Sunday, January 4, 2015

1963 Chicago Auto Show

Source: American Land Yacht Society

1954 Cadillac Park Avenue Concept

The 1954 Cadillac Park Avenue concept was a four-door pillarless fiberglass sedan built on the 133-inch wheelbase chassis of the 60 Special series and was presented at the 1954 GM Motorama at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City.

Source: American Land Yacht Society

1965 Chrysler Imperial Limo

1965 Chrysler Imperial Limo, how many of these exist today?

Source: American Land Yacht Society

Saturday, January 3, 2015

Ten Of The Most Expensive Vintage Cars Ever Sold On eBay

Today is National Collector Car Day and eBay Motors is celebrating by auctioning off a GM Futurliner. We worked with the company to assemble this list of the ten most expensive vintage cars ever sold on eBay. Bids start at $700K.

The ten most expensive vintage cars ever sold on eBay

10.) 1971 Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4-A

Auctioned For: $700,000

Details: There were only a handful of race-prepped 365 GTB/4-A Daytonas that came from the factory- 14 in total, over three production runs in three years. They had winglets along the front fenders and flared wheel arches, as well as approximately 400 pounds less wight to carry around. Because this car is from the first batch from the factory, it retains the road car’s 352 horsepower V12 (later cars got upwards of 450 horses). Even with their extensive diets (which included plexiglass windows and aluminum and fiberglass body parts) they were still heavier than their opponents, but surprisingly, more durable. Other Daytonas placed as high as fourth in the 1971 Tour de France and 12th at Sebring that same year.

Photo Credit: Skyscraper City

9.) 1973 Porsche 911 Carrera RSR

Auctioned For: $750,000

Details: When a change in rules in 1972 made the Porsche 917 prototype suddenly ineligible, Porsche went headlong into the World Sportscar Championship’s new Group 4 GT class. There, the company’s 911 would face down a major rival in the Ferrari 365 GTB Daytona Competizione. The 911 racecar had to be robust and fast, and Porsche engineers responded with a 2.8-liter boxer six producing 300hp (soon to be replaced by a 310hp 3.0 liter), fitted to a a purpose-built race 911 called the Carrera RSR. With drivers Peter Gregg and Hurley Haywood, the RSR owned the 1973 Daytona 24 hour race — prototypes and all — the 12 Hours of Sebring, and just about everything else.

Photo Credit: Picturepush

8.) 1969 Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullman

Auctioned For: $750,000

Details: Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmans were owned by Hugh Hefner, Elvis, Jack Nicholson, Coco Chanel, John Lennon, and now, one lucky eBay bidder. Because of their exceptional size and weight, these cars did away with the usual Mercedes six cylinder engine for a V8 motor that displaced 6.3 liters. No two Pullmans are exactly alike: all feature wood-paneled chauffeur’s compartments up front, but the passenger compartments in the rear were built to each buyer’s custom specifications. The car sold on eBay was one of just 2,677 built.

Photo Credit: We Are Private

7.) 1953 Rolls-Royce Silver Dawn Cabriolet

Auctioned For: $750,000

Details: This 1953 Rolls-Royce features a one-off custom alloy body by H.J. Mulliner. It’s smaller in size than a comparable Silver Wraith of the same year, and the regular models share their chassis and bodies with Bentley Type Rs of the same vintage. It had a 4.6 liter inline-six engine mated to an automatic four-speed gearbox. It was originally ordered by Texaco attorney Howard Kizer, whose family helped finance the construction of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. During the Silver Dawn’s six year lifespan, 760 were produced.

Photo Credit: Conceptcarz.com

6.) 1967 Ferrari 275 GTB/4

Auctioned For: $850,000

Details: 1967 was the second year of production for Ferrari’s new 4-cam V12 engine. It produced an even 300 horsepower and could propel the GTB/4 to somewhere in the vicinity of 165 miles per hour. This was also the first Ferrari offered from the factory without wire wheels, opting instead for competition-inspired alloy wheels. Unfortunately, many owners replaced these with more traditional wires after the fact. It regularly places well on lists of the best sports cars of the 1960’s, and we can’t help but agree.

