Now most of you know I love old abandon cars. This one is part of a display in the ghost town Pearce, AZ.
Pearce was a mining ghost town named for Cornishman James Pearce, miner and cattleman, who discovered gold nearby at what became the Commonwealth Mine in 1894. The Pearce Post Office was established on March 6, 1896. The railroad station opened in 1903. By 1919, Pearce had a population of 1,500. The town declined in the 1930s and became almost a ghost town in the late 1940s when the mine closed for the last time.
The Commonwealth Mine became one of Arizona’s major silver producers. Over 1,000,000 tons of ore were produced from 1895 to 1942. There are about 20 miles of underground workings.[11] The mine produced about $8 million worth of silver and $2.5 million in gold at a time when silver was priced around 50 cents an ounce, and gold was $20 an ounce.
They left a lot of mining equipment behind as well as this 1930’s Chevy flatbed truck. This truck my be powered by a 3.2 l straight 6 (that’s 3178 cc or 193 cu in). The bore and stroke would have been 3.31 in x 3.75 in and had 2 valves per cylinder and produced about 60 hp w/ 130 ft-lb of torque. It was topped by a 1 bb Carter Carb. All that massive power was delivered by a 3 speed transmission.
While I’m still adjusting to my new career (putting work on #ProjectSportsRoof on hold) Bill is helping a neighbor with his El Camino.
Sand is a hazard here the great southwest and your engine isn’t going like that!!!
A good fuel filter can save your engine.
When Bill called me to chat about the sand issue, we discussed where that sand might have originated, after all we do live here in the desert of southern Arizona and sand has a habit of getting in to just about everything. We thought that a Seafoam treatment might be in order, although I think that might be a long shot. So Bill and George changed the fuel filter and George is going to add the Seafoam to about a half a tank of gas and drive until almost empty, then pull the filter, check for sand and replace with a new filter. If the sand is still an issue, I suggest dropping the tank for a good cleaning.
The 1979 El Camino was the second year for the more compact design, based on the Malibu platform. The standard engine choices were a six cylinder and the 305 and 350. They had a cost of around $5000.00.
A HUGE, thanks to Neighbor George for sharing he awesome ride!!
It always cool to stumble upon a car show regardless of size.
TMC (Tucson Medical Center) opened up a new office just down the road. My wife is a commercial interior designer and does a lot of work through her company for at the TMC facilities.
We were aware of the Grand Opening for this new building but we weren’t there’d be a car show. Here a few of the cars that showed.
You just could walk past this 1959 GMC 100 Pickup. So nicely restored.
Love the steel painted rims!!!
Lots of Chrome on that front end!!
Still being powered by the straight six! The golf club hood prop is a custom touch!
Sparse interior but 100% effective.
Here is a great looking 1962 Ford pickup – still sporting its original V8.
Are you kidding me? Look at this beautiful 66 Malibu!!!
327 Engine (245hp) with Factory Air!!!
Back end jacked up just right!!
There is a lot of tire on that back axle!
That’s all original interior folks!!!
Here are a few more Chevy’s
Beautiful Super Sport w/vinyl top
Wow…is that a BLOWER on top of that power plant?
And another BLOWER!!
56 Chevy Sporting a huge radiator
1980 El Camino – In great shape.
Beautiful Impala…OH…YES..that a Corvette LS3 engine!!!
If you are going to have only one Mopar show up, you want it to be the GTX!! Take a look:
Plymouth Belvedere GTX.
Yes that is a 426 Hemi….going to find two carbs under that air cleaner.
Clean and original interior.
Here a few more of the cars that showed up.
Thanks to my wonderful wife who didn’t mind an interruption in our errands to spend a few minutes at this show.
Coming up more on #ProjectSportsRoof and #ProjectBeepBeep and keep an eye out for our first Facebook Live event.
If you follow this blog you’ve no doubt seen my posts on this past January’s Barrett Jackson event in Scottsdale, Az, you might even had caught my Facebook Live videos.
