Bruce, my neighbor in New Jersey had a '55 Old 88, with the 327 cubic inch V8 and Hydramatic.
That was one fine car, with its 2-tone blue and white!
Regarding Ford's, I would like to get my hands on a 1960 or 1961 Galaxie. I really like body style of both years.
Murray Car of the week: 1956 Oldsmobile: http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL10010612&From=F
Car of the week: 1956 Oldsmobile:
http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL10010612&From=F
Now this car brings back fond memories. One of the two principal cruising cars for our group in high school was a 1955 Buick Special. A 1957 Chev is a beautiful car, but the difference in the caliber of car between the Chev/Pontiac and the Olds/Buick in those days was significant.
Check out that option list on his Olds. That was one of the earliest years for many of the options we take for granted on cars today. That Buick had a full gauge cluster instead of idiot lights for engine monitoring. And it was the oldest car I ever saw two other small features on. A red indicator light came on if you left the emergency brake on, and it had a map light under the top lip of the then standard steel dash. The forerunner of those little lights on either side of the dome light on cars today.
Now that is a car I would like to ride in again.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Murray Nice looking 1957 Lincoln: http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL1001079&From=F
Nice looking 1957 Lincoln:
http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL1001079&From=F
I've got to tell you I've got strong opinions on the styling of the 1957-60 Lincolns. The exterior designer of those cars should have been imprisoned for Criminal Insanity. And when the first 1959 model passed through the exit door of the assembly building someone should have been shot!
However, and I am too young to remember this, my Dad used to say that when driving down the highway at 60-65 mph, he never minded being passed by a Lincoln. In the fifties, and early sixties, he said they had the nicest sounding engines of any car on the road.
Murray....Coincidence you mention up and down rt. 30...
My family had an Esso Station on 3o {bypass}, which was just on the outside of town....{since 1938}, as before that it was our main st....{see another thread on here of small towns, etc..}
And........the highway passed our station at a 9% grade. It was about a mile long. We used to start at the bottom of the grade {from a stopped position}, with our cars and see how fast we could pass our station....{There it leveled off to 6%, to the top of the hill about a 1000' beyond.
I never did meet with {Findley}, with the Paxton blower on that run, and perhaps he could have topped me. My Corvette was with the standard engine...{Pictured @ Avatar}.
He did seem to have trouble at times with the supercharger, and one day he looked at my Corvette, under the hood, and said "one 4-bbl", here's one I can beat. I agreed he could with the blower, but don't let me catch you sometime when you don't have it on...
Other Thunderbirds, I could take up that hill by quite a distance...In general we would pass the station about 110 mph....{up the 9%}..!
That was when we were young....I know better now......don't we all.
Quentin
Modelcar .....In my opinion, the '57 Bird was the nicest Thunderbird. Trivia: I come from a home town {In Pa.}, of aboutr 450 pop. I had a friend who had one of them with the 300hp blower on it....{Stock} They were rare, and like I said...in such a small place to have one....
.....In my opinion, the '57 Bird was the nicest Thunderbird.
Trivia: I come from a home town {In Pa.}, of aboutr 450 pop. I had a friend who had one of them with the 300hp blower on it....{Stock}
They were rare, and like I said...in such a small place to have one....
Wow...that must have screamed up and down US 30...
A personal favorite of mine: A 1960 Ford Sunliner:
http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL711031&From=F
Nice 1957 Thunderbird:
http://collectiblecars.nytimes.com/View_Listing.asp?ListingID=COL8102611&From=F
G.M. to Reinforce Battery in Its Hybrid Car, the Volt:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/06/business/gm-to-reinforce-battery-in-hybrid-car.html?_r=1&ref=automobiles
Merry Christmas from Hope, Ar.
Thx IGN
Murray Merry Christmas to you all from all of us here in San Antonio!!!
Merry Christmas to you all from all of us here in San Antonio!!!
