Let’s get right to the glory and the tragic historical events of this weeks Auto Factoids.
June 10, 1927 the Graham brothers purchased Paige-Detroit Motor Co. These guys started out producing glass and then moved into making conversion kits to turn Model T Fords in to truck. They decided they wanted to produce their own trucks and made a deal with Dodge for the engines and selling their trucks though Dodge. In 1927 they decided they wanted to go into the car business and make the historic purchase of Paige-Detroit Motor for what was $4 million dollars. Renamed Graham-Page, they produced 6 and 8 cylinder cars using their own bodies (after buying Wayne Body Company) and light trucks. Truck production ceases when Dodge threatened to enforce the non-compete clause of the original agreement. Of note was the 8 cylinder engine they developed nicknamed the “Blue Streak”. It soon became the name for the car. Graham brothers produced cars up until 1940 and only used their factory during WWII for various war effort production. By 1946 they were producing cars again and farm equipment under Kaiser-Frazer name. They eventually transferred all the rights to Kaiser-Frazer and their production facilities were sold to Chrysler.
Love this 1927 Panel Truck
Model 827 Circa 1929
Survivor!!!!
Oh YES…THEY DID A BUS!!!
June 10, 1951 Jaguar has it’s first Le Mans win and 4 years later and one day, the worse racing tragedy in organized racing history – 81 spectators were killed in the Le Mans crash on June 11, 1955.
June 12 1954 – Packard offers new cars with tubeless tires – major milestone!!!
June 12, 1975 – Chrysler Imperial is no longer produced. If you recall Imperial started out as it’s own brand and then purchased by Chrysler the name was retired for a period of time and then brought back in the 1970’s.
1975 was the last year for the Land Yacht
June 14 1932, Happy Birthday to
Nicolaus Otto
Who ga
ve us this thing:
first internal-combustion engine to efficiently burn fuel directly in a piston chamber.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Imperial came back briefly in 1980-81. I thought the styling was neat of those models with the luggage trunk look of the rear.
The 1980-81 Imperial was a Dodge Diplomat chassis with a very special, years ahead of it’s time 318 V8 EFI. Unfortunately, MOPAR mechanics could not understand this ‘space age’ system and Chrysler sent retro fit kits to convert these to carb.
The 1975 Imperial had the TNT 440 V8 as standard. I see these cars occasional on eBay for very affordable prices in the sub $6K range. Nice price for a piece of MOPAR history. Unfortunately, these cars won’t fit many garages.
Another tidbit of Imperial trivia; coachbuilder “LeBaron” made the bodies for Imperial cars up until the 1950s. Chrysler acquired “LeBaron”, both the company and name, and a special Imperial LeBaron model was added to the line up.