novelties
Rations. Practically a dirty word in times of plenty, but when the U.S. of A. was gripped in a battle against the Axis powers, it was your patriotic duty to do without, or to innovate. Donald Gilmore, CEO of Upjohn Pharma, decided to do the latter. Facing the inconvenience of rubber rations for his 1940 Cadillac, Gilmore decided to experiment with wooden tires. While we can't imagine how much fun wooden tires would be from a traction perspective, you gotta think the actual fiery burnouts would be spectacularly cool. Full history, transcribed and with amusing observations from employees, below.
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choose your eternity
We were shocked, shocked to learn that the Peugeot 404 Baja racer annihilated the Oval Window Baja Bug in
last Friday's Choose Your Eternity poll. It's a new week, however, and we've got new challenges ahead. Let's head on up to Seattle, where the constant rain creates sort of a year-round meat-market singles bar for lonely iron atoms looking to hook up with promiscuous oxygen atoms... and nobody goes home alone! When you've got a vehicle that's been sitting outside in coastal Washington for decade after decade, you figure you ought to be able to get it for a very reasonable price- and you figured right!
Zeet has earned a
PCH Tipster T-shirt by finding us a couple of tantalizingly cool machines sitting in the sodden Pacific Northwest weeds, so let's drive right in to a colder, damper Project Car Hell!
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down on the street
It's not only Truck Monday, it's Memorial Day! We haven't seen a street-parked vintage military vehicle since the
Unimog of last fall, and we're due for another war wagon! I spotted this '43 IHC on the same block as the
minister's '77 Camaro, and it was apparently surrounded by Soviet troops. Nothing I see on the street in Alameda surprises me any more, so I stopped to see what was going on.
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engine of the day
What has 44 cubic inches, weighs just 133 pounds (including all accessories and flywheel), a block made of copper-brazed sheet steel, and joined with the
Willys Go Devil to help plant a big steel-toed boot in the asses of Adolf Hitler and Hideki Tojo? The Crosley COBRA! Yes,
UDMan, your suggestion has been heeded (in spite of the fact that I had a childhood of anti-Crosley propaganda from my grandfather, who bought one new in '46 and considered it the dumbest decision of his entire life). To be fair, however, an engine designed for stationary, fixed-RPM operation as a military generator powerplant can't be expected to hold up well under the temperature fluctuations and stop-start demands of a motor vehicle. By '49, Crosley had switched to a cast-iron block, which was more reliable but nowhere near as cool.
[Crosley Auto Club]
down on the street
Some of the Down On The Street cars never move (the
'82 280ZX is a good example), while others are photographed during a brief moment caught outside of the garage (such as was the case with the
1939 Chevrolet). But most of them drive regularly, and what better way to prove my point than this blurry cellphone-camera shot of the
1945 Ford GPW Jeep parked in front of the island's Trader Joe's store? And if you look really, really hard, you can just barely make out the snout of a silver Peugeot 505 in the background.
down on the street
There must be a long and complicated story behind this car, which I've seen around town for many years, but all I know for sure is that its owner once owned a 40s-memorabilia shop downtown and still drives the car regularly. You don't see many 1942 model American cars, since those pre-Starion Mitsubishis and their Pearl Harbor drive-by caused what few '42s were manufactured to be drafted for military service. This '42 sports full military regalia and lives full-time on the street in Alameda's East End.
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Jalopnik
