Early Automotive Pioneer Connections

Dear Classic Car Enthusiast,

Welcome to the November 2007 issue of Classic Motor News. This month our feature article looks at the interpersonal connections between early automobile pioneers. Our garage tip chooses the top-5 tiny tools, and we also highlight a couple of picks from our classified ads, share the best of Ted’s Garage Blog, and more.

So let’s get to it!

1. Visit the ClassicCar.com Swapmeet
2. Classified Ad Picks of the Month
3. Feature Article: Connections Between Early Automotive Pioneers
4. Best of Ted’s Garage Blog
5. Garage Tip: Top-5 Tiny Tools
6. Recommended Reading: Shoebox Fords

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1. Visit the ClassicCar.com Swapmeet
There have been a ton of updates done to ClassicCar.com over the past couple months. One of the most useful new features is the ClassicCar.com Swapmeet. We have launched the new Swapmeet feature so members can post parts and services for sale. No cars are allowed in the swap area, but almost anything else automotive related is fair game. This service will be free for the rest of the year! Everybody has old car parts, tools, and supplies laying around. Make a few bucks, help a fellow enthusiast out, and free up some garage space all at the same time.

Visit the ClassicCar.com Swapmeet
http://www.classiccar.com/swapmeet/

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http://www.cskautoparts.com/StorePickupAug07.aspx
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2. Classified Ad Picks of the Month
Whether you want to buy or sell, the ClassicCar.com Classifieds is the place to do it. If you are a buyer, browse thousands of cars from the early 1900s through the 1970s. If you are a seller, list your car for only $35.00 until sold. Sellers also get up to 10 photos, ad placement on over 35 partner web sites, 24/7 editing ability, and a highly targeted audience of fellow classic car enthusiasts. Classic car dealers can enjoy a special dealer’s package offering an unlimited number of ads in the section of your choice for just $69.95 a month. That’s less than a single ad placed in a weekly local newspaper.

ClassicCar.com Classifieds
http://classiccar.chooseyouritem.com/classics/

Now, the best buys for the month…

Best Pre-1950’s: 1940 Studebaker Commander
Location: La Luz, New Mexico
Price: $8,900
This project car looks like it would be an excellent starting point. It is remarkably complete, including fender skirts and sun visor. According to the seller, the body and floor is solid, and the brightwork is in good shape. There are 40,525 miles on the clock and the car looks it. The six cylinder is hooked to a three-speed with functional overdrive. The title is clear and the car is well optioned, including heater, defroster, and electric wipers. If you are into pre-war four-door Studebakers, this could be the deal of the year.

1940 Studebaker Commander
http://classiccar.chooseyouritem.com/classics/files/628500/628889.html

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Best Post-1950’s: 1953 Hudson Hornet
Location: Coon Rapids, Minnesota
Price: $12,500
They don’t come a whole lot nicer than this two-tone blue 1953 Hudson Hornet. The car is equipped with the 262 cid six-cylinder. The car underwent a 3-year long restoration that included all the details, including, new brakes, master cylinder, exhaust, points, plugs, wires, fuel lines, radiator, belts, battery, voltage regulator, generator, wiring, carpet, seat covering, trunk liner, and undercoating. This is a clean and smooth driver that is ready to roll. According to the ad the seller is motivated, and would like to move the car before the snow flys.

1953 Hudson Hornet
http://classiccar.chooseyouritem.com/classics/files/314000/314103.html

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3. Feature Article: Degrees of Separation
The early days of the automobile industry were largely dominated by a small group of closely connected individuals. Amongst their ranks were some of the most powerful industrialist to have lived at the time. The degree to which these people intermingled and associated with each other as friends, enemies, competitors, employers, and employees can be quite amazing. Cadillac, Lincoln, Buick, Nash, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, and General Motors all share common roots that go back to a handful of individuals. The rivalries between a half-dozen titans of industry changed the landscape of the world over the course of the early 1900’s.

Henry Ford’s first company was aptly named the Henry Ford Company. When Henry Ford was forced out of his company by Henry Leland in 1902, the business was immediately renamed the Cadillac Automobile Company in honor of French explorer Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac, founder of Detroit. In essence, Henry Ford built the foundation of what would become his greatest competitor in the luxury car market. Ironically, it would be Henry Leland — the man who forced Ford out and renamed the company Cadillac — that would found the company that would become a major Ford brand, and Cadillac’s biggest competitor.

Leland established Lincoln in 1917 to build Liberty aircraft engines for the first World War. It would not be until 1920 that Lincoln would begin passenger car production. As fate would have it, the Lincoln company underwent financial difficulties shortly after automobile production began. In a move that reads more like a Hollywood script than history, the man Leland booted some 20 years ago, Henry Ford, would purchase Leland’s Lincoln company in 1922 and establish it as Cadillac’s fiercest competitor. It must have been quite the feeling for Ford to get the final word in over Leland. But, it doesn’t stop there.

