From: http://classicrecollections.com/2012/10/07/feature-1954-buick-special/
This Ocean Mist green and Arctic white 1954 Buick Special sedan is all original and was found near Chicago, Illinois.A total of 70,356 Deluxe sedans were produced in 1954.
via FEATURE: 1954 Buick Special.
Wow…a lot went on this week.
First up is the car that started it all. Oct 1, 1908 the Ford Model T went on sale. Perhaps the only car that is always referred with the word “Model”. You never hear it called the Ford T (like Ford Focus) or the T (like Mustang).
1908 Model T
Model T Ford – Rag Top
1927 saw the 15 millionth Model T produced and the last.
On the same day 46 years later (1954) Packard and Studebaker merged. It was debatable was to who the merger would benefit the most. It is was reported Packard was broke but Studebaker had money troubles as well. This was not a great partnership. They attempted to sell the cars separately in the same dealerships. The Packards were just Studebaker’s President with more chrome. They were unflatteringly called “Packerbakers”.
’56 Studebaker President
57 Packardbaker – You got to love the fins!!!!!
The Packarbaker only lasted 2 years and Packard essentially ceased to exist.
Oct 1, 1974 was the last Imperial debuted. The Imperial was at one time its own company. It was incorporated in to the Chrysler family and then sort of released back as its own brand.
1974 Imperial. The two configuration was the best looking.
Chevy delivered one of the most iconic cars in automotive history on Oct 2. 1959. That was the day they debuted the Corvair. It was a huge media blitz with some every innovative sale/marketing demonstrations. Including running through field and stream.
Any Ralph Nader fans? This is a great car and they came in four door, station wagon and drop top configurations!!!!
On Oct. 4, 1962 Buick debuted it’s Riviera.
Distinct (grill/headlight over-hang) but familiar (Skylark like). I really liked the early Riviera, right up until the boat tail design.
Now I didn’t really want to consider this next historic moment but in my opinion this really isn’t automotive related, except that it did have tires and moved along the ground, but in 1983 on Oct 4 the land speed record was broken. A British team accomplished with the Thurst SSC and setting the record at 633 mph. But really it was just a plane with jet engines – minus the wings.
The UK Team’s Thrust SSC. Notes below are from the Wikipedia
The car was driven by Royal Air Force fighter pilot Wing Commander Andy Green in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, United States. It was powered by two afterburning Rolls-Royce Spey turbofan engines, as used in the British version of the F-4 Phantom II jet fighter. The car was 16.5 m (54 ft) long, 3.7 m (12 ft) wide and weighed 10.5 tons (10.7 t), and the twin engines developed a net thrust of 223 kN (50,000 lbf), a power output of 110,000 bhp (82MW),[2] burning around 18 litres per second (4.0 Imperial gallons/s or 4.8 US gallons/s). Transformed into the usual terms for car mileages based on its maximum speed, the fuel consumption was about 5,500 l/100 km or 0.04 mpg U.S.
Next up two debuts on the same day 11 years apart.
First 0n Oct 6 1955 the Lincoln Continental MK II showed up at the Paris Auto show.
Look a bit like a Thunderbird in this pic.
That’s a huge grille!!! Great looking car.
Eleven years later in 1966 Cadillac debuted the Eldorado. Perhaps the most famous Caddy model.
Here it is in a beautiful blue drop top configuration.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Photos by Roger Kallins.
Of the dozens of Corvettes famously linked to the astronauts of the moon-shot Sixties, only a handful of documented Apollo-era astronaut-owned‘Vettes survive, none of them as original as the 1967 Corvette once owned by the late Neil Armstrong. Now, thanks to a new initiative, that Corvette will undergo a preservation effort that will keep it just as Armstrong had it.
One of the many Corvettes that Florida Chevrolet dealer Jim Rathmann sold to those with the Right Stuff, Armstrong’s Marina Blue mid-year coupe emerged from the St. Louis assembly plant on December 9, 1966, and passed into his possession six days later. Equipped with the 390hp 427-cu.in. V-8, a four-speed transmission, air conditioning, power brakes, power windows, tinted windows, transistorized ignition, and the AM-FM radio, the coupe served Armstrong for the next year, until he traded it in at Rathmann Chevrolet for a 1968 Corvette convertible. A day later, a fellow NASA employee bought it, beginning a 44-year stretch of ownership that ended earlier this year when current owner Joe Crosby bought it.
Crosby, a Corvette restorer from Merritt Island, Florida, actually first got wind of the Corvette in the summer of 1979, when the second owner still had it on the road. “My brother and I both talked about buying it,” Crosby said. “At the time we didn’t know it had something to do with Neil Armstrong, we just knew that it was a big-block car with its original engine. All the Corvettes I’ve restored have had their original engines. But I had two other Corvettes I was working on at the time, so I passed.”
Regardless, he kept in touch with the second owner, calling him about once a year to chat and see if the Corvette was still for sale. At one point over the years the second owner revealed that Armstrong originally owned the Corvette, but the answer always remained no. In the meantime, the second owner moved the Corvette into a heated and air-conditioned garage and put it up on jackstands with the intentions of turning it into a family project. He modified it with fender flares, as was the fashion of the time, but got no farther with it.
