Forget E Vehicles...

[tous]

It was a strange sport.

First, locate an empty parking lot on a Saturday or Sunday.

Tell everyone to be there.

Note that this is way before email or texting.

Most of us, me included, just drove our automobiles  to the place, registered and put on our helmets.

Some changed tires, other trailered full-blown race cars to the competition.

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

[deputy tom]

32 minutes ago, tous said:

It was a strange sport.

First, locate an empty parking lot on a Saturday or Sunday.

Tell everyone to be there.

Note that this is way before email or texting.

Most of us, me included, just drove out automobiles  to the place, registered and put on our helmets.

Some changed tires, other trailered full-blown race cars to the competition.

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

We found out when and where the races were by phoning OUR-CARS. Then the fun began. tom.

[railfancwb]

3 hours ago, Borg warner said:

My Brother still has a 49 dodge 2 door sedan with a flathead six that he bought on line as a crate motor that was an industrial engine and he put a dual carb manifold on it and it will run at 70 mph all day long and gets reasonable gas mileage.

The straight 8's were smooth running engines and the Buick's were overhead valve and had a lot of power

Recall an article in the small format car magazines of the era describing a dragster powered with a hot Buick straight 8. Doubt this was a popular conversion as OHV V-8s were at hand. 

[railfancwb]

5 hours ago, Huaco Kid said:

Thirty years ago (?), I actually met a large group of near-graduating college kids that had been researching for a long while,  and had located a massive trove of the original VW bug manufacturing equipment.

They were planning on making exact Bug car,  but with electric motors.

Guess it didn't work out.

Wasn’t the equipment for manufacturing the original VW bug exported to Mexico and used there for a number of years to manufacture more of the classics?

[Huaco Kid]

3 hours ago, tous said:

It was a strange sport.

First, locate an empty parking lot on a Saturday or Sunday.

Tell everyone to be there.

Note that this is way before email or texting.

Most of us, me included, just drove our automobiles  to the place, registered and put on our helmets.

Some changed tires, other trailered full-blown race cars to the competition.

I enjoyed the heck out of it.

Run What Ya Brung

Take the air filter off of Mom's station wagon,  so it'd be faster!

[tous]

We frequently had folk just drop in when they saw the action in a parking lot.

We signed them up, took their money, lent them a helmet and away they went.

 

NB this was the age of bias-ply tires and on many occasions, tires would roll off the rim in a hard corner.

[Batesmotel]

2 hours ago, railfancwb said:

Wasn’t the equipment for manufacturing the original VW bug exported to Mexico and used there for a number of years to manufacture more of the classics?

And Brazil. The last Bugs were made in Brazil.

[railfancwb]

For a good number of years after Hudson ceased production, J C Whitney was selling the engines ready to use. Guess crate motors before the term was coined. 

[Borg warner]

5 hours ago, railfancwb said:

Recall an article in the small format car magazines of the era describing a dragster powered with a hot Buick straight 8. Doubt this was a popular conversion as OHV V-8s were at hand. 

The Olds overhead valve 303 cubic inch Rocket V8 came out in 1949 along with the 331 c.i.  Caddy V8 in 1950. And the overhead valve Buick Nailhead V8 came out in 1954 and was only 264  cubic inches and put out 143 HP, while the Buick straight 8 was also overhead valve and was 320 C.I. and put out 168 horsepower and that was 8 more horsepower than the 4 barrel 303 Olds of 1952.

And back in the early 50's the dual carbureted high compression Hudson 308 cubic inch six with 170 hp was competitive with the early V8's particularly in road racing. It wasn't until about 1957 when the V8's started putting out some serious horsepower with the 283 putting out 1 horsepower per cubic inch and the 1957 392 Hemi producing 375 horsepower

The straight 8 is an inherently vibration free configuration. A straight-eight can be timed for inherent primary and secondary balance, with no unbalanced primary or secondary forces or moments. However, crankshaft torsional vibration, present to some degree in all engines, is sufficient to require the use of a harmonic damper at the accessory end of the crankshaft.

Although an inline six-cylinder engine can also be timed for inherent primary and secondary balance, a straight-eight develops more power strokes per revolution and, as a result, will run more smoothly under load than an inline six. Also, due to the even number of power strokes per revolution, a straight-eight does not produce unpleasant odd-order harmonic vibration in the vehicle's driveline at low engine speeds.

 

 

[Hook]

On 4/29/2022 at 11:48 AM, deputy tom said:

What we need today is 1968 VW Beetles. tom.

Here you go Tom. Found these when I went to town after reading your thread. I dropped in and talked to the owner he said the yellow one is spicy. Also said he couldn’t imagine selling them. 

[Walt Longmire]

1 hour ago, railfancwb said:

For a good number of years after Hudson ceased production, J C Whitney was selling the engines ready to use. Guess crate motors before the term was coined. 

Last summer I sold a complete engine and tranny from a Huppmobile. Even still had the aoogha horn attached to the engine.

