What went on in history this week in the world automobiles?
Frank Duryea drove the first car he built back in 1893 and just two years later almost to the day Duyrea Motor Co. Incorporated in 1895.
What was Frank driving?
a one-cylinder “Phaeton”
One year later in March 1896, Charles and Frank Duryea offered for sale the first commercial automobile, the Duryea motor wagon. Two months later, New York City motorist Henry Wells hit a bicyclist with his new Duryea. The rider suffered a broken leg, Wells spent a night in jail and the nation’s first traffic accident was recorded.
Frank went on to win the first car race. A 54 mile event with the winner earning $2000.00.
The racing version!!!
The Duryea brother’s car evolved much like the rest of the cars of the era.
1905 Duryea Tourer
and
The 1913 Model C
Sept 4 was a big day for Ford.
First the founder Henry Ford was born in 1917 and 40 years later (1957) the Edsel when on sale.
I don’t have a 60’s vintage Mustang but I know some of the readers here do. This is a voice over slide show video, it’s done by a company that sells conversion kits for your 64-66 Mustangs. It’s a bit dry, but it’s pretty straight forward process.
Jan Kunze of Oklahoma City recently contacted us to see if Hemmings Nation can help her get her stolen pickup back. Jan was out of town July 10 when a friend noticed her black 1954 Chevrolet 3100 five-window pickup missing from her driveway on NW 38th Street. She came home right away, but all that the thieves had left was a vent window latch in the driveway, likely broken off when the thieves pushed the vent window in to gain access to the truck.
The Chevrolet, VIN J54K011397, still has its 235-cu.in. straight six engine and wood-floored bed, but has been upgraded to 12 volts and runs a louder-than-stock dual exhaust system.
Anybody with information on the whereabouts of Jan’s Chevrolet should contact the Oklahoma City Police Department at 405-297-1122.
Hemmings Motor News publishes stolen collector car reports online and in the pages of Hemmings Motor News as a service to the collector car hobby. To report a stolen collector car please include a copy of a filed police report, VIN, description of the stolen vehicle (including any unique identifying characteristics), and at least one photo of the stolen vehicle.
Here are your auto factoids for the week of Aug 26.
Aug 27, 1902 the Cadillac company was founded and on the same day in 1877 Charles Rolls was born in London, England.
1902 Caddy The Runabout
Rolls Royce 1904
On the 29th in 1898 Goodyear was incorporated and on the same day Charles Kettering was born in Dayton, Ohio…who? Well so you don’t have to GOOGLE it ….. He was a founder of Delco, and was head of research at General Motors from 1920 to 1947. Among his most widely used automotive inventions were the electrical starting motor and leaded gasoline.
English: Charles F. Kettering, pictured with his first electric starter. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
And that finishes up the month of August.
Last chance this month to Win the 1/32 scale of the 1969 Dodge Coronet Super Bee. Add a comment and you’ll be entered to win our monthly drawing.
Often a comment sparks an entire blog entry. Nothing gets me going more than a discussion about US auto makers, especially if I can lay out my thoughts about “what’s happened to (insert brand here)”.
In a comment to my Auto Factoids for the Week of Aug 19, 2012 (http://wp.me/pKHNM-1fG) Bill wrote:
“If I were in charge of GM, I would not have left Oldsmobile for death. I liked the idea of ‘Saturn-izing’ Olds into a Lexus level car. There might have been only one, or two models under the Olds badge, but I would not have left the world’s oldest car company for dead.
Oldsmobile was GM’s ‘experimental’ division both in terms of engineering and product marketing. Many automotive firsts such as automatic transmission (Hydramatic), OHV V8s, and even the ‘self winding’ car clock……….Which brings me to the time I find myself saying in many of my comments in your BLOG:
“What happend to GM????””