Even up to late 2011, the second owner refused to sell, but then one day in late February he called Crosby and asked him if he still wanted to buy it. “It took me about five minutes to get the trailer ready to pick it up,” Crosby said. After getting it home, his initial assessment showed the Corvette to be in largely original condition, apart from the flares, thanks to its 31-year hibernation and the 38,000 miles on the odometer. “The rubber fuel hoses were like potato chips, dry and crumbling, but the gas tank was clean and shiny, and the spare tire had never been out of its carrier.” With careful pre-lubrication and some new lengths of fuel hose, the 427 actually fired up for Crosby. The water pump and mufflers had at some point been replaced, but for an experienced Corvette restorer like Crosby, finding date-coded replacements took little effort. Finding four NOS fenders, however, proved a challenge. “I took a six-week safari around the country to find four GM fenders,” he said. “I paid a fortune for them all, but I could not bring myself to get reproduction fenders if the real ones were still out there.”
As for authenticating the Corvette as Armstrong’s, Rathmann did keep files on all of his astronaut cars, but subsequent owners of the dealership destroyed those records. Still, Armstrong’s name appears on the Protect-O-Plate, and Crosby convinced Jack Legere, a friend of his who works at NASA, to show Armstrong Crosby’s photos of the Corvette during one of Armstrong’s periodic visits to Florida. “He immediately recalled it and grinned ear to ear,” Crosby said. “He didn’t have time then to check it out in person, and we all know what happened next.” Armstrong died in late August at the age of 82.
Up until this summer, Crosby intended to subject the Corvette to a full restoration, as he had with all of his other Corvettes, but then mid-year expert David Burroughs, a champion of original and preserved cars, convinced him to call preservationist Eric Gill of nearby Port Orange, Florida. Like Burroughs, Gill prefers preservation over restoration, particularly when it comes to cars with provenance, such as the Neil Armstrong Corvette. “Preservation is the cutting edge in the hobby right now,” Gill said. “The term is deceptive because some people think it just means sitting on the car, but we’re actually developing protocols for retaining the history of a car, as opposed to wiping away all that history in a restoration. A historically significant car is only as interesting as the people who gave it that history.”
After several conversations between Crosby and Gill, the two put together a team – including restorer/preservationist Allan Scheffling, videographer Chris Hoch, photographer Roger Kallins, and Legere – that will carefully document the Corvette as it sits now and identify steps to take in the coupe’s preservation. “I’m calling this a reactive preservation, which means that we have to react to a situation that exists that is inappropriate to the historical integrity of the car, in this case the fender flares,” Gill said. “We want to take it back to the condition it was in when Neil Armstrong traded it in.”
The hardest part of the preservation, Gill said, will be replacing the flares with sections of unflared fenders and then distressing the new paint over the replaced sections to harmonize with the existing paint. “We won’t be replacing the full fenders, which will inflate the number of hours we’ll have in the car, but will also give us the opportunity to disturb as little of the original paint as possible. We hope to do it in such a way that you can’t tell even though you know it’s been replaced.”
Crosby has since come around to Gill’s line of thinking, at least for this car. “Once you restore a car, you can’t ever go back to the way it was,” Crosby said. “Some people might see it as a beat-up old car, but people like us see that if you undo all that, it’s no longer Neil Armstrong’s car. This isn’t a car, it’s a piece of history, and the chance of having just one car like this is just astronomical.”
Due to the detailed nature of the process that Gill and his team have outlined, they have no set timeline, but they plan to post more information to their website, RecaptureThePast.com, and provide Hemmings Daily with updates to the preservation as it proceeds.
Dom Romney is an internationally award winning automotive and motor sport photographer working out of London, England. At only seventeen Dom started as work as a press photographer before decided to set up his own business – Dom Romney Photography was born in the spring of 2010, and has grown quickly in to a brand with clients across the globe.
Working solely with editorial and commercial clients, Dom’s high contrast vibrant work has already won him numerous awards and recognition from his peers. Along with his success as a photographer, Dom also provides lectures at the world renowned Citylit centre in london, teaching on a mix of techniques and technologies.
Dom writes “I got the call from Fast Car magazine to shoot this awesome aircooled for their wild card section, however to do justice to its American barn-find heritage, it needed to be shot in barn! Typical English barns are normally of concrete and corrugated steel construction, a far cry from the traditional timber barns you get in the States and hardly a nice photographic backdrop. After locating a plausible wooden barn in middle england (a task that was harder than you’d expect) we set about shooting it. To add to the vintage, weathered feel and to give the image the same feel as that satin, suede patina, we processed the images with some warm muted textures which I think really make the feature. Here is a small selection of my favourite images from the shoot.”
You can view more of Dom’s photography at domromney.com
The answer is nothing (other than being American made) normally.
However this Harley is owned by one of my co-workers. It’s a beautiful bike with some unique features.
See if you can pick out the features. They easily discernible in these pics.