And a howdy from Chicago, too! Welcome to 2012 in just another week! - al smalling
In the mid-seventies I owned a Hornet with the same obsolescent in-line six engine as the Gremlin (the Gremlin essentially being a sawed-off Hornet). My cousin Billy, who helped me tune it, referred to the engine as "the 1928 Chevrolet" and he wasn't too far off the mark. We got it tuned but it only ran well on premium unleaded, which was impossible to find in the county I then lived in. In the three or four times I had to make hard panic stops, the engine died -- the fourth and last time being the wreck (not my fault) that totalled the Hornet. I it hasn't been mentioned before, recall that the Gremlin's success was a fluke -- it just happened to have an enormous fuel tank relative to the demands of the overall car at the time when the energy crisis often had people sitting in long lines to fill 'er up, which they wanted to do as seldom as possible.
Like many or most people, I admire the dream cars of the Fifties and Sixties -- the fins and wide bodies giving way to higher compression and pony and GTO like cars. But were they of better quality? Heck, no! It wasn't always easy growing up a Baby Boomer, but all my adult life cars, especially American cars, have gotten better and better -- they last longer, they're more finely engineered, more sparing with gasoline of course, and the concept of "holding a tune" is almost irrelevant. If the gas I get varies by an octane point or two from the norm, I probably won't even know it, now that microchips take the place of a carburetor. The drawback for all this modernity is that a competent amateur like my cousin Billy the amateur no longer is able to play "shade-tree mechanic" and do all kinds of maintenance with a spanner, spark-plug gap measuring device, and spirit level (FWD with its MacPherson struts require computer tuning, no longer the spirit level that could place a tire at a direct ninety-degree angle to the road, nothing else. I will admit the cheaper cars can get boring, but surely I was lucky to have missed the "excitement" of GM's early-Seventies clunker, the Vega!
PS: With my insurance money from the totalled Hornet I bought a used 1974 Monte, and other than the facts that the steering was numb and it got about half to two-thirds the amount of mileage that modern cars do, I loved the comfort and style. I hope I don't offend anyone by saying this, but my therapist says that every American man should have a "*** car" at least once in my life, and the Monte was mine.
-- You can't even use the word p*nis on this site? Royal pain in the ar$e!
Murray Group Therapy: Tell Us Your Pinto, Vega and Gremlin Stories:
Murray, I really enjoyed that one.
Those Gremlin's had a six that had only been upgraded about once after WWII. One of the car magazines of the era had an article about how to soup-up those sixes using very old school (and cheap) parts, and almost extinct techniques. I always wished we could have tried it on my friend's Gremlin, but with a wife and child, he had to sell it for a bigger car.
Merry Christmas to one and all!
.....Yes Ed, that made a hotrod out of them. And I'm sure the brace accross the spring towers under the hood as you said, an angle brace at the back was needed...That small car was not intended to react to torque to that degree.
We had several prototypes in our Lab for some time in that era, as we supplied 5 speed trany's for them. But what was really different, and unusual, was the fact the cars were going to receive a rotary {Wankel}, engine. We had several that had the installation, and the Wankel really did the job...!
You might have seen my comments on a post back a month or so ago, about the same thing was being considered for the German Ford produced Capri....And I was over in the United Kingman working with our trany 5 speed in one of them...{At Letchworth}, and I rode in one out on the Motorway and {too much speed}, for that car...Pretty exciting. If I remember correctly, he {driver}, had it up to about 220 kph...{roughly 134 mph}...! And then the smoke poured out the exhaust when he let up on the throtle...Oil sealing was a Wankel problem.
But back to the Vega....There was another version of hotroding it...and that was done by a special production model from GM. The Cosworth Vega. Smaller engine, with overhead cams, valves, etc....Believe that engine was just 122 ci. There is actually one here in Munice yet...I see it at car "shows" from clubs in the Summertime...
Just some trivia of Wankel and Vega, etc...Seems Mazda has been the only one to push ahead with production cars powered by it.
Edit: If I can find it...I have a photo I took under the hood of a Cosworth Vega recently at one of those local car "shows"...Perhaps last Summer or the one before.....
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/survey-suggests-tough-economy-is-claiming-another-victim-regular-car-maintenance/?ref=automobiles
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/21/g-m-claims-remedy-for-squealing-brakes/?ref=automobiles
The demise of Saab:
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/for-saab-owners-and-would-be-buyers-what-to-expect-of-warranties-recalls-and-fire-sales/?ref=automobiles
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/business/global/saab-files-for-liquidation.html?ref=automobiles
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/12/19/saab-bankruptcy-long-before-the-fall-innovations-aplenty/?ref=automobiles
Quentin,
Remember the 350 Vega conversions?