Of course I have to say it’s well worth the price of admission for all that there is to see and do.
One event is the Ride and Drive where you are allowed to drive some of the new cars. They also have a few of the more powerful cars that they only allow you to ride along with a driver, cars like the Hell Cat and Viper and some of the Mustangs. This year I chose to drive the SS and RS Camaro.
The key is to get there early because the line get long and the track gets crowded. We arrived at the right time and got a more personal touch. New for this year was the Breathalyzer test conducted by the Sheriff’s department, a smart idea, considering all the adult beverages available. But it was a bit early for that.
Here’s quick little slide show of my trip in one of the Camaro’s.
The auto cross course they had set up was pretty tight and for the novice this would a challenge and I think it was meant to keep the speeds down. When you attend these you are accompanied by a local drive either supplied by the dealership or by the car company for this event.
I drove the SS V8 LT Camaro first. I found the seat comfortable and driving position was really good. The car had quick response and the V8 really pulled great with hitting the gas. Not as good as my 2007 C6 Corvette but I was impressed. As an SCCA auto cross driver I found this course to be a bit tighter the standard down here at the regional I’ve driven often. The SS proved to be a bit sloppy in the corners at speed and it felt like a bigger car – of course it’s it a bit larger than my Vette. Although I made it round the course with out killing any cones, it would be understandable given how it handled.
Immediately after parking the SS, they had an V6 RS ready and I jumped in. I really appreciated that, having the SS drive still fresh in the never endign, it would make the comparison, a bit more visceral rather than homogenized by the thought process.
These days you know they can get a lot of power out of V6 engine and even 4 cylinders so I was curious to see how the RS’s V6 felt with my foot pressed to the floor. I didn’t have any specific expectations, but I was hoping to feel “WOW – this is a only a V6?!?!”, but I have to say it felt like V6. It was clear the power wasn’t there at the start line. However, it did get up to speed fairly quickly and by the first real corner you could feel it. The corner? Well, let’s say it was impressive. While driving SS the ride-a-long driver bet that I’d find the RS a much better handling car in the tight corners, due to the fact that the engine was set back a bit that changed up how the car made it though the corners. I have to say it was correct.
It’s true that in auto cross that horse power isn’t all you need, in fact, too much can make for rough runs. The key for any auto cross car is being able to handle the corner as the fastest speed possible. The RS made it through the course with much sharper corners and it felt really good coming out of them with not a lot of body roll, it was surprising.
So the V8 SS felt powerful (relatively speaking) – more what I’m use to with my Corvette. The RS felt like a V6 when getting off the line, but had the better cornering than the RS, basically verifying what the ride-a-long driver told me I would find.
It’s not often the average blogger, SCCA racer and car restorer, gets to take ride in or drive the newest cars which I think is a huge gap in what you see in the big time blogs and car magaiznes, so it’s always fun to poke them with the Average Guy’s thoughts when a chance for that experience can be documented.
I love this time of year here in Arizona. Not just because you can work on your classic/muscle car in the garage without feeling like a Christmas turkey in the oven. I love this time of year because it’s Car Auction Season! For the next 3-4 weeks classic cars …
I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I was reading an article from the ” Worlds Most Excellent” automotive publishing enterprise – Hemmings. An article in the January 2017 issue of Classic Cars publication is a piece written by Jeff Koch (who is their – West Coast/Southwest guy) on GM’s Flattop designed cars of the 1959-1960 era. These were massive cars with huge trunks and tons of wrap around glass.
This a 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Flattop 4 door- ain’t it huge?
According to the article these were just a two-year deal – ’59-’60. So that got me to thinking how many were made?
