I like off –beat cars. By that I mean, the ones nobody thinks about immediately. Some of those are cars like, Studebakers, Edsels, and Mercurys.
A few years ago, actually shortly after we moved to Tucson, AZ., I was at the local Safeway and I saw this black car moving through the
parking lot. I was on foot and I hurried to the end of the parking row to see if I could catch the manufacturer and
model. To my surprise that sports-roof-like, long black car was a Mercury Marauder!! It was beautiful. I’m still not sure what
year it was but I believe it was a 1969 and possibly an X-100, but I can’t be sure.
'69 Marauder
I’m not totally unfamiliar with Mercury’s, having lived with grandparents who for years would only buy
that Ford brand – mainly the Marques and other 4 door models. Frankly back then I wasn’t all that impressed.
But the Marauder, like the Cougar, wasn’t your grandparent’s car!
So coming up is my write-up on the Mercury Marauder.
I was recently talking to a coworker of mine who own a 1949 Pontiac Silver Streak Delivery Van (link – http://wp.me/pKHNM-Bx ) and we were discussing his 6 volt system and the troubles with low amperage.
Well I just ran across a couple of interesting articles dealing with that subject. Now I will tell you I am not “the guy” for electrical work – nope not me (I had a bad experience – ok – a couple of bad ones). But even this one I can understand.
Increasing the power supply often means that you need to convert to 12 volt and maybe 15 years ago yes, but now 6 volts are readily available. So here is what you do (sorry no pics)
Take two 6 volt batters and link them in parallel by connecting the two negative terminals to each other and the two positive to each other. The main positive cable goes from the positive terminal of the first battery to ground and the main negative cable is connected to the negative terminal of the second battery. Of course in some case you may have to modify the batter shelf, but it will sure help kick up the cold cranking amps.
Folks seem to like this segment so let’s continue with 1950.
19 major car makers existed back then and Chevy topped the production totals with 1,498,590 units followed closely by Ford with 1, 208,912. The rest of the field were all less than have that.
So you’ve read my review and I promised to drop a note as to the “Long Lasting” part of Griot’s Garage’s – Long Lasting Tire Dressing.
Now is has rained nearly every day since I applied the dressing.
So take a look at the tires with 2 applications and 3 applications.
Tires with 2 applications of tire dressing
Here is the tire with 3 applications of tire dressing
Here is what I think as a wrap up. Long lasting to me doesn’t necessarily mean just duration, but can it stand up to everyday driving – oh—yeah…just in case I failed to mention, the Vette is my daily driver. It lived up to the Griot promise. I’ll continue using this product.
From Michael Woodword – hey, I just got a 1993 thunderbird with a 5.0 HO. every time I come to a stop, the oil pressure drops dramatically. I was wanting to know if you would have any idea what could cause this. Thank You
But when I get back up to speed its fine.
It would be nice to get an opinion from an expert which ar
nt easy to find
ANSWER: Michael. The pressure should drop when you stop, dramatic swings in the gauge could be a problem with the gauge or you need replace your oil sending unit.
I recent attended a showing of the latest Transformers movie (“Dark Side of the Moon“) and if you know anything about this series or of the cartoon of years gone by, you’ll know that the main characters are machines that turn in to robots. Most of these are vehicles, cars, trucks, semis and even military aircraft.
The car group included a lot of chevys this time, a Camaro which is one of the main stairs, an Impala and a Corvette (actually a representation of a prototype Corvette). The Corvette transformed into a rollerblading robot – which I thought unfitting of my favorite car.
There is the human hero and of course a hot model as his object of desire.
When the hot model was threatened or in harm’s way you could hear the audience get involved. But when an evil robot was about to execute the Camaro character the audience got really vocal. Kids cried at that images, thinking that the Camaro was about to get wacked, forget about the girl….just don’t hurt the car!!!
Yes we love your cars. Oh and the good cars – the Chevy‘s– saved the world again.
But that’s movies and you can just enjoy it with no lasting harmful effects..unless you are me or maybe it wasn’t me but the subliminal messages. I left wanting a Camaro, but not just any 2012 Camaro, but a yellow with black striped bumble bee Camaro.
It must be subliminal messages, I had the same desire after watching Will Smith zip through the empty streets of New York City in the 2007 Shelby GT500 Mustang in his move ‘I Am Legend’ yes the red with white stripes.
