Oh yeah. That I do remember. Made a big impression on my 15 year old self.
Paula Prentiss was pretty hot in the film too. If you've seen it you know what I mean.
Alan Arkin was perfect as Yossarian.
Thank you for that posting Schlimm. I saw "Catch-22" when it came out in 1970. Weird movie, but great flying!
No CGI back in those days folks, those are the real deal.
Back to airpower. B-25s.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Well, I own two Citroen Tractions and they go around corners like they're on rails. Not bad for a car that first came out in 1934! I sure feel safer in them that I did in the Tatra.
54light15The 603 looks sort of like a 1951 Nash Airflyte. A couple of years ago I drove my friend's Tatra T-87 and it was scary! You could feel that heavy rear V-8 pulling the car around curves like a pendulum. Like the 55 Beetle from hell. Funny thing about Tatra owners, every one I know also owns Citroens.
Obviously, they don't percieve good handling cars in the same way as the rest of the population of the world does.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The 603 looks sort of like a 1951 Nash Airflyte. A couple of years ago I drove my friend's Tatra T-87 and it was scary! You could feel that heavy rear V-8 pulling the car around curves like a pendulum. Like the 55 Beetle from hell. Funny thing about Tatra owners, every one I know also owns Citroens.
daveklepperObviously I was converted to rear-engine automobiles.
Of course they're more fun with twice as many cylinders ... dual-carb hemi V-8 cylinders. Here's the car that made a virtue out of terminal understeer... and some other decidedly interesting things (although it takes something pretty extreme to make Audrey cover her eyes...)
Who said Communists had no fun outrunning the police?
The whole reason for the Lucas curse is that they used a pure copper wire that would corrode, swell up with green corrosion and burst the cloth insulation if moist. England is a pretty moist place as I understand and so is most of North America. But, if you rewire the car with modern plastic covered wire as I did with an English-made Citroen Light 15 about ten years ago, no trouble at all. I will say this, though. English car wiring systems sometimes makes no sense at all (junctions where there were no need for them, fuses for the stop lights and gas gauge and nothing for the headlights or horn, for example.) When I redid the Citroen, I made it all make sense by wiring it like a French made Citroen.
You've heard of Lucas vacuum cleaners? It's the only thing Lucas made that doesn't suck.
And yes, VWs were very reliable for the reason I stated, but if you don't adjust the valves every time you change the oil, the number three exhaust valve will burn, break off and go through the piston. You can not ignore the maintenance. Ask me how I know.
Know why the British drink warm beer?
Lucas refridgerators!
54light15Know why they were so common? they were almost indestructible and the main reason was, at 60 mph the engine is doing less than 2000 rpm while in a,say an English Ford or a Renault, the engine is screaming at over 4,000.
Also, compared to any British car (other than a Rolls) they were reliable. The engine did not need weekly tinkering and the electrical system worked, unlike British Lucas systems. Not sure about Renaults but Peugeots were also very reliable.
Once had an older lady-friend, a musician, with a Karmon Ghia VW. At the time I was driving a 54 Ford Mainline. We did lots of things together, and she preferred my driving her car, which I enjoyed doing. At the same time, Bolt Beranek and Newman, CAmbridge MA main office, had a VW Microbus as the company truck, and I got to drive that a lot also. '57-'63 Then got a Corvair Monza with Road-and-Track recommended suspension modifications to replace the Ford. (Koni shock-absorbers, front suspension stabilizer bar) Obvioiusly I was converted to rear-engine automobiles. My colleaagues were into Toyotas, except for one with an MG. Lady-friend called it "The White Cloud."
I grew up on them. Our "second" car was a 61 beetle that didn't have a gas gauge, it had a lever you moved to give another gallon or so of gas when the engine started to stall. My mother forgot to reset the handle once so I leave it to you to figure out what came after that.