Over all car production for 1959, which still saw the likes of DeSoto, Edsel (its last gasp of breath), Studebaker, Imperial (as a separate brand…again) and even the Metropolitan, as producer of cars. The leader for that year was Chevrolet in first place with just over 1.46 million cars produced followed by Ford in close range with 1.45 million cars produced. The rest of the field looked like this:
Plymouth with 458, 261 (in third place which gives you an idea how the rest fared) followed by Pontiac with 383k, then Oldsmobile with 382K and Rambler with 374k. Buick managed 285K and Dodge produced 156k, which was just slightly than Mercury with 15ok and Cadillac with 142K cars produced. The field rounded out with Studebaker driving 126k out of the factory and a substantial for Chrysler with just 69, followed by Desoto with 45k, Edsel with 44k and Lincoln/Continental with just 26k. At the bottom stood Metropolitan and Imperial 22k and 17k respectively.
So an estimated 2,655,686 cars were produced by GM in that year. That’s a lot of flattops this include Cadillacs that didn’t escape the design.
Nor did the Corvair!!
So where are the now? I just don’t see that many around and I’m sure it’s due to the 2 year only style and finding all that wrap around glass.
Have you seen one of these cool designed GM Flattops? Drop me a note and pic and I’ll publish it up.
This is it. The beginning of it all. What were they making in 1901? The top producer was the Locomobile car company with a total out put for the year 1,500 cars. Winton was second with 700 cars. Oldsmobile (ahh one we’ve heard of!!) was third with 425. White came in fourth with 193. Autocar was next …
1911 oh… that was a great year! Well I don’t actually have any proof of that, but there sure were a lot of new car makes that year. Here the list: Alpena; ArBenz; Atterbury; Carhartt, Case, Chevrolet; Colby, Crow-Elkhart, Dalton, Gaylord, Havers, Hupp-Yeats; King; Lenox; Mighty Michigan; Motorette; Nyberg: Penn; Rayfield; …
It is 1922 and the car industry is moving right along. Small start-up car companies pop up here and there in the 1920’s. Here is how they stacked up for 1922. Top spot was Ford producing 1,147,028 cars. Dodge was a very distant second with 152,653 car rolling off their assembly line. Chevrolet ran …
The Roaring Twentys – a great time in US social and economic history. 1928 things still looked pretty good and no indication of the tough economic times that would lead to the terrible 30’s. 1928 saw 8 car companies fighting it out for market shares. Chevy lead the way with just over a million …
I think this kit gives the C7 an awesome look…not that it needed it.
The kit widens the all-American sports car by roughly two inches either side. It consists of wider wheel arches as well as a new front splitter and rocker panels. Lingenfelter also adds a carbon fiber hood extractor to give an aggressive, tuner look. With the kit installed, you’ll be able to install 20-inch wheels rocking massive 335/25 size tires.
And to ensure that your C7 Corvette has the go to match its new show, Lingenfelter offers a supercharger package that even with mild boost pressure will see the stock 6.2-liter LT1 V-8 spit out 624 horsepower and 600 pound-feet of torque. Along with the supercharger, in this case an Edelbrock E-Force TVS2300, there is also a high-flow exhaust system incorporating Kooks headers and cat-back Corsa pipes.
Chase Motor Authority’s link to read the rest of the article.
Well known tuning company Lingenfelter has just unveiled its range of upgrades for the C7 Chevrolet Corvette including a widebody kit and a range of performance modifications. As for the bodykit, it isn’t quite as insane as the widebody kit offered by …
This story starts two weeks ago, as I was driving through my neighborhood headed off to run some errands. As I rounded the a corner I see one of my neighbors with the garage door open and I think, “Wow!!! What a clean garage!!” Then I go…”Whoa…what is that?” My eye had caught a C3 Corvette sitting to one side. It was blue and had chrome headers and side pipes and an awesome set of wheels. Looked like needed some paint.
These were hanging out of it!!!
This wheels!!!
At that moment I planned to stop by on my way back, just to say hi and have some Vette chat!!! As my luck often goes, the garage was closed and there were no cars in the driveway. So I made mental note to check back another day.
