT-40; the car that beat Ferrari at LeMans. Not this particular vehicle, but the design. This particular car has been owned by a now retired fireman since 1975, and hasn't run since 1977.

So no; its not worth a couple of million now. But when it is restored, the sky will be the limit. Of course, the cost of the restoration will be more than your average 1966 Mustang fleet of 2 dozen cars, but still; worth every penny.

Still skeptical? Maybe Hagerty can convince you.

I found this article on Road & Track today; and the article leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Like how much the new owner paid for the car, and how was a firefighter able to afford on these back in 1975?

I can pretty much guarantee you this GT-40 will not wind up buried under a pile of garbage again. Te new owner, Tom Shaughnessy will take good car of her; he is a well known car collector. Although he usually deals in Ferraris.

But the point of this post is that this is a car collector's dream; finding a valuable old car in a barn. Several books have been written about barn find cars.

Jay Leno has even found two very rare Duesenbergs as barn finds. The first a Model X is one of three left; his other was a 1934 model that was in a New York parking garage for 60 years before he tracked down the owner and bought it from him.

ARRRGGGHHHH!!!!! I just went to Jay Leno's Garage, so I could link to the videos of him find and restoring these two classic cars and the entire site has been redesigned- something I was aware of- and all of the archived videos have disappeared- something I was not.

And that SUCKS. Here I was all up; only two more this week, a classic GT 40 has been found, and then BAM! everything hits the dumper.

Well, you'll have to just take me word for on the Jay Leno videos; they were real, and they were SPECTACULAR!

Do Emission Standards Equal Horsepower?

Amazing how, at times, a simple article can start a massive discussion on several other, tangentially related, topics.

Take this post over at The Truth About Cars. Starts off with a rant from a used auto dealer about the deals he has missed because his county still has emission control checks.

Then it sways into the difficulty of diagnosing a glowing Check Engine Light, and the various ways to defeat, where it is legal to, the emissions systems.

And then swings off into the Constitutionality of Emissions checks as opposed to emissions systems, with a swing back to whether the checks and the systems themselves serve a public purpose, and should be a legitimate function of government.

Wow; that's a lot of territory.

Ya wanna know what I think?

Of course you do; you've read this far, haven't you?

Back in the day of the big block engine with points and a carb we re getting about 10% of the power of the gasoline to the road. The rest didn't burn, and washed into the oil or trickled out the exhaust pipe.

Yep; we was polluting. Part of the advances in emissions have lead to less gasoline being a pollutant, and more of it being turned into horsepower. That's how you can have a Ford Focus with 420 horsepower. These systems have also become more reliable. Fuel injection is not new. Automakers experimented with it in the 1930's. Chevrolet had a production FI unit in 1957.

But they were about as reliable as $3.00 watch. So the idea was shelved until it had to be revived.

Not that I think the current state of automotive technology is solely the result of emissions standards. Physically engines could only get so big in an automobile; 500 cubic inches was about all there was. New ideas had to be developed to squeeze more horsepower out of a drop of gasoline. The technology that was developed would have been developed where there were emissions standards or not. Maybe not as quickly, but it still would have been developed.

Things would have worked just like all the others advances had; high end manufacturers would experiment and develop; the mid-level would  produce thousands of units, and the consumers would do the road testing for a few years until the bugs were worked out.

Without emissions standards would we have street legal cars pushing 600 horsepower? Oh yeah.

The market would have demanded it, and the automakers would have made it happen.

Well, It's Time for a Palette Cleanser

The last two days have been too serious. It's time for a spot of whimsy.

Where better to go for whimsy than Jay Leno?

I have seen pictures of this car before, but did not know all of the details. I can't improve on Jay's video; take 5 minutes and have your day made.

To say this car is over the top in weird would still be an understatement.

But there are several features I like. I'll let you guess which ones.

But I will tell you this. Old Plymouth Dusters had a rubber bellows on the floor board that was used to pump washer fluid up to the windshield. One stomp on the device would shoot an incredible amount of water on to your windshield.