I’ve mentioned this before, it never really made any sense to me why you would have so many divisions in a car company as GM did. Some say, it was to offer different levels of options that were affordable on up to expensive. But lets take the Chevrolet for instance. At one time they had the Biscayne, Belair, Impala and Caprice (and I think that was the correct order from lowest optioned to the highest) as option levels and pricing to reach everyone. This doesn’t seem too bad. But now add in the other divisions with Chevy being the lowest, then there’s Pontiac, Buick, Olds, and Caddy and I think that would be the correct order for options and pricing as well. A further break down in what as suppose to be different classes of automobile for different classes of society was the norm for those divisions as well. For example the Tempest and La Mans, GTO were basically the same car with different options.
I understand brand/model loyalty, especially at the initial merging/acquisition of a brand, but at some point that stopped being the only valid reason for keeping them separate. By the time the ’70s and ’80s rolled around they all started looking the same. For example take the Chevy Monte Carlo for 1978 and compare with the Buick and Olds of the same year:
78 Buick Regal
78 Chevy Monte Carlo
1978 Olds Cutlass
Minus the big tires on the Olds, tell me why I should purchase one over the other or purchase one at all (beside the fact they were fairly ugly)?
Frankly, I would have kept Pontiac over Olds any day but then again the difference between a Camaro and a Firebird in 2000 wasn’t much -but they are both gone now.
2000 Firebird
2000 Camaro
There just wasn’t much different. They diluted the brand and it became impossible to find any major differences – unless you were a gear head and most consumers were not.
The necessity to cut cost and share parts made it nearly mandatory to have them all made from the same cookie cutter.
Now don’t get me started on the purchase of oversea brands and becoming a finance/mortgage company to defray cost. (Did you know that at one time GM did more business in home/real estate loans then they did with their core car brands?
I have an acquaintance in the great state of Texas and contacted me and wants to sell his 1949 Merc Coupe. So I’m going to list here and you can contact me directly for any more information.
I think this car is a beauty.
1949 Merc Custom For Sale
Some spec:
1972 GTO Frame, Front end, Drive train and rear end.
Bagged suspension that rises and lowers – on board compressor and tank
Power steering and Title Iddit steering column and custom steering wheel.
Rebuild 350 GTO engine with Tri-Power 3 Duce Carbs) and Lunati street/strip cam.
Rebuild 350 Automatic Trans w/2600 stall converter – column shift with oil cooler
Custom PPG Black Hot Rod flat paint with flames and pin striping.
Full set of gauges
AC
and a lot lot more!!! (see the image below).
Great looking coupe!!!
Art Work
Rear Art
Very Unique details!!!
Ok…..hold your breath for this next pic!!!!
OH….YES!!!! That’s Tri-POWER!!!!! Art on the hood and art under the hood!!!!
Custom Interior – On comfy Lincoln Seats – Diamond Tuck Upholstery
Here is the entire list of EXTRAS!!!
Many details here like Dual Electric Antenna, Dual exhaust w/Flo Masters mufflers, Lake pipes – still need the Y to connect up to the exhaust….read on!!!
You can contact me directly at timsweet@cox.net. (I’m filtering out the ‘crazies’ before I pass them on.)
This is another from YouTube.
As watchmaker in a past career I can really appreciated the skills it takes to make this engine. Having it run when it’s completed is priceless.
I decided the time had come to get the front clip taken off the Wagon. I wanted to get the front frame cleaned up, and do the front end by the end of summer. I am shocked at how few bolts actually hold the whole front clip onto the ’58. 11 bolts, disconnect some wiring, and you can lift the whole front Clip (Dog house) off in one piece. It’s taken me longer to change the oil on a car than to remove the front clip on this car!
First I had to remove the front bumper with brackets attached. That was fine, except for the one chrome bumper bolt on each end of the bumper. They fought back pretty good. I had to sawzall them off.
I was without any help to lift the front clip off, so I had to tilt the front forward onto some large Foam cushions I had saved out of an old travel trailer I had gotten rid of years ago. They are a perfect for laying under vehicles to work on, and for cushioning large loads like this.
Next I will be removing the wiring from the front clip and saving it for future use. This front clip needs work. The front fender bottoms are rusty, and the hood is so badly rusted it is of no use. So either I will sell this old clip to someone who has nothing, or dismantle it, save parts and scrap it.