Fast forward to the next Friday and I’m pouring through the on-line ads for my next project car and up pops a 1974 Stingray – Blue with a 350 engine, chrome headers and a great looking set of wheels for sale. Asking price…..wait for it…….$2000.00. I immediately text the number on the ad and got some particulars. The car needs some work, the 350 was good but need points/condenser and the side pipes installed. The lady informed me that someone was coming to look at and if they didn’t buy it she’d give me a call.
Fast forward to 4 hours later. My wonderful wife arrives home and says…”Hey remember that Corvette you saw the other day? They are loading it on a trailer.”
Well I thought….nah…can’t be. So I texted the number from the ad, just to check, and sure enough it was the same car I saw the past weekend. I told the lady I was just down the street and hoped it was going to a good home. She said…”If I knew you were a neighbor, I would have given you first chance.”
Although I did not weep openly, I cried like a baby on the inside!!!!
Tommy Johnson of Lake Mary, Florida, and Brian Smith of Woodstock, Georgia took these photos of a black bear in a 1974 Corvette Stingray about a week ago in the Auke Bay Ferry Terminal parking lot. At one point, they said, they saw the bear scoop up a …
1974 Corvette Stingray. Barnstarbob | Wikipedia. 1974 Corvette Stingray. New life with a new Interior. As GM was sliding towards bankruptcy, work on the seventh generation Corvette slowed down. Once the automaker went into bankruptcy, there was a brief …
This 1974 Corvette Stingray was among the 112 cars on display during the Cecil Proffitt’s World of Wheels International Custom Auto Show at Heritage Park in Windsor. The show was held at the park for the first time as a partnership between Proffitt and …
If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s the video of the Jalopnik journalist hitting the wall with a 2016 mule Camaro. Enjoy and then check below for my commentary.
Clearly the guy felt bad and a little shaken up, but the reality is, he shouldn’t have driven the car. If you just look at the beginning frame of the video or notice the position of his arms just before he hit the wall, you can tell there the skill set just isn’t there.
I auto cross my cars – my C4 when I had it and my C6 now (not to mention my drag racing stint with my Mustang). I’ve attended my SCCA Solo courses and even attended some training with Bondurant at Phoenix International Raceway with Formula 1 cars. And what I’ve learned is that you must have more than just enthusiasm over a new car, especially a powerful one. You have to have some driving skills and you must have respect for the car’s abilities and know yours.
Here is a parallel event I was part of with my corvette club. We rented a part of the Bondurant facility to have an auto cross event. It included all generations of Corvettes as well as a few other non-Corvette vehicles. One of our members just purchased a brand new C6 and was very eager to run the course. Short version of the story is – he lost it on his second run, went through the chain-linked fence at a post and got the car hung up on the concrete footing. We had to dig him out and the Bondurant crew weren’t all that happy. Clearly he wasn’t ready for the abilities/power of his C6 even though he had the enthusiasm (and for pete’s sake keep the traction control on until you are used to the car).
Don’t get me wrong, accidents happen, just watch any F1, drag or NASCAR race and you’ll see professional skilled driver hit the wall. It happens.
Now back to the Jalopnik incident. If you watch the video you can tell the journalist seems pretty excited. However his driving skills seem a bit off in a number of ways. For instance, his sitting position is off, especially for track driving (maybe he’s just super tall or the mule car is not equipped with adjustable seats) for one. You can tell by his expression in a corner, prior to his last corner and the contact with the wall, that he was at he edge of his abilities with that particular car. As he goes into the now famous turn his arms cross – I didn’t realize a human could contort himself that much!!
I also found interesting was some of his commentary leading up to the crash with words like “rolly-poely”, “composed”, “nimble” especially in light of his comments that he was there to discuss the how it handles at the track. You must have the ability to test those things to give your readers a comparison and the proper (or more familiar) terminology helps e.g., replace “rolly-polly” with “body roll”. Wouldn’t GM want that too or at least his publisher?