Photo Credit: Artcurial

5.) 1967 Chevrolet Corvette

Auctioned For: $850,704

Details: 1967 was the end of the line for the Sting Ray, but by then it had reached its development peak. These are considered the best of the C2-generation Corvettes for a number of reasons which include: cleaner, more refined styling, Rally wheels instead of wheel covers, and the very-nearly-racing-spec L88 engine option. The L88 was factory rated to produce 430 horsepower, though in reality that number was closer to 560. When buyers checked the L88 box on the order form, they were required to check another few boxes as well, including a Positraction differential, beefed-up suspension and brakes, and radio and heater delete. These cars were very much barely street-legal race cars, and the public knew it, only ordering 20 in 1967.

Photo Credit: Popup Pistons

4.) 1970 Plymouth Hemi ‘Cuda

Auctioned For: $899,000

Details: Whoever originally bought this car knew they were getting something special, and rare. Only 652 Hemi ‘Cudas were built in 1970, and this one was sold with only 76 original miles on the clock. It has the legendary Mopar 426 Hemi V8 under the hood, and puts down 425 horsepower.

Photo Credit: SuperCars.net

3.) 1937 Alfa Romeo 2300MM

Auctioned For: $1,200,000

Details: We covered this famous Alfa Romeo when it went across the virtual block in 2009. It has an illustrious past, having raced in the Mille Miglia, with professional chauffeur Ercole Boratto at the wheel. Who did Mr. Boratto usually drive around in the car, you ask? None other than the car’s original owner, Benito Mussolini. So not only do you get an extremely rare, vintage race car, you get a part of history.

2.) 1933 Duesenberg SJ Speedster

Auctioned For: $2,600,000

Details: Only 36 supercharged versions of Duesenberg’s Model J (hence “SJ”) were made between 1932 and 1937. They produced 320 horsepower, and were reported to have been able to do 104 miles per hour in second gear. About half of all Duesenberg Model Js were bodied in-house, the others were sent out to different coachbuilders around the world at their owner’s discretion. No two look alike.

Photo Credit: Supercars.net

1.) 1959 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder

Auctioned For: $3,260,100

Details: The 250 California Spyder has pretty much everything you could want in a Ferrari. Columbo-designed V12 up front, beautiful lines, no roof- the list goes on and on. This car is a long wheelbase model, making it slightly larger than the forever famous 250 California of Ferris Bueller fame. It shares its engine with the 250 Tour de France, with 237 horsepower. A racing version won the GT class at Sebring that year. Only 45 examples were made, with no two exactly alike, before Ferrari switched production to the short wheelbase model a year later.

Source: vintagenews.com

Loadmaster Generals - 1959 Chevrolet Parkwood, 1959 Pontiac Bonneville Safari

Click Here to read this post and view more photos.

Source: hemmings.com

The 50 Worst Cars Of All Time

As the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry.

Full List

Source: time.com

1975 Bricklin SV1

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time

The only Bricklin I ever sat in caught on fire and burned to the axles. This is notably ironic, since the car's creator — the smooth-talking Malcolm Bricklin — didn't include an ashtray or lighter in the car, to discourage smoking. Despite its hand-removing, 100-lb. gullwing doors, the SV1 was supposed to exemplify the safer car of the future; the name stands for "Safety Vehicle 1." The bodies were made of brightly colored, dent-resistant plastic, like PlaySkool furniture. Another safety feature: incredible, crust-of-the-Earth-cooling slowness. All those resin panels and compressible bumpers added hundreds of pounds that the emissions-limited V8's couldn't handle. This thing couldn't outrun the Rose Bowl Parade. Less than 3,000 of the wedgy
coupes were built, but Malcolm Bricklin was far from through, as we'll see.

Source: time.com

1974 Jaguar XK-E V12 Series III

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time

The 1961 Jaguar E-Type was heavenly, a dead-sexy, 150-mph supercar, a stiletto heel to the heart of any car-loving man. By 1974, it had morphed into this, this thing. In order to compensate for power-sapping emissions controls required in the U.S., the car's primary export market, Jaguar discontinued the reliable 4.2-liter six for an anchor-heavy 5.3-liter V12, which was a total bitch to try to keep in tune and made the car nose-heavy besides. Jaguar also discontinued the elegant fixed-head coupe and offered the car only as a long wheelbase 2+2 or convertible. Imagine taking one of the world's most beautiful cars and sticking it in a taffy puller. Not finished ruining the lines, Jag plumped up the fenders, spoiling the smooth, aero-sleek contours of the original. The piece de resistance, Jag affixed hideous rubber bumpers — Dagmars, really — in a lame attempt to meet 5-mph bumper standards. To which car enthusiasts can only say, "You ba@#*&ds!"

