Tag: 1948

Hotrod Of The Dirt Track – Christopher Fussner @Wobcars 

Hotrod Of The Dirt Track – Christopher Fussner @Wobcars 

Advertisements

An older post from a while back, but it’s just a cool car so…

During twenty years of production (1908-1928) the Ford Motor Company produced a lump of 16.6 million Model T motor cars. A staggering number that still affords the Model T a place on the listings for most produced automobiles of all time. Ford built them quickly and cheaply to get Americans out on the road. Fast forward another twenty years, and you will find the popularity of the Model T is still lofty. Although America had long-since gained her license to drive and laid the pavement to do so, the soldiers returning home from the second world war discovered a reinvigorated passion for automobile modification and the Model T was the perfect starting point. With a surplus of spending money and spare parts from the mass-produced Model T inexpensive, ideas for enhancements to the platform took root and formed the foundation of hotrodding

Today on our auction block is a starling showcase of how early hotrodding and racing merged. The 1922 Ford Model T we have was initially built together and completed in 1948 by Tommy Garland of Buellton, California. Transformed from a coupe into a roadster the Model T was shaved of weight and heavily modified for dirt track racing, which it heavily competed in during the six years after its birth. Driving at tracks such as Old Ascot, Thunderbowl, Bakersfield, Porterville, and Lompoc, the Model T saw success. Still sporting its authentic 1950s blue livery complete with hand-painted numbers, sponsors, and the driver tag Chuck Hulse, who piloted this craft a decade before his years racing in the USAC Championship Car series this fast Ford is a time capsule.

Unfortunately, by the mid-1950s the roadster was ready for retirement. Placed into storage for thirty years the roadster was eventually put into a museum collection until 2016. RM Sotheby’s sold the car to the current seller who immediately turned it over to renown hotrod restoration expert Jimmy Shine. One hundred hours were put into the repairs and rehabilitation work that reinvigorated the mechanical components and discreetly added some engineering improvements. Under Shines watchful eye the brakes were restored, and the shock absorbers were also rebuilt. A few significant welds were refinished then aged to match the current state of patina. However, there are still several small areas of rust. Included with the sale are the original red painted wheels with dirt track tires from the 1950s plus the current gold painted mesh wire wheels that have new dirt track tires installed

Read on

Built With Speedway Motors: Rollin’s 1948 Ford – Joe McCollough @SpeedwayMotors

Advertisements

Rollin Willingham (pronounced “Raw-lin”) has a whole fleet of old cars that are ready to hop in and cruise, and each of them has its own soul and character. He calls this ’48 Ford Super Deluxe his “classy grocery getter.” But it wasn’t always that way.

Rollin’s ’48 has come a long way from being a multi-colored, barely running beater.

When Rollin got the sedan, it was anything but classy. He had just lost another of his classics to an accident that totaled it when a friend offered up this grungy sedan at a good price. Rollin snatched it up to fill the newly empty hole in his lineup. But the car he brought home was barely running, and really ugly. The body was covered in old red primer, and the fenders were a different color. “I like patina,” says Rollin, “but this thing was ugly.”

Rollin is a professional car builder by day, and he got to work immediately on his new sedan as his busy schedule allowed. With friends and club members by his side, he began to sort the car out mechanically. The 239-inch 59A flathead stayed under the hood, but Rollin used a Speedway Motors kit to add an alternator which, along with a replacement wiring harness, converted the car to run 12 volts. The stock driveline lives on behind the flatmotor, but everything was tweaked, tuned, and repaired by Rollin to make the car a reliable driver. The stock stance was brought down in the rear with longer spring shackles, and the radial tires on steelies help it to run straight down the Phoenix freeways.

The stock flattie lives on, even in the desert heat, thanks to a good fan and excellent maintenance.

Rollin straightened out the body and shot it with a fresh coat of hot rod flat black. A few dings and imperfections remain to remind him that this car is meant to be a driver and not a showboat. The effect is that of a classy car that can be driven anywhere without losing sleep over rock chips, door dings, and rogue shopping carts.

Read on

Tucker Car #50, the last Tucker automobile ever produced by Preston Tucker! – Preston Tucker’s Speed Shop

Advertisements

Mike Tucker, Preston Tucker’s great grandson, and Mark Lieberman, owner of Nostalgic Motoring, review the final preparations on Tucker #50 before it is mated to the last Tucker engine ever made (#98). Tucker #50, also know by its VIN #1050, was the last Tucker car produced and was “completed” sometime between December 31st, 1948 and October of 1950. It was sold at the Tucker bankruptcy auction in 1950 without an engine or transmission. Soon, it will be road worthy for the first time!

These prewar-to-postwar carryovers are elegant and relatively rare – Matt Litwin @Hemmings

Advertisements

When U.S. automobile production resumed after World War II, eager buyers scooped up warmed-over prewar models while advertising agencies cleverly avoided the phrase, “all new.”

