It's Back!

Cad, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Rumors of the old rusty Cadillac's demise were premature. It seems that the owner hooked it up to a tractor and pulled it around to the back of the barn, to facilitate the harvest season. It's now parked back out front, in almost the same spot as before.

Incidentally, it seems that in the meantime the owner has painted some greyish-blue primer onto some of the rustier spots, particularly on the hood and roof. So....is the restoration finally starting?

The Power Line

The Power Line, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Staging lanes at the drag races.

Way Out Of State Plate

Way Out Of State Plate, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

This is the only one of these I've ever seen. I wonder how common overseas forces plates are-I always thought they had to be returned when one left their overseas post, either leaving the car behind or importing it to the States.

Anyway, this one's appended to an old Porsche.

Hemi

Chrysler Fire Power, a photo by William 74 on Flickr.

Some engines are known by their numbers-289, 350, 427, 3.8 litre (that's a Jaguar). Some by their name-Flathead, Commando, Twin-Spark (that's an Alfa Romeo). But one seems to always tower above all the rest-Hemi.

In the broadest terms, a "hemi engine" is just an internal combustion engine with hemispherical combustion chambers at the top. This puts the intake and exhaust valves on opposite sides, providing a direct path for the gases to flow across the combustion chamber. It's an old design, dating to the early twentieth century, and plenty of illustrious manufacturers used the design. Alfa Romeo, Peugeot, Ford, BMW, Bristol, and the wonderful racing engines of Harry Miller all used this design. However, when you say the word "Hemi", one other word usually pops into your head-Chrysler (or maybe Dodge. Or Plymouth. Or DeSoto if you're weird).

Chrysler has been the largest, and arguably most famous, proponent of the hemi-head design. Best known in it's mid sixties 426 version, Chrysler's earliest hemis were introduced in 1951, to power the company's big luxury cruisers. Hot rodders and drag racers soon learned that these engines were quite a bit more powerful than the Ford flathead V-8, and they were easy to tune and able to take serious amounts of forced induction. In fact, these early engines were popular well into the sixties, after they ceased production-plenty of top flight drag racers were using them, running huge blowers and nitromethane on junkyard blocks.

This one's a Fire Power that I saw in a hot rod-I was told it came out of a '54 New Yorker.

Sometimes you feel a little low....

...and sometimes you feel reeeeeal low! Car customizing has been around for just about as long as cars-before that, really, since coachbuilders built coaches before cars. And I'm reasonably sure that the first owner of the deDion Bouton asked for custom paint and upholstery.

Anyway, car customizing in America became very popular in the immediate pre-war and postwar years, as young men sought ways to make inexpensive, often used, cars look newer, and more modern, and just plain unique. This could run the gamut from special paint all the way to reshaping panels, adding trim from other cars, radical lowering, and completely new upholstery. In some cases, it's hard to tell what the original car was.

This '39-ish Mercury coupe features quite a few tricks of the early custom car trade. It's been chopped (the roof lowered for a sleeker profile), the badges and trim removed (to partially hide the origin of the car), new wheels, and it's been lowered. It's a classic example.

¡Fuego!

A classic, subtle kustom Mercury. Well, as subtle as a car with flames painted on it can be.