Source: time.com

1971 Ford Pinto

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time;

They shoot horses, don't they? Well, this is fish in a barrel. Of course the Pinto goes on the Worst list, but not because it was a particularly bad car — not particularly — but because it had a rather volatile nature. The car tended to erupt in flame in rear-end collisions. The Pinto is at the end of one of autodom's most notorious paper trails, the Ford Pinto memo , which ruthlessly calculates the cost of reinforcing the rear end ($121 million) versus the potential payout to victims ($50 million). Conclusion? Let 'em burn.

Source: time.com

1971 Chrysler Imperial LeBaron Two-Door Hardtop

The 50 Worst Cars of All Time

As the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry

The glamorous Imperial marque was, by the late '60s, reduced to a trashy, pseudo-luxury harlot walking the streets for its pimp, the Chrysler Corporation. By 1971, only the Imperial LeBaron was left and it shared the monstrous slab-sided "fuselage" styling of corporate siblings like the Chrysler New Yorker and the Dodge Monaco. Appearing to have been hewn from solid blocks of mediocrity, the Imperial LeBaron two-door is memorable for having some of the longest fenders in history. It was powered by Chrysler's silly-big 440-cu.-in. V8 and measured over 19 ft. long. The interior looked like a third-world casino. Here we are approaching the nadir of American car building — obese, under-engineered, horribly ugly. Or, it would be the nadir, except for the abysmal 1980 Chrysler Imperial, which had an engine cursed by God. The Imperial name was finally overthrown in 1983.

Source: time.com

1970 AMC Gremlin

American Motors designer Richard Teague — remember that name — was responsible for some of the coolest cars of the era. The Gremlin wasn't one of them. AMC was profoundly in the weeds at the time, and the Gremlin was the company's attempt to beat Ford and GM to the subcompact punch. To save time and money, Teague's design team basically whacked off the rear of the AMC Hornet with a cleaver. The result was one of the most curiously proportioned cars ever, with a long low snout, long front overhang and a truncated tail, like the tail snapped off a salamander. Cheap and incredibly deprived — with vacuum-operated windshield wipers, no less — the Gremlin was also awful to drive, with a heavy six-cylinder motor and choppy, unhappy handling due to the loss of suspension travel in the back. The Gremlin was quicker than other subcompacts but, alas, that only meant you heard the jeers and laughter that much sooner.

Source: time.com

1961 Corvair

Rear-engine cars are fun to drive and even more fun to crash. While rear-engine packaging offers enormous advantages, putting the vehicle's heaviest component behind the rear axle gives cars a distinct tendency to spin out, sort of like an arrow weighted at the end. During World War II, Nazi officers in occupied Czechoslovakia were banned from driving the speedy rear-engined Tatras because so many had been killed behind the wheel. Chevrolet execs knew the Corvair — a lithe and lovely car with an air-cooled, flat-six in the back, a la the VW Beetle — was a handful, but they declined to spend the few dollars per car to make the swing-axle rear suspension more manageable. Ohhh, they came to regret that. Ralph Nader put the smackdown on GM in his book Unsafe at Any Speed, also noting that the Corvair's single-piece steering column could impale the driver in a front collision. Ouch! Meanwhile, the Corvair had other problems. It leaked oil like a derelict tanker. Its heating system tended to pump noxious fumes into the cabin. It was offered for a while with a gasoline-burner heater located in the front "trunk," a common but dangerously dumb accessory at the time. Even so, my family had a Corvair, white with red interior, and we loved it.

Source: time.com

1961 Amphicar

A vehicle that promised to revolutionize drowning, the Amphicar was the peacetime descendant of the Nazi Schwimmwagen (say it out loud — it's fun!). The standard line is that the Amphicar was both a lousy car and a lousy boat, but it certainly had its merits. It was reasonably agile on land, considering, and fairly maneuverable on water, if painfully slow, with a top speed of 7 mph. Its single greatest demerit — and this is a big one — was that it wasn't particularly watertight. Its flotation was entirely dependent on whether the bilge pump could keep up with the leakage. If not, the Amphicar became the world's most aerodynamic anchor. Even so, a large number of the nearly 4,000 cars built between 1961 and 1968 are still on the road/water. In fact, during the recent floods in Britain, an Amphicar enthusiast served as a water taxi, bringing water and groceries to a group of stranded schoolkids. Bully!

