Note: Updated to correct mis-Identification of this parking-lot find. It is in fact a 1955. The main details that denote the difference is the placement of the Chevy and BelAir badging and grile.
So I’m lucky. I live in a place where there is not prone to any type of natural disasters, we don’t much rain and it only snow when it’s a cold day, you know where.
It’s also a place were you don’t have to put way your collectible set of wheels, you can drive the year would and a lot of folks do.
Here is my latest parking-lot find.
It is a 1955 Chevy, 2 door Belair. Yeah, I know it’s a couple years before the super wonderful 1957’s came out, but I like these shoe box cars, with their very clean lines especially the 2 door version and I particularly like the lines of the BelAir convertible. It reminds me of the clean lines for my 1966 Chevy Impalaconvertible.
Love the red and white. Fantastic chrome.
Wheel aren’t ordinal but I think that are great for this car.
All Belair came standard with a 6 cylinder with about 353,00 produced, not counting convertibles.
The 6 was an overhead value, cast iron power plant with a displacement of 235.5. With a 3 9/16 x 3 15/16 and a compression ratio of 7.5:1
these cars knocked out a whopping 115 hp. The would breath through a Rochester one barrel Model 7007200 carb or a Carter one-barrel Model
2101S (for the Powerglideauto transmission) and a Rochester one-barrel Model 7007181 for the standard shift.
As you know, the US government asked and eventually forced the auto industry to contribute to the war effort. This series is to highlight some of the major contributions and first up is Crosley.
Crosley produced cars from the 1930s until the 1950s. Interestingly, before Powell Crosley produced cars, he was the owner of the Cincinnati Reds. Their first car, what we would call a subcompact these days, was a convertible.
1939 Crosley Convertible
For the war effort Crosley supplied its power plant the four-cylinder CoBra. CoBra was short for Copper Brazed and often refered to as the “The Might Tin” it was used aboard PT boats and and the B-17 Flying Fortress bombers mainly to power generators, refrigeration compressors, etc., and were widely praised for their successes in the war effort. The engine was made from sheet metal rather than cast iron like most other engines.
CoBra Block – the thin walls reduced hot spots.
Crosley CoBra this one was set up for vehicle use
Crosley stayed in business after WWII and eventually closed up in 1952. Their last attempt to save the company was to production a utility vehicle called the Farm-O-Road which was used on farm and ranches.
Checking the vacuum on your old car is an important part of a thorough, but most of the average guys don’t bother, or don’t have the gauge. Most often if you do have the gauge, you might not be exactly sure what the reading might be. For the recorded I’ve never had a car where the readings were stable. Normally you’ll get a fluctuating reading that move around. Below are a few ‘ranges’ and what they may indicate.
Standard Vacuum Gauge
These are for V8’s only:
– A good reading will be between 15 and 22 in. hg (a steady needle). Closing the throttle you should see a 5 notch drop and reopening it should settle back previous span (15-20).
– If you get a reading where the needle has a swing 4-5 in. hg ethier side of normal, you are looking at a possible simple carb adjustment.
– If the reading is higher than normal you need look at replacing your air filter or check to ensure your choke is not stuck.
– Low reading would be fairly steady reading around 5 hg will have you looking for a vacuum leak on the intake/carb area. Look for poor connections at the carb or any “T” or “Y” or straight though connection. Baring that look for cracked hose. You know I hate vacuum leaks. I recently restored a 1984 corvette with the Crossfire injection set up. Rather than chase down a single spot, I just replaced them all. That was a lot of vacuum hose and tucked in some stuff spots. But you are working on something bit older, like my 1970 Mustang, replace it all, it’s going to go back sooner or later, especially with the kind of temps we have out here in the Southwest.
– If you get a reading that between 8 and 14 you are looking at a timing issue at the least to leaking piston rings at the worse. Do a compression check for the leak and use your timing light before you tear it apart.
– If the needle is swinging (unsteady) between 14 and 19 hg that indicates valve guide problems. That going to be a valve guide problem.
I was reading the other day and I came across a car manufacturer that I hadn’t heard of prior and yes it was an American car maker. The maker was Velie.
1911 Velie passenger car
Like some car manufacturers Velie started out as a carriage maker (as in horse and carriage). The owner was Willard Velie and we received his funding from this mother who was the wife of John Deer. Yes that John Deer. It’s not exactly clear if John Deer was is father, but we’ll assume it was so.
Willard created Velie Motor Vehicles Co. in 1908 and produced their first car in 1909. It was a 4 cylinder and sold 1000 units and were sold though John Deer dealerships. The 1909 and 1910 models primarily used existing engine but in 1911 build their own. In that same year the Velie car participated in the Indianapolis 500 and finished 17th out of 46.
1911 Racer
That helped keep car production was at 3,500 vehicles a year. By 1914 Velie added a six-cylinder side-valve Continental engine to the mix of power plants. and by 1918 only offered six cylinders. The car became so popular and reliable that a few folks in Louisiana name a town after the car.
In 1918 Velie won the race at Pikes Peak which helped increase production to 9000 a year cars by 1920.
In 1928 they introduced the an 8 cylinder engine a Continental straight eight and were a roll so to speak. (Not to mention their little side business for producing air planes.) However that was not to be, Willard died in late 1928 and Willard Jr. died a few months in 1929 later. That ended the Velie Motor Vehicle Co.
John Deer company bought the plant and well they sold a few tractors now and then.
