Rare Cars on the Job

[mgbinspect]

I only get to see this little gem about every three years, when a friend brings it out of moth balls. Thought you guys might enjoy this little stroll down memory lane.

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[Jim Katen]

1966?

[mgbinspect]

1966?

Yeah, I noticed that at the top of the license plate, and readily admit I honestly don't know if that's right or not. It seems about right though. I'll verify that.

[John Kogel]

1966?

If you're asking about the license plate, yes it is.

License or licence?

As came up in an earlier thread, if Nader had tested the '66 Corvair, he may have formed a more favorable impression then he what got from the 1960 car. They were much improved by the mid sixties. Still, I'd have a roll bar on mine. []

[davidmcg]

Nice car, but I don't think I would let it sit very long with the top down in that area. Unless that is you have a leaf blower handy.

[Terence McCann]

Pretty cool Mike.

I'm not sure that color of blue was available when produced though - was it?

A little Corvair trivia - they made the Corsa and the Spyder as the upper-end Corvairs. The Corsa had a 140 hp w/ 4-single barrel carbs, and the Spyder had a 180 hp. My father had the Corsa. I'm not sure what the carb setup was on the Spyder - never got that close to one.

Reminds me of the slip&slide power glide transmission - it was a 2 speed auto-trans and you could wind 1st out to about 60+mph.

Oh Chadwick, there's a question on line 1.

[hausdok]

Speaking of rare cars on the job,

Last Saturday my students took their final and I finally got to see a '58 Packard Hawk (588 made) up close. The home was tiny - about 600 square feet - but there was a large 4-car garage behind the home. Actually, if he'd kept contemporary-sized cars in there it would probably hold 6 or 7 cars; but he seems to have a thing for really big 60's and 70's American dinosaurs, so there were only 4.

Anyway, the hawk was beautiful and very good condition; at 1/25th scale. The guy is 83 and he collects die-cast car models. Every nook and cranny of the house, as well as a bunch of shelves lining the garage, is lined with die-cast cars. There were large display/presentation signs for a number of different Packard models on the walls of the garage and the house and I discovered that he had owned and restored a number of them and taken them to shows over the years and won tropheys. I asked him whether he'd ever seen a Hawk and he said, "Go inside and look on the little shelf at the north end of the kitchen." I did, and there she was. Photos below.

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ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[Erby]

We sometimes get to meet some of the coolest people, don't we?

[John Kogel]

I see he collects oil jugs, too. Neat stuff.

[Bill Kibbel]

Inspecting lotsa farms, I get to regularly see some sweet old machines. A couple weeks ago, I was inspecting a farm that had some original out buildings and a few new. In one, there was a conditioned "showroom" that had probably a dozen or more covered cars. The seller pulled a few covers to show me his most recent favorites.

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I was sure I recognized one he didn't uncover at first. I was right - a '73 pantera - my absolute favorite as a kid. I got so excited, I didn't take a pic.

[John Kogel]

That Pantera would have looked like this.

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Some people put their spare cash in stocks and bonds. Classic cars make more sense.

[Tom Corrigan]

One of my buds from Bradley University went to work for Ford in 1972. He talked them into providing a Pantera as his company car. I could have bought his yellow 1972 for about 75% of dealer cost in 1973.

I didn't. One of my many mistakes.

Tom Corrigan

[Chad Fabry]

I'm not sure that color of blue was available when produced though - was it?

I have no idea. I'm not even sure what year Mike's friend's Corvair is but if I had to guess I would have said 1967. Most folks that have perfect cars wouldn't dream of having the wrong year on their collector plate.

One thing I'm sure of is that it rides a lot better on the radials he has than it did with the bias plys it came with.

A little Corvair trivia - they made the Corsa and the Spyder as the upper-end Corvairs. The Corsa had a 140 hp w/ 4-single barrel carbs, and the Spyder had a 180 hp. My father had the Corsa. I'm not sure what the carb setup was on the Spyder - never got that close to one.

I was only 6 years old, but as I recall, the Spyders were turbocharged and used a 1 barrel side draft carb.

[Terence McCann]

Inspecting lotsa farms, I get to regularly see some sweet old machines. A couple weeks ago, I was inspecting a farm that had some original out buildings and a few new. In one, there was a conditioned "showroom" that had probably a dozen or more covered cars. The seller pulled a few covers to show me his most recent favorites.