There was a comment in his piece where he gave full disclosure, stating that GM wanted him to drive so badly, that they flew him out and paid for food and booze. Don’t know if that’s ‘special’ or standard fare. I also didn’t understand his comment – “GM asked me to leave the track” and they had to continued the video out in the street – seems a tough way to deal with someone, you really wanted there. Hopefully, GM doesn’t want their money back for the airfare or bill him for the damage to the mule.
Now I’m not a great blogger nor the greatest driver, but I do have car guy experience (including testing new models in a small auto cross scenario) and a fair grasp of the my native language. I’m not sure what all of his credentials are, he did say he had some track time, and I did look over some of his other entries and gained my own opinions.
It suffices to say that I much prefer a “car guy turned journalist” vs. “journalist turned car guy”, especially when to reading ‘car guy’ stuff and certainly for reviews like this one.
I do feel badly for him and GM and but I’m also sure it wasn’t the first time on media day that a writer dented one of the cars. He just had his published. And thank the auto gods that he wasn’t driving a Z28!!! I would have wept opening.
The 2016 Camaro SS is powered by a Corvette Stingray-sourced 6.2-liter V8 that produces 455 horsepower and 455 pound-feet of torque. By comparison, the 2015 Camaro SS has 426 horsepower and 420 pound-feet of torque. No matter the engine, the …
Sam Schmidt, who has been paralyzed below the shoulders since slamming into a wall 14 years ago, always believed he’d never drive again. On Sunday, he will–in a Corvette he will control by shaking his head and gnashing his teeth.
Schmidt was a promising driver with 27 Indy Racing League starts when he went into the wall at Walt Disney World Speedway in Orlando, Florida on January 6, 2000. He knew he’d never race again, but one year later he returned to motorsports with his own team, now known as Schmidt Peterson Motorsports. He’s enjoyed a measure of success as a team owner, but driving seemed out of the question.
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Sam Schmidt took a spin around Indianapolis Motor Speedway last spring, his first time behind the wheel since being paralyzed in a racing accident in 2000. He had a tougher challenge Sunday: Navigating the twists and turns of the …
Last week my wife had to sit for a certification exam for her profession. It was conducted over multiple days and held in Phoenix, AZ. That is about a 1.5 hours drive (unless I’m driving the Vette, just joking always, obey the speed limits kids!!) north of Tucson and it made sense to grab a hotel room and spend 3 days. While she was enduring the slow torture that they cleverly called “taking the exam”, I was left with a very rare, continuous span of free time.
I don’t know about you, but when I end up with unappropriated time and I’m in a hotel room, I don’t spend it watching HBO. I’ll jump on the WiFi and find some car action. This was a perfect time to find some local car shows or events. Just so happens on the way to the hotel I saw a sign, a few exits before the one we exited to reach the hotel, that read “Auto Museum”.
I gave that a Google and found the exact address. The museum was called Mel Martin’s Auto Museum – “Phoenix’s Largest Auto Museum” and it was only open from noon to five the next day and asked for a $5 donation. So I put that on my to do list and head there the next day.
The museum is on a one way frontage road. The building looks to be an old self-storage place converted in to businesses. The museum entrance looks unassuming and you wouldn’t think it large enough to house 60 cars and a ton of automobilia.
Here are some highlights:
What kind of car museum would you be without a Corvette or two?
This beautiful 427 is an eye catcher!
Check out Corvette Row!!!
Here is a Vette you don’t see anywhere!!!
The 1992 Lister Corvette
Great lines…barely resembles a C4.
Front end looks like a Jaguar’s
I think the 17″ wheels are great looking!!!
The hood has those breathing holes for a reason. The LT1 under the hood…yeah it’s Vortech Supercharged!!! 500HP and 454 LB-FT of torque!!! Only automatic produced.
It also included the 1978 25th Anniversary Indianapolis Pace car.
Only 15 miles on this well-preserved beauty! (No, I don’t know why I took the pic this way.)
Thanks for reading. More coming up on Mel Martin’s Auto Museum.
