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Four-Links – stolen Citroën, save this Minor, Franz Ferdinand’s car, hot rods gettin’ dirty

| пятница, 25 сентября 2009 г.

stolen 2CV

* I don’t want to make this a regular feature of the Saturday Four-Links, but this is the third week in a row we’ve come across a stolen car while putting the Four-Links together. In this case, it’s a 1987 Citroën 2CV, taken late last month from Rossendale, Lancashire, UK. There is a reward.

save this Morris Minor!

* Even though our cash for clunkers program is over, Britain’s appears to still be going on, and one of the cars turned in was this 1958 Morris Minor (Britain’s program had no upper age limit for clunkers). The good news: It won’t be scrapped. The Hyundai dealership that took it in and the scrapyard that was authorized to crush it both decided it shouldn’t be destroyed. The bad news: Britain’s c4c legislation prevents it from being sold abroad or put back on the road, so it’ll become a museum doorstop, should some museum swoop in and save it. Still better than the alternative.

Franz Ferdinand's Graf & Stift

*True story: The other day, I was reflecting upon the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and realized a) I didn’t know what kind of car he and Sophie were shot in, and b) I didn’t know the fate of that car. Then, queer coincidence, I came across this post on A Thing For Cars that answered both of those questions. Perhaps the curse of Franz’s Graf & Stift is reaching through the Internet to get me… (photo via Wikipedia)

dirt track racing hot rods in Germany

* A few weeks ago, we had a link to a vid of an old-school custom drifting in Finland, and now we’ve come across a link of several old-school hot rods kicking up dirt at an event in eastern Germany. We approve.

Jackpot AMX

* Finally, from Eddie Stakes, a brief story of a 1978 Concord AMX that served as a jackpot car at the Reno Harrah’s casino. Unfortunately, Eddie doesn’t know the fate of the car – anybody out there happen to win big in Reno in the late ’70s who can fill us in?



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Bill Burke meets the Bill Burke bellytank re-creation

| четверг, 10 сентября 2009 г.

Bill Burke bellytank re-creation alongside two other Burke-built cars at the NHRA museum

After the exhilaration of speeding around on the Bonneville Salt Flats with the Bill Burke bellytank re-creation, Geoff Hacker, who commissioned Ted Kempgens and Tom Bambard of Creative Motion Concepts to build the racer, made two final stops with it. First, a visit with Bill Burke himself, who provided plenty of input and details for Geoff’s build from a continent away. According to Geoff, Bill had a great time reminiscing over this tribute to his earliest work.

Next stop, and the final stop for now, the Wally Parks NHRA Motorsport Museum, where Geoff unloaded the bellytank re-creation for a display alongside two other Bill Burke-built cars – including the Pumpkin Seed – right inside the front doors. So if you’re in the area, make sure to head over to see all three.

Now Geoff has an empty trailer for his trip back to Florida. Or, at least, it won’t be empty for long…

Bill Burke looks over Geoff hacker's re-creation of Burke's first bellytank racerthe bellytank nose pokes out of the front door of the NHRA museumGeoff Hacker's re-creation of Bill Burke's first bellytank racer accompanies two other Burke-built racers in the NHRA museum

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Another pic of the Schenck streamliner surfaces

| суббота, 15 августа 2009 г.

Ralph Schenck streamliner

Longtime blog readers will recognize the car in the above photo as the Ralph Schenck streamliner, which I profiled back in December 2006. It’s a unique car that doesn’t garner as much attention as some other early dry lakes racers, but like those other early dry lakes racers, Strother MacMinn turned his camera on it and grabbed this photo of the streamliner at the January 1948 Hot Rod Exposition at the Los Angeles Armory.

Only thing is, Strother never developed the film before he died in January 1998. That task was left to Robert Ames, who bought several cansiters of undeveloped film from Strother’s estate a year later and who compiled some of the best of those photos in the book he and Ken Gross recently released, “Hot Rods and Custom Cars – Los Angeles and the Dry Lakes: The Early Years.” The placard in the photo reads “Heinrich & Seaton / Competition Streamliners / Mercury engine,” and the ‘liner still wears the nose Ralph Schenck put on it (rather than the tube-grille nose Heinrich and Seaton put on it, shown in the earlier post), so we now know Heinrich and Seaton made their modifications in 1948, either before or during the race season.

Robert and Ken’s book is full of amazing, rarely-seen photos like this, but they printed a very limited run of 1,000, so if you’re interested, order your copy sooner rather than later.



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Four-Links – Alice Ramsey road trip, Royal Enfield road trip, Bedrock Weekend, Bugatti collection

| вторник, 21 июля 2009 г.

Alice Ramsey road trip

* Alice Huyler Ramsey, a 22-year-old housewife, was the first woman to drive across the United States from coast to coast in June 1909. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the trip, two groups of women are following Ramsey’s tire tracks with a cross-continental trip of their own in a 1909 Cadillac and a 1915 Model T. Follow along on their blog to catch their progress.

Royal Enfield road trip

* Another road trip, this one across India and on the back of a Royal Enfield motorcycle. And because roadtripper Gary Richards works for Mack and Volvo, he took plenty of pics of the highly decorated trucks plying the narrow roads in India.

Bedrock Weekend

* No, of course I can’t read Danish, but the language of crazy hot rodder is universal, and the Danish hot rodders seem plenty willing to toss their rods around an old gravel pit and listen to some rockabilly, as evidenced by the photos from their recent Bedrock Weekend. (via)

Bugatti collection

* This is a world-traveling Four-Links. First America, then India, then Denmark, and now to France, where H.A.M.B.ster James D visited the Schlumpf Bugatti collection in Mülhouse. Of course, it’s not just Bugattis, but there’s certainly a lot of that deep blue around the place.

Renault Dauphine on a stick

* Finally, Bumbeck over at Clunkbucket found a topic near and dear to our hearts: small cars on a stick. In this case, it’s a Renault Dauphine in Bowling Green, Kentucky, being held up by a cartoonized transmission worker.



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