Source: time.com

1958 Lotus Elite

Fiberglass was the '50/s carbon fiber — tough, versatile, lighter than steel and more affordable than aluminum. The Kaiser Darrin and Corvette sports cars were wrapped in fiberglass bodies, for instance. Colin Chapman, the founding engineer of Lotus, was bonkers for weight savings. It was inevitable that he would be drawn to the material. And so, the Elite. Weighing just 1,100 lbs and powered by a punchy, 75-hp Coventry Climax engine, the Elite (Type 14) was a successful race car, winning its class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times. It was also a lovely little coupe, which made the moment when the suspension mounts punched through the stressed-skin monocoque all the more pathetic. The unreinforced fiberglass couldn't take the structural strain. In Chapman's cars, failure was always an option.

Source: time.com

1958 Ford Edsel

That's why we're all here, right? To celebrate E Day, the date 50 years ago when Ford took one of the autodom's most hilarious pratfalls. But why? It really wasn't that bad a car. True, the car was kind of homely, fuel thirsty and too expensive, particularly at the outset of the late '50s recession. But what else? It was the first victim of Madison Avenue hyper-hype. Ford's marketing mavens had led the public to expect some plutonium-powered, pancake-making wondercar; what they got was a Mercury. Cultural critics speculated that the car was a flop because the vertical grill looked like a vagina. Maybe. America in the '50s was certainly phobic about the female business. How did the Edsel come to be synonymous with failure? All of the above, consolidated into an irrational groupthink and pressurized by a joyously catty media. Interestingly, it was Ford President Robert McNamara who convinced the board to bail out of the Edsel project; a decade later, it was McNamara, then Secretary of Defense, who couldn't bring himself to quit the disaster of Vietnam, even though he knew a lemon when he saw one.

Source: time.com

1957 King Midget Model III

The King Midget story reminds us what a middle-class nation the U.S. was in the '50's. Claud Dry and Dale Orcutt, of Athens, Ohio, buddies from the Civil Air Patrol, wanted to sell bare-boned utility car that anybody could afford, unlike that bloody elitist peacenik Henry Ford with his fancy Model T. King Midget's cars made the Model T look like a Bugatti Royale. In the late 1940's, they began offering the single-seat Model I as a home-built, $500 kit, containing the frame, axles and sheetmetal patterns, so that the body panels could be fabricated by local tradesmen. Any single-cylinder engine would power it. The result was a truly crap-tastic little vehicle, the four-wheel equivalent to those Briggs-and-Stratton powered minibikes. Amazingly, Midget Motors continued to develop and sell mini-cars until the late 1960's. The crown jewel was the Model III, introduced in 1957, a little folded-steel crackerbox powered by a 9-hp motor. Government safety standards, at long last, put the King Midget out of our misery.

Source: time.com

1956 Renault Dauphine

The most ineffective bit of French engineering since the Maginot Line, the Renault Dauphine was originally to be named the Corvette, tres ironie. It was, in fact, a rickety, paper-thin scandal of a car that, if you stood beside it, you could actually hear rusting. Its most salient feature was its slowness, a rate of acceleration you could measure with a calendar. It took the drivers at Road and Track 32 seconds to reach 60 mph, which would put the Dauphine at a severe disadvantage in any drag race involving farm equipment. The fact that the ultra-cheap, super-sketchy Dauphine sold over 2 million copies around the world is an index of how desperately people wanted cars. Any cars.

Source: time.com

1949 Crosley Hotshot

The first sports car produced in postwar America was a major hunk of junk. Actually, at 1,100 lbs and 145 in. long, the Crosley Hotshot was a minor hunk of junk, but at least it was slow and dangerous. A wondrously mangled and compacted Hotshot can be glimpsed in the 1961 driver's ed scare film Mechanized Death. The Hotshot was the work of consumer products pioneer Powel Crosley Jr., of Cincinnati, he of Crosley radio fame. But what he really wanted to do was build cars, which he did with middling failure until the doors closed in 1952. A Hotshot actually won the "index of performance" — an honor for the best speed for its displacement — at the 1950 Six Hours of Sebring, puttering around at an average of 52 mph. What killed the Hotshot was its engine, a dual-overhead cam .75-liter four cylinder, not cast in iron but brazed together from pieces of stamped tin. When these brazed welds let go, as they often did, things quickly got noisy, and hot.

Source: time.com

Welcome To The Jungle

Ever hear about a Commander Attilio Gatti and his "jungle yachts?" Picture a couple of streamlined semi-trailers, set up as luxury living quarters, cruising Darkest Africa in 1938 to 1940.

