Beautiful Cars & Trucks

railfancwb · September 7, 2022

13 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

1956 Volkswagen Beetle aka The “Berlin Buick”

IMO, this car is a beautiful ride that rolls out and sounds out sweet.

The “Berlin Buick,” as it’s called, started life as a 1956 Volkswagen Beetle. The motor is a 1961, 215 cubic inch aluminum block, fuel injected Buick V-8 engine which is mounted inside the passenger compartment where the rear seat would have originally been located.
This 1956 Volkswagen Beetle called “Berlin Buick” was built by Browns Metal Mods in New York.
At the recent Syracuse Nationals Hot Rod and Custom Car Show, the car was selected as a winner and hi-lighted in the prestigious Designers Dozen display.
The original concept of this VW-Buick combination is a long time dream of Rob Freeman from Watertown, who is the owner and designer. Mr. Freeman selected Brown’s Metal Mods to build this unique vehicle because of their notoriety, engineering and fabrication skills. The vehicle was constructed over a two year period and made its second showing at Syracuse in front of 100,000 spectators. The car’s two tone paint colors are tonic brown and ginger beer.
The Beetle uses a reinforced pan and rides on a custom independent suspension with RideTech air shocks. A custom tube chassis supports an all-aluminum Buick 215 V8 that produces 250-275 horsepower with a Hilborn injection stack and exhausts through straight headers that exit under the rear windows.
Running the autocross at Columbus: (This thing sounds so badazz)

There was a story in one of the hot magazines of long ago suggesting that a 283 Chevy in the back seat, covered with pretend luggage (one piece of fiberglass) would make a great sleeper for stoplight drags. Art rather than photographs as illustrations, so I don’t know that it was built.

janice6 · September 8, 2022

4 hours ago, railfancwb said:

There was a story in one of the hot magazines of long ago suggesting that a 283 Chevy in the back seat, covered with pretend luggage (one piece of fiberglass) would make a great sleeper for stoplight drags. Art rather than photographs as illustrations, so I don’t know that it was built.

Back in the early 60's I came out of work and walked to my car in the parking lot. Right next to me was a chopped up VW with a 327 ci Chevy sitting in the center front. The driver was behind old front seat location with the shifter. Bigger tires obviously. A chop job, but it was being driven.

They had square tubing all over the floor pan.

I would have been scared to run that in traffic. I have a lead foot and a quick start problem.

**jmohme** · September 8, 2022

10 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

1929 BMW Ihle 600

Wow! They even had that butt ugly grill way back then!

Schmidt Meister · September 8, 2022

Correction - I had the wrong make/model on this picture earlier.

1972 Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4 Daytona (Shooting Brake) Panther

**Eric** · September 9, 2022

Nice.

tous · September 9, 2022

That thing gotta Hemi?

Schmidt Meister · September 9, 2022

Bootlegger ...

**DAKA** · September 9, 2022

15 hours ago, Schmidt Meister said:

Correction - I had the wrong make/model on this picture earlier.

1972 Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4 Daytona (Shooting Brake) Panther

Will a coffin fit in there ?

Schmidt Meister · September 10, 2022

1977-1979 Firebird Type K

The original Camaro/Firebird F-Body platform was barely off the drawing board when General Motors stylists began toying with sporty station wagon versions of the pony car package. The idea just seems natural, intuitive somehow. While this example, the 1977-1979 Firebird Type K, wasn’t GM’s first F-Body experiment in station wagons, it is by far the best known.
Based on the clean second-generation Firebird body shell sculpted by famed GM designer Bill Porter, the wagon variant was styled by another accomplished GM studio man, Gerry Brochstein. The K stands for Kamm tail, a reference to the abrupt chop at the rear of the body, which reduces aerodynamic drag. While the rear glass was fixed in place, a pair of glass side hatches hinged in gullwing fashion allowed full access to the rear cargo compartment, which was nicely trimmed in carpeting with bright metal rub strips. (Seen in the overhead shot of the silver K-body)
In 1977, GM commissioned Italian coachbuilder Pininfarina to build two working prototype vehicles with steel bodywork, one silver and one gold, though the silver Type K seems to have gotten all the glory. Both cars, born as 1978 production Firebirds, were reportedly equipped with the 403 CID, 185 hp V8 (an Olds division engine, actually) with shaker hood scoop and screaming-chicken hood decal. The Type K was displayed around the country including at the Chicago Auto Show.
The silver K Type took a bow before the television cameras in March of 1979, appearing in a two-part episode of The Rockford Files, “Never Send a Boy to Do a Man’s Job.” Rockford star James Garner, a certified car guy and a Firebird fan in real life, didn’t much care for the wagon, it’s said. Instead, the car was driven in the episode by the character Odette Lependieu, played by Trisha Noble. In The Rockford Files role, the Type K has been updated with a 1979 Trans Am nose, as shown in the GM publicity photo with Garner and journalist and PR guru Eric Dahlquist.
As we know, the K Type never made it to the showrooms. Production studies showed the Pininfarina wagon would need to be priced in the $25,000 range, far too expensive to sell in any useful number.