Finishing up the front seats of Mustang and putting them back in the car. Yes, I know I should have gotten all the new carpet and the heat and sound deadening but I didn’t. They are easy enough to remove so not really a big deal. I did notice while the seats were out just how thin the carpeting actually was, there is nothing between it and the floor pans, I’ve got to get those done…soon…soon.
Here’s some shots of the final production.
Drivers seat
Passenger's Seat. This is the one I just finished.
Thanks for all the comments and emails on the Part 1 of the Cars You Never Heard Of.
Thought I’d follow it up with the Panther Kallista. This stems from the same article in “Classic and Sport Car” a UK publication. The article pitted pricey European cars against less expensive cars and rated them. It’s over all theme was “See you can get this close to the expensive cars, for less.”
1985 Panther Kallista
Kallista was the product of the Panther Car Company and they were built between 1980 and 1990, actually coming on the market in about 1982. The were a box chassis with an aluminum body. The engine that was first used was Fords 2.8 V6 which cranked out 2792 cc from its 12v configuration. The electronic fuel injection helped it deliver 150 hp and 159 lb ft of torque. Top speed was about 120 mph with the help of the 5 speed manual transmission.
In the article Kallista was compared against the Morgan Plus 8 which you can purchase now days for about 35,000 British Pounds (about $70k US) compared to the collectors price of 7,000 BP ($14k US). In that contest comparing Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability the Morgan was judged with a total of 37 points and the Panther Kallista end up with 35.
I did find one on Ebay with a few days still to go with a current bid of just over $4k. It’s an 1986, 4 cylinder – not a V6.
Of course I spend a lot of time reading and again a lot of that is two or three-dimensional, although my wife says it’s a single dimension. She sees just “CARS” I see muscle cars, sedans (that I want to turn in to muscle cars), exotic cars and even some European cars. That’s multi-dimensional, don’t you think? I gained a little interest in them when I was a kid and my Dad surprised my Mother with a 60’ish MGB – mainly I learned that unless you wanted to fix ’em a lot…stay a way!!!
I gained a little more familiarization with another brand when I was in college. I had my license suspended….you can figure out why…so don’t make me say ‘too many speeding tickets”, ok? Thanks. So it was only about a mile or so walk to the campus from where I stayed, but if you are from one of the colder States, like northern New York, then you’d know that a morning jaunt on a Dec. morning is ‘nippy” to say the least. So I would catch a ride with a friend. He drove the one of the coolest cars I had ridden. It was a Citroen. Similar to this one:
It had the coolest suspension that would raise when you started it and lower when you turned it off.
My point being that there is another dimension to my reading – European cars. But I am in no way any kind of expert with any of them – although when I lived in Germany, I drove a very old European Ford Escort. That car was horrible!!!! However, it got me round, even when the upper part of the seat frame broke and the only way to drive it was by holding yourself forward using the steering wheel else the seat back, because it leaned so much, should dump you in the back seat. Last year I signed up for..please kneel…”HEMMINGS”… thank you….you may relax now… SPORTS & EXOTIC CAR magazine – some great articles and I enjoy Mike’s and Richard’s writings. Geezze, this is a long way around to the point that I picked up a copy of Classic & Sports Car magazine – UK produced – the other day.
In this was a series of articles that pitted 4 pair of cars against each other. One car in each pair was an expensive classic brand/model and the other was relatively inexpensive newer brand/model. Two things dawned on me, one was,”Hey, I’ve never heard of a Reliant Scimitar SS1 or a Panther Kallista.” The second thing was, “Hey, have never heard of any of these cars!” Normally if I have just one of these realizations – I won’t read the article… nope not interested…. but this time I did.
And now I need to know a little about these cars and I know you do to….all three of my readers!!! So we’ll take a look at the Panther Kallista and the Caterham Seven and the TVR S3 and the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
First up is the Reliant Scimitar SS1.
This car (at about 3000 British Pounds – $6000 USD) was being compared to the Lotus Elan (at 16000 British Pounds or about $32,000 USD). Here is what it looks like:
Reliant Scimitar SS1
Not bad-looking!!!!
These cars were made from 1986 to 1990, however the Scimitar actually arrived on the scene in 1964 with a Ford straight 6 cylinder as the power plant. These more recent models had a spaceframe chassis and fiberglass body, an iron block, alloy heads, SOHC 1809 cc, 8 valve 4. It also sported a Garrett T2 Turbo with electronic multi-port fuel injection system. This allowed it to lay out 140 HP and 141 lb ft of torque and reach a top speed of 128 mph and it only weighted 1969 lbs.
They sported a 5 speed manual transmission, rack and pinion steering, double wishbone independent suspension and disks breaks.
Just to give you some closure, it was compared to the Lotus Elan where it scored 2 points less than the Lotus (38 to 40) in Driving, Practicality, Character, Value and Usability.
Any one out there have one of these? Know anyone that has one? If so drop a comment and pic.
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 units at 1,193,212 cars. Ford was a distant second with 607,592 vehicles.
Surprisingly Willys-Overland/Whippet were in third with 315,000 (well behind Ford). Hudson/Essex produced 282,203 for fourth spot with Pontiac/Oakland at fifth with 244,564, Buick was next with 221,758. Chrysler and Nash grabbed sixth and seventh place respectively with 160,670 and 138,137.
Notes for 1928:
– Chrysler was getting its new brand ready for the next year – the DeStoto.
– Ford business coupes came with a rubberized roof.