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I was sure I recognized one he didn't uncover at first. I was right - a '73 pantera - my absolute favorite as a kid. I got so excited, I didn't take a pic.

Wow..... That's a lot of really expensive metal in that barn (beautiful too). I've never seen a Cobra in that paint scheme.

Do they have a sprinkler system installed? If not they should. I'm sure they have insurance on the cars but there's only so many to go around - would be a real shame to lose one.

[mgbinspect]

I texted the owner. It's a 1966 Monza.

The cars that I'm most fond of are the old stretches - Dusenbergs (straight-8 - 400 HP), Cords (Lycoming V-, Rolls Royces, etc. The engines in those cars are truly artwork - a thing of beauty.

Engines turn me on more than cars. I always loved adjusting to perfection: valves and points; re-building, re-jetting and playing with linkages and diaphragms on carburetors; and disregarding specs to find that fine line between ignition timing and vacuum pressure - and then, taking it out and putting your foot into it. Yes!!!! Getting everything "right there" was always a real rush.

(Tweaking carburetors was, by far, my biggest single fascination. Although, I never fooled around with a Solex. I've always heard they were a complete pain in the ass and nearly impossible to get and keep right.)

I'd love to stand next to an in-line or "V" 10, 12 or 16 cylinder engine while it was running. A cylinder per the half stroke ( or 1/3 stroke (12) is amazing. Those things must hum like a sewing machine - an engine you can truly set a glass of wine on top of and it hardly disturbs the surface of the wine. At idle, they have to be a whisper.

[hausdok]

an engine you can truly set a glass of wine on top of and it hardly disturbs the surface of the wine. At idle, they have to be a whisper.

It's funny you should say that. Back in the early 70's when I was doing a stint as a Toyota mechanic, I used to place a Dixie cup full of water on top of engines and then tweak it until I could get all the ripples out of the water.

Owners seemed to like it when they couldn't tell whether the engine was running or not.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[mgbinspect]

Indeed, fine tuning engines in the old days was an art best done by ear with a vacuum gauge - no timing gun needed... trying to get a rock steady needle as close to 19 as possible. Yes!!!...

Of course, that was before they put about 10,000 solenoids and vacuum diaphragms and miles of vacuum hose on an engine - sacrilege... [:-banghea

[Terence McCann]

One of my friends, from back in the day, and I use to tweak engines for a few of our cars. He liked 442s and had a really nice 66 442.

We pulled the engine in his garage and set about rebuilding it, from the ground up, with high performance enhancements. It was mounted to a home made engine stand so that we could work on it. Right at the end of the project we were standing back and talking about it as the engine stand began to creak. In a blink of eye it broke and down came the engine on the crank pulley.

Back then no one had a clue about engineering - you just put something together and if it looked strong it was good to go. Pushing the memory a tad but I'm pretty sure we just attached the chain-fall to one of the cross-ties in the garage to lift the engine out. When I think back to what we use to do it's a small miracle that no one died. We always had cold Strohs and Lucky Strikes at the ready as well.

Friday and Saturday nights were time to go down to the "flats" (an older section of Cleveland down by the steel mills or by the lake) where we would drag race. For the most part the cops left you alone. No way you could get away with that now.

I had a great time back then - growing up in the 60's was magical in so many ways.

[Chad Fabry]

Of course, that was before they put about 10,000 solenoids and vacuum diaphragms and miles of vacuum hose on an engine - sacrilege...

Yeah, all the stuff is awful for the folks that like to tinker. Me? I like my vehicle with all that stuff so the computer can make adjustments fast enough to account for 1/10 point barometric pressure change.

Back in the day, a horsepower per cubic inch was hard to obtain, now it's ordinary. Do you miss wondering whether the car would start when it's 5 degrees out or those annual tune-ups, they were a blast.

I'm a bit jaded though, I've fixed a few thousand too many cars. That said, my Vetronix is up to date and ready to go an all the tools are still in the box.

Seriously, cars are waaaaaayyy better that they were in the good old days.

[mgbinspect]

Of course, that was before they put about 10,000 solenoids and vacuum diaphragms and miles of vacuum hose on an engine - sacrilege...