Drop me a note with what you see.
Thanks for reading.
Tim
by John Gibson on September 19, 2012
Before we dive into what is one of the most often overlooked tools in the average man’s garage, ask yourself the following questions: Where is my torque wrench stored right now? When was the last time I used it? What is the current torque setting at on it? How accurate do I believe my torque wrench is?
We’ve seen a torque wrench be as far as 16 ft-lbs out of calibration – Chris Raschke
Every garage, engine builder, or race team has a torque wrench, and we all use it a considerable bit! But when was the last time you gave more than a moments glance at your torque wrench? Without a doubt one of the most often overlooked and most used pieces of equipment in any race teams or home garage has to be their torque wrench.
A torque wrench is a relatively inexpensive piece of equipment when you consider how often we use it to create serious horsepower or to ensure our wheels don’t come flying off when we put the car on the ground. A typical “click-style” torque wrench will usually run between $100-$400 and if cared for properly can last quite sometime.
Ensuring Your Torque Wrench Isn’t lying to you
What happens though when your trusty torque wrench has seen a few years, and you are starting to doubt the results it’s giving you. “We’ve seen a torque wrench be as far as 16 ft-lbs out of calibration,” explained Chris Raschke of Automotive Racing Products.
NHRA Teams can walk over to the ARP tent and quickly see just how accurate their favorite torque wrench is.
ARP understands how crucial it is to have a torque wrench that is calibrated correctly. ARP works closely with many of the top NASCAR and NHRA teams as well as numerous engine builders across the country to supply engine and driveline fasteners.
ARP has spent 2012 traveling across the country to every NHRA event offering a special service to the teams and mechanics in attendance. ARP brings a torque indicator that allows teams to test their torque wrench settings. Teams can walk over to the ARP tent and quickly see just how accurate their favorite torque wrench is simply by giving it a couple of pulls.
“We test the torque wrench at 50 ft-lbs and 100 ft-lbs to give teams a proper reading,” continued Raschke. “We encourage and stress that everyone to bring their torque wrench to our tent and see just how accurate the wrench really is.”
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Torque Wrench Maintenance Tips from Harbor Freight
Why It’s So Crucial To Check Its Calibration
ARP explained to us that they have seen torque wrenches as far as 16 ft-lbs out of calibration. It’s easy to think how dangerous it would be if it a wrench was -16ft lbs, but the important thing to remember is +16ft lbs would be just as dangerous, especially for engine builders.
For example, let’s say you are working on a Chevy Small Block and are installing the cylinder head bolts for a 18 degree standard port cylinder head. ARP recommends torquing their hex bolt kit to 70 ft-lbs in three increments of torquing.
This means at three different steps you are going to torque each individual head bolt first at 20 ft-lbs, then 40 ft-lbs, and then finally 70 ft-lbs. If you are torquing 16 ft-lbs to much or to little, you are setting yourself up for serious problems. You are either going to under torque or over torque your head bolts by 22% versus ARP’s recommended level!
Torque wrenches are often used to torque the lugs on a wheel before a car ventures on the track as well. We don’t have to go into a lot of detail here, you can imagine just how dangerous it would be to have a torque wrench that was under torquing your wheel lugs.
What To Do If Your Torque Wrench Is Off
Even if you take immaculate care of your torque wrench ARP advised us that mechanics should have their torque wrench tested once a year to ensure that it is calibrated correctly. If your torque wrench does happen to be off by a few ft-lbs then what is the best option?
“We don’t actually calibrate the torque wrenches that are a few ft-lbs off,” Raschke explained to us. “Most all of the popular tool trucks like Snap-On and others will send the wrench in for calibration. In fact Sears provides service for their torque wrenches.”
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How To Avoid A Wacky Torque Wrench
The next question has to be, how can you avoid ending up with a Torque Wrench that is out of whack?
ARP explained to us that the biggest mistake they see people making is not taking proper care of the torque wrench, and offered us a few tips to ensure that you get the maximum life out of your torque wrench.
ARP encourages and stress that everyone to bring their torque wrench to their tent at every NHRA event, and see just how accurate the wrench really is.
Top engine builders and mechanics understand the importance of having a torque wrench that is measuring properly. This is why so many are now opting for the high dollar (some as much as $4,000) digital torque wrenches that can provide extremely precise measurements. But even these need to be checked often to ensure that the number you are seeing is the correct amount of torque that is being applied.
A torque wrench is a valuable tool, but if it is not properly used and cared for it can become your worst enemy. Don’t place your hard earned dollars and more importantly your lives at risk by assuming that the torque wrench you have is reading correctly after all these years. Get it tested and ensure that “tight” bolt is actually tight!
Right after I read this I went out and checked on my pair of torque wrenches.
One of them is old school. Looks like this:
This one is just laying around in one of my Mac Tool toolbox drawers.
The other that is similar to the one here in the article is in its plastic case.
Wonder which one I’ll use again?
Thanks for reading.
Tim
Hemi Showdown: NYC 1968 | Hemmings Blog: Classic and collectible cars and parts.
Photos courtesy Joe Oldham.