Kits that allowed you to cram a 350 V8 in there, but you better add the brace across the space where the back seat was, and one across the engine compartment, or the torque would end up cracking the car!
Instant street drag racer....
23 17 46 11
Paul....Similar experience with a Vega.
Had an early 70's Vega GT Wagon, and really kind of liked to drive around our fair city here. And similiar to your experience, at about 40,000 mi., the oil consumption issue started to be noticed.
So....I sold it.
Some time later....at a restaurant one day...I noticed this vehicle as we came out and took a closer look. Yep, it was the one I had, and the odo. indicated 93,000 mi. on it.
Hold on now, Fortesque metals of Australia bought a bunch of SD90's to have them converted to 16-710 engines but couldn't wait so 4 were sent as is, for service on their line. EMD must have the bugs worked out as its the same engine used on the Chinese 6000 hp order. All the original 6000 hp engines were scrapped and replaced by either 16 cylinder FDL engines or by the new 16 cylinder GEVO engine which is a complete redesign of the original 6000 hp unit.
Re: 20- 645 crankshafts. I had an experience with a broken crankshaft on a generator engine on Martha's Vinyard that had only 14,000 hours in 25 years of service. It had a major flaw in it so I wonder how they were able to improve inspection procedures in that time. I think they got a new crankshaft from EMD on a "policy adjustment"
tree68 Victrola1: Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega? Perhaps the 20 cylinder engine in the SD45 might deserve a bit of consideration in that regard.
Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega?
Perhaps the 20 cylinder engine in the SD45 might deserve a bit of consideration in that regard.
A better example would be the SD50 - as this article says, it was "a step too far" too soon: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD50
Which brings to mind even better instances - both the EMD and GE 6000HP diesel locos, the SD90MAC with a 265H engine, and the AC6000CW with a 7HDL engine, respectively (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMD_SD90MAC and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GE_AC6000CW ). I believe none or only a few are still in service at that rating, and only a few at their initial or down-graded ratings of 4,400 HP or so.
By the way, I had a '75 Chevy Vega 'GT' model 2-door station wagon assigned to me as a 'company car' for 3 years, and put about 85,000 miles on it before it was traded in. Really, it was OK - actually a little bigger inside than a Chevy Camaro - as long as it stayed on the road - off road, the oil pan was prone to snagging on rocks, etc. After about 30,000 miles, we learned to check the oil level at each fill - and add a quart when needed every 3rd or 4th tank or so - because of the wear of the aluminum block from the steel piston rings, and consequent oil consumption/ loss . . . It (and me) were kind of a pet and a long-running source of humor for the heavy equipment shop mechanics who also had to care for it . . . .
- Paul North.
The trouble with the SD45 was that the extra fuel consumption over a SD40 was noticeable while the extra power was not. From EMD's point of view the DM/DE locomotives for the LIRR was something that they wished they never got into although it seems that they got all their bugs worked out. Total production for these oddballs was less that the BL's and the BL's at least all the same mechanical components as the F units.
Victrola1 Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega?
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Juniatha Bucyrus: Victrola1: Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega? I don't think EMD made anything as bad as the Volt or the Vega, but their BL-2 was kind of an Edsel. "Imagine if ..." = J =
Bucyrus: Victrola1: Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega? I don't think EMD made anything as bad as the Volt or the Vega, but their BL-2 was kind of an Edsel.
Victrola1: Did EMD ever make a lemon locomotive on par with the Chevy Volt and the Chevy Vega?
I don't think EMD made anything as bad as the Volt or the Vega, but their BL-2 was kind of an Edsel.
"Imagine if ..."
= J =
Boy....I hope the new Progress Rail {EMD}, make good quality engines here in Muncie....They are under way with the new production facilities....Good business for our fair city.
It looks like the Volt is subsidized $250,000 per car as opposed to the mere $7,500 that we have been led to believe.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/12/21/govt-subsidies-for-chevy-volt-up-to-250000-per-car/
Juniatha; nice to hear and see you again. For such a small word ( If ) sure has a big meaning.
Merry Christmas to you and a happy New Year.
Cannonball
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
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