Here’s a lost video from my trip to the Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale, AZ this past Jan. All you needed to do was sign up for email notification of deals from Chevy and/or Ford and you could drive these cars or ride them while a professional driver took you for a spin. I opted to drive the Ford Taurus SHO, ( the wait was shorter) I wrote about that in this blog entry http://wp.me/pKHNM-o2
Nicola Romeo is credited with setting the foundation for Italian car maker Alfa Romeo. What a lot of folks don’t know is that Alfa was a car manufacturer before Nicola came around.
Afla stood for Anonima Lombardo Fabbrica Automobili and began production in Milan in 1910. They actually produced French cars (the Darracq) under a license, all hand built.
Darracq 1906
Nicola had an engineering degree from Turin. He first worked with mining equipment and eventual purchased Alfa’s plant in Portello.
His management skills and love of racing helped build this car .company in to a lasting enterprise.
Although, apparently their latest offering to the U.S. market of the Giulia, was not well received, design wise and the parent companies Fiat–Chrysler killed it until 2013.
This one was in the parking lot of the a local auto parts store Checker’s or O’Rielly’s….or….all those mergers are making hard to have common name that everyone can related too (remember when there was just NAPA….can’t find them very often).
1969 Chevelle 454 Restored shell
This 1969 Chevelle was merely as shell…oh but is extremely well done restoration. The paint was excellent (makes ya wonder why it was being dragged round uncovered), the inside of the shell had been as expertly sprayed as the exterior..it was almost a shame to put in the interior in there.
Reproduction gauges and not much in the way of interior yet.
The badge on the car shows that this car housed or will house 454. But however, the 454 didn’t show up on the scene until until 1970 so this must be a retro fit.
You can see the big power plant is missing.
It looks absolutely ready to for dropping that monster engine back in and hitting the strip. Hey I don’t even mind the wheels!!!
Didn’t find the owner (or driver) , part store was crowded.
Of course this isn’t a 1970, I’ll update the data a bit later.
Some 1970 Chevelle facts:
– The 454 was produced between 1970 thru 1976.
– It produced 450 hp configured with 4bbl carb
– It was designated the LS6 with 475 ftlbs of torque and 9.0:1 compression ratio
The majority of the Chevelle’s (approx. 13,000) had V8 in 1970 and approx. 10,000 had 6 cylinders.
So you are out at the mall or grabbing some groceries at the store and you are headed back to your car in the parking lot and you catch something out of the corner of your eye. It’s out of the ordinary, it really shouldn’t be there, especially parked between that 1998 Honda with almost no paint and the huge Cummings Diesel pick up with a bench car seat bungy corded to the tie downs in the bed, but there it is, glowing and out-of-place.
That is what these segments will be about. Sometime there will be comments from the owner and sometimes I won’t have a chance to chat with them. There is a fine line between loving cars and stalking. (Standing around while your milk getting warm and your ice cream is leaking out of the hole in the plastic bag, waiting for the owner is on the line. Hey..it only happened once!!!…Come on now!!!..You’ve done it!!!)
Wandering around Southern Arizona wine country, we pulled into the one of the winery’s parking lots and I spied this beauty.
1964 Lincoln Continental Love the shape of the grill.
Yes! Convertible with suicide doors.
I’m on the fence with these wheels, but it’s still great looking.
Some 1964 Lincoln Continental facts:
Sales for that year was 32,969 roughly and approximately only 3,328 convertibles were sold. The other option was a 4 door sedan (no two door coupe? I’ll have to check on that). The vert was sold for $6,938 and the sedan was about $700 less.
Only one engine was available for the Lincoln and that was the 430 with 320 hp. Which was good because the car weighted 5,000 lbs. It was paired up with a 3 speed auto transmission which helped it reach the top speed of 110 m/h.
Longer wheel base was about 2 inches longer then the previous years at 126 inches.
Having grown up working in my Dad’s body shops, was often given the honorable task of taping (masking) off the areas that weren’t going to get sprayed and areas, like windows and mirrors where you don’t want over-spray landing. I learned a few tricks that help speed up the process, but more importantly help ensure a good clean paint job. Removing over-spray is not a fun process.
I’ve tried the machines that merge the paper and the tape, great for straight lines, like the Coca Cola trucks we painted but for tight corners it just doesn’t work.