Here's a picture of one of the rigs on its way from the International Harvester factory where they were built, to New York City.

It appears that the truck and trailer are joined with some sort of flexible skin.

This image is from the website of the Wisconsin Historical Society, which has lots more pictures of these unique vehicles.

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Italian explorer Attilio Gatti cruised the Congo in elaborate “jungle yachts” during his 10th expedition to Africa between 1938 and 1940. As a sponsor of Gatti’s excursions, International Harvester took on the task of building these innovative luxury trailers, which were pulled by an International DS-30 tractor.

When joined together, the 40-foot-long trucks connected to make a five-room apartment with a tiled bathroom, a living room and an electric kitchen—creating a luxurious living space on wheels for Gatti and his wife. Another International D-15 vehicle “served as a permanent home for $35,000 worth of sound, photo and movie material,” according to an April 1940 edition of Harvester World.

“On our automotive power hangs the success of our venture in Africa,” Gatti said. “I let experience decide and took all International Trucks. I know they will give us great service.” And they did, inspiring International Harvester to sponsor another expedition in 1947 and ’48.

- See more at: http://www.internationaltrucks.com/trucks/experience/internationalattiliogatti#sthash.pv7cVqkg.dpuf

Source: internationaltrucks.com

The Lavish Jungle Yacht By International Harvester

The Jungle Yacht by International Harvester was created for and used by Italian explorer Commander Attilio Gatti and his wife, who both traveled extensively to the African Congo. According to Hemmings Blog, he used the Jungle Yacht as a deluxe apartment “for his 1937-1940 (his 10th) and 1947 (his 11th) expeditions” and “equipped them quite lavishly.”

Gattis expedition used two similar vehicles, designed by Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky, built in 1937 International Harvester D-35 chassis, was just over 13.4 feet long and weighed their courageous 9 tons. When used together at the camp they formed a luxurious five room living and was of course the heart of the expedition into the unexplored British Africa.

While still many common home lacked electricity as there was here and there was even air conditioning. Although the workshop, photo lab and Gattis loved amateur radio station was on the equipment list. The electricity is supplied by a 110 volt generator that was mounted behind the cab on the cars. The stream was also used to provide a 4500 volt electric fence that was put up to protect the expedition against attacks from wild animals with force.

But even the glamor around the explorers couple must have been startling. With your own Batman, it was probably not the couple Gatti who handled the daily chores without any time could be used for the expedition exploration.

Many of our readers will recall the glamorous “Jungle Yachts” of 1938-40-the elaborate trailers, streamlined as units with International truck chassis, which served as the nucleus of the 10th Gatti-African Expedition. In that supposedly “final” venture Commander Gatti and his gallant wife toured the Belgian Congo.
The Jungle Yachts, joined together in camp as a de luxe 5-room apartment on wheels, served as headquarters while the expedition ‘s personnel sought out the secrets of the dim heart of Africa. The story of that expedition was told in an International Harvester motion picture which bas been shown to three million people, and also in various illustrated volumes written by the Gattis; Kamanda, Killers AII, and South of the Sahara, published by McBride; Saranga, the Pygmy, serialized by the Ladies’ Home Journal and issued in book form by Charles Scribner’s Song; Here is Africa, Meditrrranean Spotlights, and Here is the Veld, published by Scribner’s.

The blogger Rusty Blaze Hoff has compiled the info on their web http://laughingsquid.com/the-Lavish-jungle-yacht-by-international-harvester/. Visit it often and read the original text in English ..

Source: worldkustom.com

1937 REO Speedtanker

Here's a blast from the past that should have had a much larger impact; instead it's almost unknown. It was built on a 1937 REO chassis, a truck manufacturer in Lansing, Michigan. Plume is an Australian oil company, so I assume it was an Australian design. Can our Aussie friends tell us more about this wonderful device?

This first image is fairly well known, the others were very difficult to turn up. What is the monument by the truck?