We and my parents and siblings all had several VWs, I had a 56 sedan that I wrecked after owning it for 8 days and a 62 convertible that I wish I still had. Sold it for $600.00 in 1979 and today it's worth around $25,000.00 if not more. They were common as hell back then and today they go for stupid amounts of money. No, I would not want to have one again but a Karmann Ghia convertible? Yeah, I'd take one.
Know why they were so common? they were almost indestructible and the main reason was, at 60 mph the engine is doing less than 2000 rpm while in a,say an English Ford or a Renault, the engine is screaming at over 4,000. They were built to be run on highways (and we all know which ones) whereas the others weren't as the countries those cars came from didn't have highways.
Is there anybody else here that remembers a time when if it was mentioned that somebody drove an imported car, the car was almost certainly a Volkswagen.
My first car was a VW beetle, and let me tell you, you didn't get into it, you put it on! Fun car to drive, but I wouldn't go back to one now.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
When I was in the navy, one of the chiefs on the base where I was had an old beetle. A bunch of us picked it up and wedged it between a telephone pole and the steps of the barracks with 1/2 inch to spare.
One of our teachers had a beetle....one night it wound up getting dissasembled and put back together in an inner courtyard....
Penny Trains I always wanted to take the Sherman that American Legion Post 703 has on display between here and my high school for a drive. Preferably through the high school...at least at one point in my life anyways.
I always wanted to take the Sherman that American Legion Post 703 has on display between here and my high school for a drive. Preferably through the high school...at least at one point in my life anyways.
Becky, I think we've ALL wanted to do that at one time or another.
However, my senior year there were some guys from the power mechanics class that drove a Volkwagen Beetle up and down the halls. Another story...
Actually Christie's tank was a good design, a millionaire US Army officer named Major George Patton financed the development and demonstrated it to the army brass, Mrs. Patton even drove it to show how easy it was to handle, but the problem was this was the 1920's, and there was no money in the army budget to buy new tanks. As one of the generals present said to Patton, "It's a beautiful tank Georgie, but we can't buy it. I doubt we could buy it even if you drove it up to the Capitol loaded with votes."
Remember, we'd just won the "war to end all wars," and there wasn't going to be any more wars. Really. The army had to use those WW1 Renaults into the 1930's. Patton finally said "the hell with it" and went back to the cavalry, a good friend and fellow armor advocate named Dwight Eisenhower said the same thing and went back to the infantry.
And yes, the Russians were VERY interested in Christies designs, but in the end the only part of them they used were the suspension systems. Look at the tank pictured and then a picture of a T-34 and you can see the resemblance. By the way, I've been in a T-34. There was one on static outdoor display at The Basic School in Quantico VA (captured in Korea) when I was there in 1975 and it was OK to crawl around inside it if you wanted to. Man, it was TIGHT in there! I doubt most Russian tankers were taller than 5'8". I'm a six-footer and it was a bit of a squeeze for me. By the way, the turret traverse and gun elevation wheels still worked, albeit with a bit of effort.
Walter Christie had a transverse-engined front-wheel-drive racing car in 1904! Wasn't Christie's tank too advanced for the US Army, so he sold it to Russia who used it for the basis of the T-34?
By the way, there's a Renault WW-1 tank at the museum in Camp Borden north of Toronto. They have a rather large collection of tanks and such. Didn't know the T-34 was that small.
Now THAT, unless I'm mistaken, is one of the original Walter Christie designs, maybe the "Christie Crawler?"
OK, I looked it up, it's one of the original Soviet T tanks using the Christie suspension.
Not nearly as cool as this, though
The "Mule" was cool, but what I REALLY want for Christmas (among other things) is a Renault FT-17 tank, World War One style.
Ever see one of those things? Obsolete as all hell, but cool beyond belief!
"Hamburger helper"
Thank you 54Light! I remember what must have been one of the last "Mechanical Mules," the Third LAAM Battalion at Cherry Point MCAS had one of them, although held together with spit and bailing wire at that point. (1976)
Hmm, deer hunting with a 106? Well, I suppose you could use the "Beehive" anti-personnel round, we used to call it "Hamburger Helper."
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