[Walt Longmire]

11 minutes ago, Hook said:

Here you go Tom. Found these when I went to town after reading your thread. I dropped in and talked to the owner he said the yellow one is spicy. Also said he couldn’t imagine selling them. 

Local subaru repair shop has a couple little matching cars. I don't remember the brand, but they claim one of them belonged to Travolta. 

[Borg warner]

2 hours ago, Hook said:

Here you go Tom. Found these when I went to town after reading your thread. I dropped in and talked to the owner he said the yellow one is spicy. Also said he couldn’t imagine selling them. 

Neither of those are 1968's because they don't have the ugly square bumpers.  The yellow one has round bumpers and glass enclosed sloped head lights and the blue one has round bumpers and what looks like might be surface mounted vertical headlights. which would make it a '67.

Nice looking cars though, and in very good condition for vehicles that are at least 55 years old and probably worth about 3-4 thousand each running or not. I remember back in the late 70's early 80's when you could find 60's beetles in good running condition for about 6-700 and beaters for a hundred or more.

Here's the difference between pre-68 bumpers and 68 and later bumpers:

[Batesmotel]

3 hours ago, Borg warner said:

I remember back in the late 70's early 80's when you could find 60's beetles in good running condition for about 6-700 and beaters for a hundred or more.

About the same time you could get fair a condition 356 for $5,000-6,000. One just sold for $247,000. 

[Wyzz Kydd]

I’ll stick with my 6.2 liter gas guzzling tire smoking American muscle car.

[DAKA]

Made a few Dune Buggys out of crashed VW's 

Used to scour the "Bone Yards" for them, the guys got to know me....."Hey, took in a good candidate for ya" no damabe to he running gear," We'd unbolt the body and lift it off just take the pan with the wheels

Junk yard still had the sheet metal   Win Win..

[Mj1956]

On 4/30/2022 at 9:29 AM, ChuteTheMall said:

After reading "Unsafe at Any Speed" I bought a '62 Corvair Monza and it handled great. It had no seat belts, never needed any.

The 62 Corvair was one of the cars I learned to drive in.  That was a fun car, dad drove it to work every day.  One day in early spring the road he was on was flooded, it was a long way back around so he drove right through a foot of water. He said he went slow and the rear wheels kind of paddled across. He said he was sure the front end was floating.  He kept the wheels straight and went like a hundred yards.  It was a cool little car….

[kerbie18]

Dumbest question ever

Are you okay?

Famous last words

[deputy tom]

14 hours ago, Hook said:

Here you go Tom. Found these when I went to town after reading your thread. I dropped in and talked to the owner he said the yellow one is spicy. Also said he couldn’t imagine selling them. 

Those bumpers indicate 1967 or earlier bugs. tom.

[Walt Longmire]

Just got home from test driving an F250 4x4 with the 460 engine. I'm on the fence about buying it due to already owning 3 pickups. Awful tempting though.

[Hook]

On 4/30/2022 at 10:48 PM, Borg warner said:

Neither of those are 1968's because they don't have the ugly square bumpers.  The yellow one has round bumpers and glass enclosed sloped head lights and the blue one has round bumpers and what looks like might be surface mounted vertical headlights. which would make it a '67.

Nice looking cars though, and in very good condition for vehicles that are at least 55 years old and probably worth about 3-4 thousand each running or not. I remember back in the late 70's early 80's when you could find 60's beetles in good running condition for about 6-700 and beaters for a hundred or more.

Here's the difference between pre-68 bumpers and 68 and later bumpers:

I found it strange there was a thread about beetles bug and then I seen these two. I’m no car guy at all I couldn’t tell anybody the difference between two cars by looking at a bumper. I just figured I’d post the photo. 

[Hook]

On 5/1/2022 at 9:52 AM, deputy tom said:

Those bumpers indicate 1967 or earlier bugs. tom.

I just figured I’d throw the photo up. 

[minervadoe]

When California mandates all electric vehicles, I predict that thieves are just going to drive up and down highway 5 and pick off all the stranded electric vehicles that didn't correctly calculate their range.  Off to the chop shop for the cars and empty your pockets for the marooned passengers.

Government mandated stupidity. 

[Borg warner]

34 minutes ago, minervadoe said:

When California mandates all electric vehicles, I predict that thieves are just going to drive up and down highway 5 and pick off all the stranded electric vehicles that didn't correctly calculate their range.  Off to the chop shop for the cars and empty your pockets for the marooned passengers.

Government mandated stupidity. 

What will be even more stupid is when California mandates all electric vehicles and they have to ration electricity because they won't build any new power plants and wind and solar will never be sufficient to meet the increased demand

[Huaco Kid]

4 hours ago, Borg warner said:

What will be even more stupid is when California mandates all electric vehicles and they have to ration electricity because they won't build any new power plants and wind and solar will never be sufficient to meet the increased demand

If you put a windmill one the top of the car,  couldn't it charge itself while blasting down the highway?