Take Mercury, for instance. The division’s pitch for 1946 was “Step out with Mercury.” It was simple enough, and the mid-priced branch of Ford Motor Company promptly sold 86,603 cars. A year later, “More of everything you want” became the company’s slogan. Sure, the instrument panel dials had been updated, interior hardware was now finished in chrome (as was the grille surround), hub caps had been revised, and there was a new nameplate on the hood, but there was nothing “more” to Mercury. With little effort at the factory and the swipe of an artist’s brush, another 86,383 units were built during the model year.

By then, Mercury’s boardroom was aware that its vastly redesigned cars would be ready for production in late summer 1948. Thus, the ’48 Mercurys, like this Model 76 Club Convertible, entered showrooms with little fanfare.

The Club Convertible was now one of four body styles offered by Mercury, the others being a two-door Sedan Coupe, four-door Town Sedan, and a Station Wagon. In a calculated move, the exceptionally poor-selling two-door Coupe had been dropped in anticipation of the forthcoming redesign. Not unexpectedly, each retained the same grille design from the previous year, topped by running lamps flanking the pronounced hood. Front and rear fender trim was identical to that used a year prior, and a split windshield remained. The Club Convertible’s top was available in either “natural” or black-tinted fabric.

The 1948 line of Mercurys continued to utilize the division’s 239.4-cu.in. flathead V-8 engine, which had been upgraded a year prior with the use of lightweight, four-ring aluminum pistons, and carried a factory rating of 100 hp. Likewise, a column-shifted three-speed manual transmission was standard equipment. A full set of 12-inch hydraulic drum brakes managed stopping force, while passenger comfort was handled by “slow-acting springs” and shocks

Read on

The plane-like 1948 TASCO was the first car equipped with a T-top roof – Ronan Glon @Autoblog

Advertisements

One of the Chevrolet Corvette’s most popular features traces its roots to an obscure, airplane-like prototype built in 1948. Although the third-generation ‘Vette is widely credited as being the first production car equipped with a T-top roof, the system was inaugurated by Gordon Buehrig’s one-of-a-kind TASCO prototype and patented in 1951.

Born in 1904, Buehrig was an accomplished stylist and engineer whose resume included the Auburn 851 Speedster, the coffin-nosed Cord 810/812, and several variants of Duesenberg’s Model J. Shortly after World War II, he was commissioned by The American Sports Car Company (TASCO) to create — you’ll get no points for guessing this — an American sports car. He drew a two-seater with a long hood and a short deck, proportions associated with grand tourers, but he injected an unusually large dose of aerospace DNA into the design.

Read on

Note from Editor

I actually saw this car a few years ago along with a lot of other Buehrig artefacts at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg museum in Auburn Indiana link here

 

 

Chevrolet Assembly Plant Grand Opening Van Nuys, California — The Old Motor

Advertisements

In light of the recently announced closures of General Motors passenger car assembly plants at Lordstown, Ohio, and Hamtramck, Michigan we decided to take a look at two assembly plants GM has closed in the past. The new Chevrolet plant at Van Nuys, CA, located 22-miles northwest of Los Angeles and the GM plant in…

via Chevrolet Assembly Plant Grand Opening Van Nuys, California — The Old Motor

1948 TUCKER 48 – Bonhams The Tupelo Automobile Museum Auction 27 Apr 2019

Advertisements

1948 Tucker 48
Design by Alex S. Tremulis
Chassis no. 1028
Engine no. 335-35
335ci SOHC 6-Cylinder Engine
Single Stromberg Downdraft Carburetor
166bhp at 3,200 RPM
4-Speed Manual Transmission with Bendix Vacuum-Electric Preselector
Front and Rear Independent Torsilastic Suspension
4-Wheel Drum Brakes

*One of the seven Tuckers to undergo endurance testing at the Indianapolis *Motor Speedway
*Mechanically prepared by Tucker expert Richard E. Jones
*Carefully maintained since complete restoration in the 1980s
*Featured in the company’s film Tucker the Man and the Car

Burly Wood – 1948 GMC Highlander – Mike McNessor @Hemmings

Advertisements

Behind the making of the Campbell-bodied 1948 GMC Highlander

Eastern feng shui philosophy teaches that everything on Earth is comprised of five elements: wood, fi re, earth, metal, and water. One of the keys to creating harmony and happiness in your environment is to strike a balance among those five.

Read Mike McNessor on Woodies and the 1948 GMC in particular

 

Rob Ida’s Tucker Torpedo to debut at AACA Museum’s “Night at the Museum” – Hemmings Kurt Ernst

Advertisements

Rob Ida’s Tucker Torpedo body. The wooden buck was based upon a 3D scan of the original scale model.

 Images courtesy Rob Ida unless otherwise noted.

Before there was a Tucker 48, there was a Tucker Torpedo. The boldly styled coupe, shaped by designer George Lawson, never progressed beyond a quarter-scale model, but that hasn’t stopped Rob Ida, his father Bob, and Sean Tucker, great-grandson of Preston Tucker, from building a full-size version. Read Kurt Ernst’s article here

 

Rob Ida’s Tucker Torpedo body

Tucker Torpedo