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Source: dieselpunks.org

Folding House Becomes A Streamline Trailer (Dec, 1936)

Folding House Becomes a Streamline Trailer
For the motoring tourist who wants to carry his home along but wants no bulky trailer blocking his rear vision from the driver’s seat, a folding trailer has been developed. When collapsed for driving, it is streamlined to a point at the rear and is below the rear window of the car. Yet when open it is spacious enough for comfortable living quarters, accommodating a double bed and two single beds, stove, sink, refrigerator, water tank, drawers and cabinets. It is six feet two inches wide and thirteen feet four inches long. The single bed supports, when not used for sleeping, form service tables or comfortable side seats. During the day the double bed is latched to the top, out of the way. Springs set in the door frame counterbalance the weight and allow easy opening and closing of the trailer. Four folding legs adjustable for uneven ground make it steady wherever it is parked.

Source: blog.modernmechanix.com

Car-Trailer Combination (Feb, 1938)

Car-Trailer Combination
A radical departure in automobile design is represented by a streamlined automobile in which the body and frame are integral and which, it is claimed, increases safety in driving while combining all of the features of a pleasure car and trailer. The structure is streamlined and is 16 feet long and 6 feet 4 inches wide overall. The inside height is 6 feet 4 inches. The motor is in the rear and operates on the rear wheels. The car is suspended from variable pitch coil springs and has a cruising speed of fifty miles an hour. Its floor is 12 inches from the ground and the road clearance is 9-1/2 inches. This together with improved driver visibility, it is claimed, makes the car especially safe to drive.

Source: blog.modernmechanix.com

Rare Auction Of Vintage Muscle Cars Seized

In another time, a driver used the sleek orange 1970 Plymouth Superbird to deliver pizzas for a guy named George who dubbed himself the “Pizza King.” Like many Superbirds back then, it had a reputation as an unattractive workhorse of a car likely to hang around waiting for the right suitor to come along. “They were considered ugly back then and would just sit around dealerships,” said Jack “Crazy Jack” Struller, whose specialty is digging into the history of vintage cars like the Superbird.

But today, in a warehouse along Route 17 South, the Superbird was declared the prettiest ride of all, fetching a winning bid of $575,000 during a first-of-its-kind auction of vintage muscle cars run by the U.S. Marshals Service.

The nine cars up for sale today tallied $2.535 million in bids. The money will go toward paying off some $50 million in restitution owed by David Nicoll, the former president of Parsippany-based Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services. In June, Nicoll, 40, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Newark to running a seven-year-long bribery scheme that netted $100 million and led to the arrest of 16 doctors. Prosecutors say Nicoll paid off physicians to get them to send their patients’ blood specimens to his lab. During its long history, the marshals have sold off cars, homes, even horses, but never so many vintage cars “in one fell swoop,” said Juan Mattos, the U.S. Marshal for New Jersey.

“These were the mean machines built back in the ‘70's to rule the roads,” Mattos told the crowd before the bidding got underway at the warehouse for A.J. Willner Auctions. The winning bid for the Superbird went to Tod Oseid of Big Red Sports Cars in Illinois. Oseid conceded that at $575,000 he may have paid too much for a car with more than 63,000 miles on it but was confident he could find a buyer to put down even more. “There are people who have so much money this would change their net worth like me buying a cup of coffee,” Oseid said.

John Ursini of Long Island plunked down $315,000 for a 1969 Chevrolet Yenko Camaro, one of just 200 manufactured that year. It was Ursini’s first time at an auction and, after winning the Camaro, was asking Oseid for help finding someone who could transport the car back to New York. He said he has plans to “flip” it to a new buyer.“But I’m going to hold onto it for a while,” Ursini said. The Camaro got its name from Don Yenko, a race car driver from Pennsylvania who specialized in customizing Chevrolets with race-ready engines.

Yenko died in 1987 but his daughter, Lynn Yenko, has kept the family’s hand in the business. She was standing in front of a green 1969 Chevrolet Yenko Nova that had just sold for $400,000. When it first went on the market it sold for about $4,500, she said. “That’s some markup,” she joked. The third Yenko car up for auction today – a 1969 Chevrolet Yenko Chevelle – sold for $237,500. Looking out at the auction floor she paused to consider what her father might have thought.

Source: vintagenews.com

Mighty Muscle: Pontiac’s Tri-Power-Equipped 1958 Bonneville

Click Here to read the post and view more photos.

Source: hemmings.com

1960 Pininfarina X Heads To Auction

Zero point two-zero, or better than the Tatra T77 and almost as good as the GM EV1. That’s the coefficient of drag rating for the 1960 Pininfarina X, one of the most aerodynamic cars built and one of the oddest, thanks to its diamond-shaped wheel layout. It also makes it the most aerodynamically efficient vehicle to cross the block at next month’s Barrett-Jackson sale.
Other prototypes and even production cars used the unconventional diamond layout over the years. Sunbeam produced a hundred or so around the turn of the century, Wolseley and Voisin had each proposed such a vehicle before World War II, and a California tinkerer named H. Gordon Hansen designed and built his own Gordon Diamond by 1947, but all for different reasons. Hansen, for instance, designed his largely as a safety car and figured that the best way to fit a perimeter bumper to a car was to rearrange the positions of the wheels.
- See more at: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/12/24/diamond-layout-1960-pininfarina-x-heads-to-auction/?refer=news#sthash.h6uX0I9W.dpuf

Photos courtesy Barrett-Jackson.
Zero point two-zero, or better than the Tatra T77 and almost as good as the GM EV1. That’s the coefficient of drag rating for the 1960 Pininfarina X, one of the most aerodynamic cars built and one of the oddest, thanks to its diamond-shaped wheel layout. It also makes it the most aerodynamically efficient vehicle to cross the block at next month’s Barrett-Jackson sale.
Other prototypes and even production cars used the unconventional diamond layout over the years. Sunbeam produced a hundred or so around the turn of the century, Wolseley and Voisin had each proposed such a vehicle before World War II, and a California tinkerer named H. Gordon Hansen designed and built his own Gordon Diamond by 1947, but all for different reasons. Hansen, for instance, designed his largely as a safety car and figured that the best way to fit a perimeter bumper to a car was to rearrange the positions of the wheels.

Alberto Morelli had an entirely different purpose in designing the Pininfarina X, as Karl Ludvigsen wrote in Hemmings Sports & Exotic Car #53. A professor at Turin’s Polytechnic University, Morelli had a deep interest in aerodynamics as they applied both to aircraft and to automobiles. Coachbuilder Pininfarina (known as Pinin Farina up until 1960) approached Morelli and asked him to apply his research into something practical: an extremely efficient, low-drag family sedan.
The diamond layout that he chose allowed a narrow cross section at the front that widened toward the middle and tapered away toward the rear, an ideal aerodynamic shape, he argued. The front wheel would thus steer, the middles would serve as outriggers and the rear would drive the car. He chose a 43hp 1,089cc four-cylinder engine and four-speed transmission from a Fiat 1100 to power it (installed at an angle behind the right rear quarter panel and driving the rear wheel via a V-drive apparatus) and suspended it with synthetic rubber at each wheel. The fins at the rear, according to Ludvigsen and Morelli, had nothing to do with American automotive fashion; instead, they actually helped to counter the loss of stabilization that came as a result of the highly aerodynamic shape.

Pininfarina built Morelli’s concept, tested it extensively, and even drove it up to 90 MPH, about 20 percent faster than a stock Fiat 1100 was capable of. The company displayed it at the Turin Auto Show in November 1960 and at Brussels in 1961. Battista Farina reportedly shopped the X around to carmakers to see if they would built it, but found it a tough pitch. Perhaps that had something to do with Pininfarina asking Morelli to follow up the X with the Pininfarina Y, a two-door car with a similar aerodynamic shape but with a conventional rectangular wheel layout. That car, which was based on a Fiat 600 D and debuted at Turin in 1961, rated a coefficient of drag of 0.27 – better than pretty much any car on the road at the time, but not nearly as efficient as the Model X – seeming to prove that Morelli was onto something by selecting the diamond layout.

As for the X, it remained in Pininfarina’s possession until 2007, when Pininfarina’s museum sold the unrestored car. Three years later, collector car dealer Aero Toy Store in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, began to offer the X for sale, first on Hemmings.com for $1.35 million and shortly after on the company’s own site for $3 million. The X now will cross the block with no reserve.
Barrett-Jackson’s Scottsdale auction will take place January 10-18. For more information, visit Barrett-Jackson.com.
- See more at: http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2014/12/24/diamond-layout-1960-pininfarina-x-heads-to-auction/?refer=news#sthash.h6uX0I9W.dpuf

Click Here to read all about this vehicle and to view more photos.

Source: Hemmings.com.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Saturday, January 3, 2015

As the North American International Auto Show kicks off in Detroit, TIME and Dan Neil, Pulitzer Prize-winning automotive critic and syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, look at the greatest lemons of the automotive industry.

1899-1939

1940-1959

1960-1974

1975-1989

1990-Present

COMPLETE LIST

Source: time.com

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time

1 Of 50 Worst Cars Of All Time;

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