Back in the day- which is a great way of saying 'back when I was young and fairly stupid'- I had an old Chevy Van that was redneck to the core. The exterior had some  plumbing companies name painted on it, so the owner prior to me had covered it up with Contact Paper (remember Contact Paper?) that had a pattern of small red periwinkles. Yeah; it was distinctive. The only thing inside when I bought it was the drivers seat. I bought some cheap carpet for the floor, and a friend of mine gave me his old living room couch, side chair and coffee table. I was all set.

What does this have to do with the Swan Car, or an old Duster?

Well; This:

I took one of the Windshield Washer pumps and one spray nozzle from an old Duster and rigged it up on the old van.

But not to spray the windshield. I had it rigged to spray out the grill, through a corner of the radiator. If I was sitting at a traffic light or stop sign, and somebody was taking too much time in the crosswalk, I would stomp on the Washer Bulb, and spray them with a half pint of water. They would think I had a radiator leak. And would need to bite my tongue to keep from laughing at the strange reactions from the sudden spray of water.

Like I say; that was back in the day.

Well, You Start Here, and Then Go There, And Then...

I have blogged before about how one thing leads to another. Train of thought- pun intended. Well; I'm doing it again.

Today I was reading a legal description for a piece of property in Fayette County Kentucky, and part of the property ran along side of the tracks for the CNO & TP Railroad.

The what? I asked myself. What was the CNO & TP Railroad? Well, It is the Cincinnati- New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad. Formed in 1869, it is wholly owned by the City of Cincinnati. The only intercity railroad owned by a municipality. Ain't that a kick in the head? There is a lot more information at the link, But apparently the line has a certain amount of notoriety to rail buffs, or as they are sometimes called, Foamers. That is an interesting story in its own. Do an internet search for Railroad Foamer video.

But, I digress.

I was doing a little more searching, looking for more info on the CNO & TP RR (TP; Considering Cincinnati's Procter & Gamble, a TP railroad kinda makes sense) I found another page, NKY Images; full of hundreds of old pictures, including some on the now familiar CNO&TP RR.

Including one old newspaper article about a car on the railroad tracks of the CNO&TP. The things you can find on the internets!

What is really interesting about this article is that it talks about the horseless carriage killing the horse, and now it's setting its sites on the Iron Horse. That was truer that anybody in 1924 knew, I would suspect. Not that personal cars would soon rule the railroads, but there is a technology hidden under the hood of this vehicle that is 80 years ahead of its time for cars, and 30 years to early for the railroads. This thing is a hybrid.

And, it wasn't the first one. There is a hybrid manufacturer even older. Back to my old friend Jay Leno's Garage, and his Owen Magnetic.

This was the technology that did kill the Iron Horse Steam Locomotive. All modern locomotives are diesel electrics; the drive wheels are each driven by an electric motor, and the electricity is created by a diesel powered generator; just like in a modern hybrid, and in our early iron wheel automobile.

Another thing too, while I am on this newspaper article. I love the way it is written. If newspapers were written like this today they might still be making money. Which reminds me; the money line in the article: 'by an over enthusiastic devotee of Bacchus'.

The author used this line, knowing that most, if not all, of his readers would know who Bacchus was. I'll bet you could read this article to an honors English class in any high schools and they would not be able understand a significant portion of it.

Yet in 1924, this was puff piece.

Yeah; we have come a long way.

Let's Take a Look at Some History

I was perusing Jay Leno's Garage over the weekend and found this book review. The book itself sounds interesting- a murder mystery based in 1910 in an electric car factory.

The more interesting part of the video is Jay and the author's conversation about the early 1900's and the history of electric automobiles. Especially when they discuss range and what killed the electric car a hundred years ago.

Another video Jay posted last week was this one; about a 1906 Steam Tractor. Jay drives this thing around the block- at its top speed of 4 miles an hour- and then discusses what killed the steam car.

If you don't study history, you don't know that most ideas are not new. Back in the day, before the internal combustion engine (ICE) became the norm, electric and steam powered cars were viable competitors. For a few years anyway. But both steam and electric had limitations that the ICE didn't have.

