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15 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

1970's Ford Ranchero/Torino Extended Cab

1970's Ford Ranchero:Torino Extended Cab - 1.png

1970's Ford Ranchero:Torino Extended Cab - 2.png

Throughout this thread I see quite a few of these unfinished projects.

Do people Run out of money,  just get to a point and ask themselves "WTF was I thinking?" or do they just get tired of everyone in town laughing at them?

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On 3/1/2024 at 8:13 PM, Schmidt Meister said:

The Crawler-Crusher - Swamp Clearing Machine - Heaviest Tracked Amphibious Machine Ever Built - Operational In 4.1967.
Built to clear land, much of it swamp across Florida for the Cross Florida Barge Canal which was proposed to run from Jacksonville to Yankeetown.
At 306 US tons fully loaded and 204 US tons dry, the Crawler-Crusher is the fourth heaviest amphibious vehicle of all time. It is surpassed only by the Aist-class LCAC hovercraft at 302.8 metric tons fully loaded, the Saunders-Roe N.4 Mk.III passenger hovercraft, at around 320 metric tons, and the Zubr-class LCAC hovercraft, which can weigh over 500 tons when fully loaded. The Crawler-Crusher is by far the largest and heaviest tracked amphibian of all time, vastly surpassing all other conventionally (non-hovercraft) powered amphibious vehicles. For such a heavy vehicle, the Crawler-Crusher was surprisingly buoyant, able to float in just 7 feet 10 inches of water. In terms of overall dimensions, the Crawler-Crusher was 58 feet long, 24 feet wide, and 22 feet tall.
Able to mow over trees up to 6 feet in diameter, or as many as eight 2 foot diameter cypress trees at once, the Crawler-Crusher worked with such astonishing efficiency that it served as a rallying point for environmentalists.
You can read the story about the proposed canal and the Crusher-Crawler including much of the building plans of the machine at the link. Included in the article are canal maps and many patent papers for Crusher-Crawler.
The Crusher-Crawler failed miserably in its intended task in that it was supposed to push the downed, crushed trees and brush down into the mud, never to be seen again. The original study had been conducted using northern hardwood trees, while the trees along the intended route of the canal were mostly softwoods: gum, bay, pine, cedar, and cypress. As the softwoods sat under water or extremely wet ground, they would repeatedly rise back to the surface.

Very thorough article:
https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/crawler-crusher/

The Crawler-Crusher - Swamp Clearing Machine - Heaviest Tracked Amphibious Machine Ever Built - Operational In 4.1967 - 1.jpg

The Crawler-Crusher - Swamp Clearing Machine - Heaviest Tracked Amphibious Machine Ever Built - Operational In 4.1967 - 2.jpg

The Crawler-Crusher - Swamp Clearing Machine - Heaviest Tracked Amphibious Machine Ever Built - Operational In 4.1967 - 3.jpg

That looks like fun.

I wonder what is powering it. Those tracks probably take a bit of horsepower just to start them rolling.

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2 minutes ago, jmohme said:

That looks like fun.

I wonder what is powering it. Those tracks probably take a bit of horsepower just to start them rolling.

Curiosity got me and I looked it up.  I would have thought more than 540 HP, but with low enough gearing you can move the world.

"Propulsion for each track pod was provided by a Caterpillar D432 diesel engine, taken out of a Cat D8H bulldozer. Each engine produced 270 horsepower at the flywheel, for a total of 540 (FW) hp"

https://tanks-encyclopedia.com/crawler-crusher/

 

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14 minutes ago, tous said:

Who remembers the television show that featured this Jeep?

And who drove it?

'fess up, fossils.

:biggrin:

 

I didn't know, so I cheated and looked it up. I won't spoil it for others though.

 

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On 3/9/2024 at 5:42 PM, Eric said:

I didn't know, so I cheated and looked it up. I won't spoil it for others though.

 

That is not surprising.

That show was well before your time, heck, almost before my time.

We didn't get a TV set until 1955, I think, but I can still remember  sitting in my pajamas right in front of it watching that show, The Lone Ranger, My Friend Flicka, Fury and Sky King on Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal.

We were easily entertained back then.  :biggrin:

 

:fred:

 

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44 minutes ago, tous said:

That is not surprising.

That show was well before your time, heck, almost before my time.

We didn't get a TV set until 1955, I think, but I can still remember  sitting in my pajamas right in front of it watching that show, The Lone Ranger, My Friend Flock, Fury and Sky King on Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal.

We were easily entertained back then.  :biggrin:

 

:fred:

 

The earliest reruns I can remember watching with any regularity as a kid were mostly sixties or early seventies stuff, although there were exceptions. I'll never really understand the 1950s' fascination with the Wild West.

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Network television in the 1950s, early 1960s was mostly westerns and detective shows.

I guess they were the cheapest to make.

Generally sponsored by one company, so it wasn't unusual for a character to break the third wall and do an ad for the sponsor, then back to the story.

Most of the nonsense folk believe about the old West, such as gunfights in the main street between the black hat and white hat, were caused by television and movies of the time.

 

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8 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Was the picture made at either Roy Rogers Museum? 

I don't know. I didn't know it was related to Roy Rogers until I looked it up earlier. I can't imagine that the bike in the right margin of that picture has any ties to Roy Rogers though.

Below is another angle of that shot. The bike is a mid-eighties Honda Shadow (I think) and you can see the nose of a mid-sixties Continental at the right edge of the pic.

 

Screenshot 2024-03-09 at 8.11.05 PM.png

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10 minutes ago, tous said:

Network television in the 1950s, early 1960s was mostly westerns and detective shows.

I guess they were the cheapest to make.

Generally sponsored by one company, so it wasn't unusual for a character to break the third wall and do an ad for the sponsor, then back to the story.

Most of the nonsense folk believe about the old West, such as gunfights in the main street between the black hat and white hat, were caused by television and movies of the time.

 

That gave us Star Wars. 

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I had been to the museum in Victorville while Roy and Dale were still alive, and was fortunate enough to get a picture of him standing with my wife. I know a son moved the museum to Branson MO after their deaths. It did not do well financially there and the contents were eventually sold at auction. Exhibit photographed in Ely NV 10/22

IMG_9777.jpeg

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17 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Was the picture made at either Roy Rogers Museum? 

After  little research, it looks like the RR museum where the Jeep had been located was first moved to Branson, MO and then later closed. When I search for info on the Jeep, I got the info below, which is three years old:

Nellybelle was sold again in November 2018 by Julien's Auctions (for $38,400) in the same auction as Marilyn Monroe's 1956 Thunderbird ($490,000). In early 2019 the Jeep was exhibited at the San Diego International Auto Show with a placard (210K JPEG) indicating she was now part of the Coit Collection

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