Yeah, all the stuff is awful for the folks that like to tinker. Me? I like my vehicle with all that stuff so the computer can make adjustments fast enough to account for 1/10 point barometric pressure change.

Back in the day, a horsepower per cubic inch was hard to obtain, now it's ordinary. Do you miss wondering whether the car would start when it's 5 degrees out or those annual tune-ups, they were a blast.

I'm a bit jaded though, I've fixed a few thousand too many cars. That said, my Vetronix is up to date and ready to go an all the tools are still in the box.

Seriously, cars are waaaaaayyy better that they were in the good old days.

I hear you, and whole heartedly agree.

I have a 1999 F150 with 257,000 miles on it and just about every piece of it is original -EVEN THE CLUTCH!!!! (which is more testimony to my foot) It's NEVER not started. I've changed plugs on it twice. You're right - vehicles today are amazing.

And, my son-in-law has a Dodge Ram Diesel Duelly with a special chip in it that turns out so much horsepower and torque that he blew up two transmissions off the line, before he got the thing straightened out. Now that's power...

They're just so much harder to diagnose now - way too many possible contributing factors to any one symptom (without a diagnostic computer that is)

But, for what it's worth, I had electronic ignition on my cars before it was available stock. I love a good thing, and the funny thing about the old tune up was that it was progressively going back out of tune from the moment you kissed it goodbye. [:-graduat

[hausdok]

Seriously, cars are waaaaaayyy better that they were in the good old days.

Not disputing that. In the old days, a consumer spent a small fortune getting to 50,000 miles. Now, if they just change the oil and filter regularly and and make sure their fluids are topped up and belts are OK, they'll get there without a huge expense. They might not be following the manufacturer's recommendation; but they'll get there nonetheless without doing serious damage. In the 60's and 70's that was nigh impossible. I can imagine that going back even further one became a pretty good backyard mechanic just to keep a car on the road for a few thousand miles.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

[mgbinspect]

Seriously, cars are waaaaaayyy better that they were in the good old days.

Not disputing that. In the old days, a consumer spent a small fortune getting to 50,000 miles. Now, if they just change the oil and filter regularly and and make sure their fluids are topped up and belts are OK, they'll get there without a huge expense. They might not be following the manufacturer's recommendation; but they'll get there nonetheless without doing serious damage. In the 60's and 70's that was nigh impossible. I can imagine that going back even further one became a pretty good backyard mechanic just to keep a car on the road for a few thousand miles.

ONE TEAM - ONE FIGHT!!!

Mike

That was me - a shade-tree mechanic - a lover of the art, but no professional training whatsoever.

[mgbinspect]

I had a great time back then - growing up in the 60's was magical in so many ways.

You bet! Gosh, from my Jr. High School days right on through High School was the precise duration of the "Muscle Car".

When I hit Jr. high, the first half year of the Mustang and the Barracuda was out and by the end of high school the cars out were over the top: Boss Mustangs, the Shelby Cobra, Hemi-cudas, the Super Bee, the 442, The Javelin -not to mention Model T street rods, etc.

And, there were cars from another planet - like the Avanti, which came supercharged from the factory. My friend's pop had one. That car never seemed to age...

It was heaven...

[Inspectorjoe]

Engines turn me on more than cars. I always loved adjusting to perfection: valves and points; re-building, re-jetting and playing with linkages and diaphragms on carburetors; and disregarding specs to find that fine line between ignition timing and vacuum pressure - and then, taking it out and putting your foot into it. Yes!!!! Getting everything "right there" was always a real rush.

Since you're not all that far from York, PA, you might want to check out the Cabin Fever Expo model engineering show. It's chock-full of jaw-dropping miniature working engine models.

Check out the V-8 engine at 5:00:

[utube]

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http://picasaweb.google.com/10202115568 ... Fever2010#

[Terence McCann]

It was heaven...

It was - and then 1974 hit. Cars with big, ugly, chrome bumbers. Vega, Pinto, Maverick and at the top of the list - drum roll please - the Ford Fairmount.

What a depressing time - I'm not sure the sun rose for most of the 70's, just kind of like winter with a blue cast. [:-yuck] Rust was the "in" color.

I present to you the biggest reason forigen cars took over - for your viewing pleasure: