Topic: Shop stories!

[754]

Trabant

[dave500]

trabant=cadillac glove compartment?

[Terry in Australia]

it looks like its from a monopoly set?they had some spare cardboard so made some people out of it(better than the real ones?)

Yeah, I think the problem was they couldn't get real people to look at that car and smile Dave, so they had to photograph them looking at a proper car and then make cardboard cutouts to put next to that POS Euro trash car..........

[dave500]

that proper car was a galaxie wasnt it terry?
Restoration Blog: 1966 Ford Galaxie, Ultimate Edition - Jay Leno's Garage

[754]

My kids bus driver sold a Ford to Jay..probably that car..

[Terry in Australia]

that proper car was a galaxie wasnt it terry?
Restoration Blog: 1966 Ford Galaxie, Ultimate Edition - Jay Leno's Garage

I'd reckon so mate, those Galaxie's were beautiful! Not as efficient as Daf's though, just to be fair to our Dutch friends.........

[01Thomas]

DKW. I don't know about "well into the 60's" but they became known for their 2-stroke cars - and reverse opening doors.

Seriously, did any other major car manufacturer produce a two-stroke engined auto well into the '60s?

[70CB750]

One of my electronics teachers had a one-liner: they call them Saabs because that's what the guy did when he found out his new car only had three cylinders; sob.
Seriously, did any other major car manufacturer produce a two-stroke engined auto well into the '60s?

Wartburg:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wartburg_%28car%29

Same as Trabant, it died shortly after the wall came down.

[Deltarider]

See below how happy (and fresh) the family (of five!) seems (dad smoking) having reached the Côte d'Azur. To further inform you: that car has always the subject of many jokes here, although it's successor the 55 with a similar variomatic has won serious rallies. For disabled and old people the earlier Daf 600 or Daffodil was a blessing. A modest 600cc two cilinder engine BUT... thanks to Van Doorne's ingenious Variomatic from 0-50 it out accelerated practically every sportscar next to you. I remember I could always stop at a traffic light up front in the 'wrong' lane. I was always away quickest.
BTW, did you know that the Variomatic allowed the car to reach it's topspeed also in reverse? It was why they held these funny races at circuits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7ipFApsFec
The CVT was also a Van Doorne invention and you'll find them in many useful cars today, maximizing enginelife and offering a very modest fuel consumption.
For Americans in those days fuel efficiency didn't matter at all. No tax, and via the Bretton Woods construction of the dollar, Europeans paid for it (read Barry J. Eichengreen's Exorbitant privilege: the rise and fall of the dollar (2011)). Don't worry, he is an American all right.
The motto in those days was: let's live it up, boy, we can print as much dollars as we like. It's only paper and them suckers overthere back it. It even allows us to go abroad and fight an enemy that doesn't exist. Wasn't that fun?
There must be some great inventions in the American automotive industry but right now I can't think of anything but electric gadgets. Now I come to think of it, how could I forget?! Out stands the greatest invention of them all: the glorious cupholder. Can't wait they'll modify it to a somewhat bigger size so it can contain that other great invention: the Big Gulp. And the circle is round again, my friends: the overweight american car: a blessing for the obesed.
But for some silly reason Henry Fords photograph pleases me more.

[Bailgang]

I was one of the few fortunate owners to have one of GM's finest creations, the glorious Fiero GT with its almighty 2.8 v6 .......... oh what an absolute piece of sh#t that car was. To make a very long story short it went through 3 ECU's on a trip to Minnesota and back, fortunately it was still under warranty but I still got nailed with a serious hotel bill waiting for the car to be repaired each time.

My youngest son got briefly disillusioned with the idea of owning one for himself many years later and I promptly told "Don't even think about it".

[Deltarider]

a two-stroke engined auto well into the '60s?

If I remember well the Greyhound busses still had two stroke diesels then.
Two stroke in itself isn't automatically bad btw. I've read about an Australian who had re-invented the 2-stroke with less pollution.
DKW (Germany) had good and fast two-strokes. On the back it said proudly 3=6, their way of advertising that with only 3 cylinders you had the power of a 4-stroke six cylinder.
Also that little Saab, two-stroke or not, was very succesful in rallies. Can't think of an American car that won a rally ever. The Corvair maybe... the Edsel?

[bjbuchanan]

a two-stroke engined auto well into the '60s?

If I remember well the Greyhound busses still had two stroke diesels then.
Two stroke in itself isn't automatically bad btw. I've read about an Australian who had re-invented the 2-stroke with less pollution.
DKW (Germany) had good and fast two-strokes. On the back it said proudly 3=6, their way of advertising that with only 3 cylinders you had the power of a 4-stroke four cylinder.
Also that little Saab, two-stroke or not, was very succesful in rallies. Can't think of an American car that won a rally ever. The Corvair maybe...?

Popular mechanics featured that redone two stroke. It is a tiny mountain of power but right now the tech to produce large scale is wayyyy cost prohibitive. 2-stroke isn't "bad" it is just hard to make them clean compared to a 4 stroke, but we all know that anyways

Corvair won some of the more oddball at the time stuff out there, maybe a rally, I'm not sure. It is tough to dredge up stuff on them unless you really want to research it. I always say that everybody forgot about it. Hard to think over a million were made/sold and it still was forgotten...



For the Shop Stories: I had stopped over to see my dad at the dealership he worked at at the time. I had been cleaning up a gokart with cast of parts laying around the shop, favors from the mechanics, that kinda stuff and there was a new guy there. He was probably my age at the time (17), straight out of BOCES mechanics program.

Well they had a cadillac that wouldn't pump windshield washer fluid so he thought well hell let me check to see if the reservoir is blocked down low. He only had a lighter on him and before anybody could yell out we watched a fireball come out and burn his eyebrows up. It was hilarious and the kid was so pissed, like we should have warned him or something. Apparently he forgot active ingredient is METHANOL

[Bailgang]

I'm not a diesel whiz but many Detroit diesels were 2 strokes from V to inline configs used from anything from bus engines to semi truck/lorry engines. The 71 series 2 stroke diesel engines were popular, for any old school drag racers out there that's the engine early top fuel boys nabbed the superchargers off of to put on their dragsters which is where I think the 6-71, 8-71 and so on reference to roots type superchargers originally comes from.

[dusterdude]

You gots it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[754]

My brother in law has a BORGWARD....not a 2 Stroke..but a seldom seen car..

[Bob Wessner]

Since this is a multi-national forum I would suggest that opinions be expressed without bashing other member's homes.

[Deltarider]

My brother in law has a BORGWARD....not a 2 Stroke..but a seldom seen car..

I remenber I was 7 years old and my father, who was about to buy another car, had brochures displaying the Borgward Isabella (a German quality car). Me and my brother were hoping he would buy one. Instead he choose the dreary Opel (GM) Rekord, snif, snif. My father dissapointed us before. He had brought home a Landrover brochure. We couldn't sleep. He bought an Opel Olympia.
Then... he was about to buy a Peugeot 404. We were so excited because we knew all Peugeots came with a sunroof standard and we already dreamt of having our heads out in the riding wind. Our 404 turned out to be an exception: it didn't have one. It was a special built for the tropics. I couldn't believe it. There was no logic. For the rest I had a happy childhood.

[70CB750]

My father's first car was Kübelwagen, he tried to get Schwimmwagen,  but the city did not allow him to have one for some esthetic reasons or whatnot.

Anyway, our family car around 1970.

[MoMo]

My father's first car was Kübelwagen, he tried to get Schwimmwagen,  but the city did not allow him to have one for some esthetic reasons or whatnot.

Anyway, our family car around 1970.

small family Prokop? or all the govt. would allow?...Larry

[70CB750]

2 adults, 3 kids. It was hard to buy a new car,  there were waiting lists and quotas.

I dont remember the car as small, I am sure it was,  but it was the cooles car in our neighborhood.

[MoMo]

2 adults, 3 kids. It was hard to buy a new car,  there were waiting lists and quotas.

I dont remember the car as small, I am sure it was,  but it was the cooles car in our neighborhood.

It is cool-almost looks amphibious

[72 yellow]

My father's first car was Kübelwagen, he tried to get Schwimmwagen,  but the city did not allow him to have one for some esthetic reasons or whatnot.

Anyway, our family car around 1970.

Fore runner of the VW Thing.....

[DH]

Circa 1954. My dad's 1946 ford. Eqipped with a '50 merc flat head v8
and a 4 barrel. The old man, about 17 years old, loved to street race.
He somehow rigged the shift tube on the column so that the shift lever was relocated to the left side of the column. The old man is left
handed, so this worked out well. Only thing was, the shift pattern for
all the gears was now a backwards "H". reverse down, low up, sec
ond down, high up. One day, grandma decides to go to the store, and
take the hot rod. She is unaware of how to shift, puts it in what used to be reverse (but is now low), releases the clutch and drives it thru the back garage wall...Grandpa was very unhappy
That's the way I heerd' it anyway.

[HondaMan]

and a 1967 2-door fastback Galaxie LTD, a very cool car. Need to sell one or two, out of space!

When I still lived in town a few years back there was an old guy who lived at the end of the street.
He had a '66 Galaxy 500 7 liter.  Red on red.  It was immaculate. He bought it new.
On nice days he used to pull it out in the driveway. (Like Clint Eastwood in Grand Torino!)
Only he was much nicer.    
Never saw him drive it anywhere.
He wasn't interested in selling it. I asked, just like everyone who saw the car....

Did you know about the [in]famous "335 HP rule" in those days? If you can find the old sales brochures from the 1962-1969 era, you will see myriad cars with the monster engines in them, all rated at "335 HP". The now-eternal 427 engines (aka "7 Liter series") that found their way into the family Galaxie like the one you're describing made nearly 500 HP with a single 4bbl carb.

Here was the 'rest of the story': when the HP race between Ford, GM, and MOPAR got heavy after the 1964 Galaxie 500 with SOHC 427 was banned from NASCAR racing (reason: it made 250 HP more than any of the other cars), Ford decided to take it 'to the people' to decide if this was a good idea or not. Ford offered their FE block in not less than 11 configurations, ranging from the lowly 332 CID of Edsel fame (130 MPH) to the 428 SCJ (700 dyno HP) of the limited-production Mustangs between 1964 and 1970. GM and MOPAR responded in kind with the 413 Hemi growing to 426 CID and GM creating the monster 454 HP versions. The death toll and property damage on Saturday nights became a real issue by 1965, so insurance companies declared they would either not insure a car with more than 335 advertised HP, or would charge almost 4x as much. And, if the driver was under 21 years of age in some States (18 in many others), they would not insure such an engined car at all.

So, beginning in 1965, Ford offered such amazing cars as the tiny Mercury Comet or Ford Fairlane (same body), along with the Mustang, with their FE in 5 versions: the 390 HP (aka the 390 "X"), the 410 Mercury, the 427 pushrod (convertible via the "SOHC kit" at your local dealer to the full-build overhead cam version), and the "mild" 428 CID. The least of these, the 390 "X", which I had in my 1963 Galaxie convertible, was solid lifter, 700 CFM carb, dual exhausts, 270 degree cam duration, and around 405 HP. The SOHC 427 with 2 4-bbl carbs aboard ran 850 HP at 8500 RPM (that's NOT a typo, 8500 RPM with 4.25" pistons) at the other end of the spectrum.

In 1966 came the famous 7-Liter series, which had the 427 pushrod engines (some were also 428) in the 2-door Galaxie. The 427 version's sales suffered for the poor MPG (10 in town) but the 428 version with a 600 CFM Holley made it better at 12 MPG. Near me today is one hobbyist who has an all-original 427 CID 7-liter version, in blue and white, a real show-stealer. Another friend has a whole corral of 427 and 428 Fairlanes, including a 1964 Thunderbolt with the pushrod 427 and two 650 CFM Holleys aboard. It only winds up to 6500 RPM, though (and only makes 710 HP on the dyno).

But all of these were advertised as having "335 HP".  GM and MOPAR did the same thing. 

I had a 64 500xl with the 390..........

Miss that car......

I'll bet!
Boy, do I ever miss my '63 Gal when I type this...my little brother ran it up a telephone pole's guywire one night, drunk. A$$hole....

[Don R]

 That might explain the 69 pontiac 400 HO motor rated at 335hp and my 69 Firebird  350HO was rated at 325hp.  It would stay side by side with a 400 GTO.  Before that I  had a 425 CI Buick wildcat 2 dr hardtop that would accelerate as fast as my buddies 389 tripower GTO. Of course, not on the street.