Let’s jump up 13 years from 1926 to 1939 and see what the numbers look like.
1939 shows Chevy in the lead for production numbers with 577,278 units produced. Ford is about 100k behind at 487,031 (half of what they were producing in 1926). The rest of the makers finished up like this:
Before I attempted to use the tire dressing, I washed the car and gave the rubber a good scrubbing. For the actual application I used an old sock. When I first poured the dressing on to the sock, it was a bit runny, but still has some consistency. Keep in mind the temperature, 105 degrees in my garage where I stored it and where I was applying it and about 108 outside. I was a bit concerned, because with two show cars (one, a trophy winner and white!!) and having the tire dressing flung all over the paint isn’t cool, which is exactly what I won’t use the Eagle One brand.
I gave 3 of my 07 Vette’s tires two coats and I have one 3 coats. Take a look a the results.
First coat:
First coat - not even - most likely due to the sock.
Another first coat
An additional note – these pics were taken in my garage with a less than optimal source light.
Now with the Vette moved out into the sun and two coats.
Two coats - pretty nice coverage.
I really liked the 3rd application.
3 coats created a good look
So know I’ve given each tire 3 coats and since I don’t do this for a living, the next test had to wait. I had a few ‘honey-do’ chores, before I took the Vette for a drive. So the car sat in the sun for about an hour – temp was about 108.
With the to do list completed, I needed to take the Vette out to toss some air in the tires. Yes…average guy tools = small compressor that doesn’t hold enough air to top off four tires..heck…it can barely do one…got to upgrade one of these days.
Here is where the rubber meets the road and hopefully the tire dressing doesn’t meet the paint, but first a note. I did in fact drip some of Griot’s Garage – Long Lasting Tire Dressing on my chrome wheels and sure enough it cleans off with moist rag.
Take a quick spin about 1.5 miles from the house and I don’t drive 30 miles an hour…the tires spun pretty hard the entire trip.
I’ll mention, again the temperature and I think that might have something to do with it, but really this wasn’t bad. The real test was whether or not it spread to the paint and since it’s a black car you aren’t going to see it as easily – it’s a clear liquid as well. So a quick swipe with a white showed me all I needed to know, it came back clean.
So I’m pretty pleased with how the product worked.
As far as the “long-lasting” part. I’m not going to be able to render a fair opinion yet for a couple of reason:
1. I just put it on
2. We don’t get much rain here in Southern AZ but it is the monsoon season so it has rained 3 times since the application.
So that will have to be in Part 3 later on.
I need to add a few notes as I always do when I review a product. (Some of that laws school was worth the $$$.)
I don’t work for Griot’s, my only connection is that I”m on their mailing list. This is the first product I’ve purchased from them.
I did see a tweet from someone related to Griot’s Garage commenting on this review, but don’t know the individual.
I’m not Consumer Reports or Consumer Digest. I only comment on products I use in my search for “stuff” that works well for me.
Whenever I write about a product I try to follow the instructions provided and always give any variances or events/conditions that might impact the outcome.
From time to time I check out a product that I hear about, in this case, from a repetitive mail from Griot’s garage. This is a catalog of sorts, with a lot of merchandise and everything you need to spruce up your ride.
Thier “Long Lasting Tire Dressing” is the first item I’ve tried.
If you recall I did a review a while back on a tire gel here is the link: ” Like and Don’t Like – Products (Tire Gel) and Tools (Thread Chasers)” http://wp.me/pKHNM-aJ
Now before we start, the bottle you see in the video has instructions and to be fair, I’ll give you any variations.
The direction say, roughly, clean the tire, apply with application pad and that a light application will give you a shine and subsequent will increase the luster. Not much there to go on.
Now you need to know that I applied the dressing with an old sock. Most manufactures always try to sell something extra and kt, which is an “applicator”, the magic potion and a terry cloth/micro fiber towel. I normally don’t go for that sales pitch. So that was the only deviation.
A couple more variables:
1. The dressing was stored in my garage. The temperature in there today was about 105 degrees. I applied the dressing while the car was in the garage.
2. The temp outside was about 108.
3. As you will see my Corvette’s tires have small sidewalls and a lot of small raised text and logo.
Ok so here are a couple before pics:
Before, notice the off-color
More of the discolor and you can see there isn't must sidewall.