The electric starter, invented in 1912, was one of the biggest boosts; it removed the need for a strong arm to kick the engine over, making the ICE the easier and faster to start than a steam car.

Electrics have always had range issues, and always will, until they figure out how to recharge your battery in the time it takes to grab a cup of coffee and donut at the Stop and Go. Which will probably be never.

Electric cars are a fad today; just like they were a hundred years ago.

I'll Think About An Electric Car When...

You know I follow Jay Leno's Garage pretty regularly. Today they have a post up about new electric cars and motorcycles from the 2010 SEMA show.

Jay isn't in this one; his friend Justin Bell is. Justin is a world class racing driver, and has done several videos for and with Jay.

He makes a great point toward the end of this video, when he talks about how it would feel to have his race car recharged in the pits, instead of refueled.

You know how I feel about electric cars, and this really summed it up for me. It was the early days of racing that proved the internal combustion engine concept. electric and steam cars couldn't compete over the long distances, like the Indy 500, first run in 1911, and the gas engine became the standard.

All the flash and bang electric cars have been making the last couple of years is meaningless.

When an electric car wins at Indy or Daytona, then I'll know they're ready for primetime.

How About A Little Classic NASCAR?

I was over at The Borderline Sociopathic Blog For Boys this morning and found this post, a video from Jay Leno's garage where they track test a '66 Galaxy NASCAR race car.

That got me to thinking about when NASCAR really took off, popularity wise, in the late sixties/early seventies when there was considerable factory support.

Ever seen a Daytona Charger?


How about a Talledega Torino?



These cars were built specifically to compete in NASCAR, and by NASCAR's homologation rules at least 500 cars had to be built and sold, and in the Torino's case only 783 were built. The Daytona Charger barely made the cut at 543. So you probably have never seen one on the street, especially since the Daytona Chargers sell in the half a million dollar range. And UP, depending on equipment.

What if Ford and Chevy went back to the days when what raced at Daytona was available in the showroom?

Sure, you can buy a Malibu. But the one at Daytona is a front-engine, rear-wheel drive V8. The showroom version? Front wheel drive V6. IF you're lucky.

The cars on the track have as much in common with the cars in the showroom as I do with Obama. And that ain't much. And. just for the record, I am the more powerful NASCAR version.

So what about doing a Classic NASCAR; where the cars are, with the addition of some safety items, just like what you can buy off of the showroom floor? Let the manufacturers put some effort into the winning on Sunday, selling on Monday rule, and see what they can come up with.

Even if it winds up just being the Mustangs, Camaros and Chargers battling it out, it will make for some fun racing.

Not Ready For Prime Time

I found this through Instapundit.

And yep; we have been hearing about the coming age of the electric auto for over 100 hundred years.

Jay Leno has a video on his Baker Electric that adds a few reasons why electric cars have been the red headed step-child of the auto industry for the last 100 years.

I also saw an article comparing the charge times for a electric with the refueling times for a gas car, and each electric service station would need to cover 5 acres to service as many cars an hour as a 6 pump gas station.

Yeah, there may come a day for the electric car; give it another 100 years.

Why I Like Jay Leno

HE doesn't spend his money foolishly. He spends it on CARS. Very nice cars.

Just take a look in the background of this video. There are probably 15 million dollars worth of cars in this video, if not more.

This is what my garage would look like, if I had Jay's money.

And, as I mentioned before, Jay drives all of his cars.

I like Jay Leno.

His 10 o'clock show I couldn't stand though.

Jay Leno Has Some Neat Cars

I seem to remember a guy I went to high school with had one of these.

Well, almost.

I want the crate motor. I'll find a car for it later

Have You Ever Run Into a Name That Caught Your Attention?

Jay Leno's latest video tours some antique motorcycles at Pebble Beach, and he talks to a motorcycle expert named Summer Hooker.

Nope; not a striper, but some 60 year-old dude with a full beard.

I was kinda disapointed.