To save time, which equals a money saver and to get sharp clean lines, outline the areas with thinner tape, 1/4 inch works best. After that use the tape and paper machine and run that along the previously laid tape.
Here’s one more.
I can’t possibly tell you how much a pain it can be to tape off emblems and name plates and it’s never clean. Do yourself a big favor, figure out how they are attached to the sheet metal and purchase replacement them. You know where I’m going… remove the badges and emblems. That is the only way to do it right.
This is a great show of the main gallery. In this clip they have just placed the AJ Foyt #8 Corvette on display and are setting up a C6 Grand Sport next to it.
So I just can’t let the 283 go. I will find one, restore it and hang it from my garage ceiling, umm…yeah..I don’ t think the misses will have a problem with that….ok maybe just store it a corner of the garage..or turn it to a coffee table..yeah……um…no.
Check out his 1966 Corvair with 300 hp 283.
Link is here: http://www.automobilemag.com/reviews/driven/1012_1966_corvair_corsa/index.html
REVIEWS:
First Drive: 1966 Corvair Corsa
From the December, 2010 issue of Automobile Magazine
By Don Sherman
Photography by A. J. Mueller
The Chevy Corvair’s swing axles and heavy tail are implements of the devil, at least according to Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed diatribe. Paul Siano, the creator of the mid-engine Siano Special, doesn’t buy any of that. He has owned, modified, and drag-raced Corvairs for more than half of his seventy years without suffering a single unintended spinout.
Siano bought — brand-new — what began life as a 1966 Corvair Corsa after supercharging a Volkswagen Beetle and owning a ’64 Corvair Monza Spyder convertible. He drove the coupe 50,000 miles before ripping out the stock 180-hp turbo engine.
A vintage Crown Manufacturing kit provided the means of upping the cylinder count and moving the engine from the back porch to the rear seat. That package included a tubular-steel subframe, an engine-to-transaxle adapter plate, a new transmission input gear, cooling-system pipes, a new shift linkage, and two new antiroll bars.
Siano’s prize possession is a rare, experimental, 283-cubic-inch aluminum engine block that General Motors pitched out as scrap. Engine builder Bryce Flinn added a roller cam, aluminum heads, and the induction overkill. Siano fabricated the necessary bits and brackets with an emphasis on minimal weight. He also added four-wheel disc brakes, Minilite wheels, radial tires, and a Ron Davis aluminum radiator.
Siano didn’t partition off his eight-pack of Weber intake trumpets, because he’s a patron of the rolling, reverberating, internal-combustion arts. Living with Webers is not for the meek of heart. When cold, they spit and stumble. When they’re up to operating temperature, they fill the interior with a combustible cloud of reversion gases. Smoking is discouraged.
Headphones are available for those rides when hearing preservation takes precedence over the din of a barely muffled Chevy V-8. Only two things keep the whirring water-pump pulley from biting the occupants’ elbows: the flush bolts that Siano installed in place of hex-head screws and every human’s natural preservation instincts
REVIEWS:
First Drive: 1966 Corvair Corsa
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When we drove to the test track, Siano’s homebuilt special revealed evil streaks: quick but heavy steering, vague shift linkage, and a throttle pedal that offers yes and no but very little maybe. However, a few miles were enough to establish an amicable working relationship.
Offered the opportunity to redeem itself, the Siano Special settled into stride to post a reasonably impressive performance report: 0 to 60 mph in 5.2 seconds, the quarter mile in 13.9 seconds at 104 mph, and a top speed of 130 mph. More amazing, the handling balance is excellent, offering just under 0.90 g at the limit of adhesion and only a touch of easily controlled oversteer when the fourteen-inch BFGoodrich Radial T/As finally let go. The cobbled-together chassis held firm over bumps, and the dampers kept body motions nicely controlled throughout the testing gauntlet.
Back in the Corvair’s day, GM fiddled with various mid-engine sports cars, only one of which (the Pontiac Fiero) ever made it to a production line. Leave it to a motivated Corvair enthusiast to demonstrate what can be achieved by adding a couple of cylinders and relocating the engine to a more productive location.
The Specs Engine: 4.6-liter (283 cu in) OHV V-8, 300 hp (est.) Weight: 2600 lb Weight distribution f/r: 44.0/56.0% Drive: Rear-wheel