We all know Cadillac was acquired by General Motors along with dozens of other automakers during the early 1900’s. One of GM’s earliest acquisitions would be Buick, founded by David Dunbar Buick in 1902 (the same year Ford was ousted from the Henry Ford Company). Buick — and by extension GM — would be intertwined with the likes of not only its founder, but also Charles Nash, Louis Chevrolet, Walter Chrysler, and, of course, William Durant.

Charles Nash, founder of Nash Automobile Company and former Buick president, was the general manager of GM between 1910 and 1915. Louis Chevrolet would start his career as a Buick employee and rise to form the Chevrolet Motor Car Company with Durant, only to sell out to GM in 1915 to focus on automobile racing. Walter Chrysler, founder of Chrysler Corporation, was hired on at Buick in 1911. In 1919 Chrysler would resign from the Buick presidency as one of the wealthiest men in the automotive industry and go on to found Chrysler six years later.

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4. Best of Ted’s Garage Blog

1- Beginning the Retro Craze
When the New Beetle was introduced in 1998 it truly kicked off a retro craze that brought us an entire host of cars inspired by vehicles from our past. Today we have retro PT Cruisers, HHRs, SSRs, Mustangs, Thunderbirds, Challengers, Camaros, 300s, Ford GTs, 350Zs, S-Types, MINIs, Chargers and others. All of them lean on history for styling cues.

The New Beetle would hardly be the first car to stake claim to the ‘first retro car’ title. The Ford Mustang of 1994 had picked up a handful of styling cues from older models but fell shy of being considered a retro car at the time. The Dodge Ram of the same year brought fenders back into vogue for pickup trucks, but again featured thoroughly modern styling. But, there are other cars that looked back decades to find their inspiration, and many of them never made it to our shores. Read more…

Beginning the Retro Craze
http://www.classiccar.com/wordpress/2007/beginning-the-retro-craze/

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2 - Finding the Perfect Part
Remember back in the day when finding a part was a laborious task that could take months, sometimes years, of searching? Scouring junkyards, paging through magazines, mailing away batches of $1 checks for catalogs, and day-long trips to the swap meet. Oh how the Internet has changed all that. These days restorers can pretty much log onto the Internet, punch up a couple of sites, and order the part. Even the once-elusive NOS parts can be had if you know where to look. It seems everybody is online, including the junk yards with completely searchable inventories. And eBay doesn’t have it, chances are all you’ll have to do it wait a couple weeks and check again. Read more…

Finding the Perfect Part
http://www.classiccar.com/wordpress/2007/finding-the-perfect-part/

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5. Garage Tip: Top 5 Tiny Tools
Few men brag about having tiny tools, but sometimes there’s no other way to get at inconveniently placed fasteners. It can be a real time saver to have a few diminutive tools on hand for these situations. Here are the five most useful tiny tools:

1 - Palm ratchet. A standard ratchet, even a high quality one with tight tolerances, needs quite a bit of space to do its job. When space is limited, you can save yourself a lot of trouble by investing in a set of palm ratchets. These small, flat, round ratchets are ideal for slipping into tight places. There is no handle, so if your hand can access the bolt, chances are a palm ratchet will fit. The most common sizes are 3/8 and 1/4 inch.

2 - Screwdrivers. While you’re not going to get a whole lot of torque out of a screwdriver that is an inch long, they can make it easier to get into tight places and make quicker work of screws that are already loose. Most comprehensive screwdriver sets now include standard-size Phillips and slotted tips affixed to handles which are about the size of a radio knob.

3 - Small wrenches. While the 7/16, 1/2, 9/16, and 3/4-inch wrenches will always be the workhorse of the toolbox, it sure is nice to have the right tool for the job. Forget using the vice grips or the adjustable wrench on the small stuff. Get a set of wrenches that go down to 13/64-inch and you will be covered. These small wrenches come in especially handy when working on instruments and trim.

4 - Drill bits. Tiny drill bits come in handy for all sorts of purposes. The problem is that small bits tend to break easily. Drilling through a thin piece of aluminum can do them in. When it comes to small drill bits under 1/8-inch, I’ve found it better to buy a couple sets of the cheaper store-brand bits rather than hope the good expensive bits don’t bite the dust.

5 - Allen set. I have three sets of Allen wrenches. The smallest has about the same diameter as a big paper clip. I actually can’t remember ever needing one that small other than perhaps to dig dirt out of a screw head, but it’s best to have a set that goes down to at least 1/8-inch. The nice thing about Allen sets is that you can get an inexpensive set that goes from the paper clip size all the way up to a 1/2-inch, and they almost never wear out or break.

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6. Recommended Reading: How to Build Shoebox Fords Mercurys 1949 - 1954
Hundreds of automotive titles fill the shelves of ClassicCar.com contributors, and from time-to-time, we like to share the absolute best. These books are not necessarily new or even very easy to find, but they are top-notch additions to anybody’s library.

My first old car was a 1953 Ford Customline mild custom. Ever since I’ve had an affinity for the shoebox Fords. One of the best books to cover the customization of these cars is Rich Johnson’s “How to Build Shoebox Fords Mercurys 1949 - 1954″, which is part of Tex Smith’s Hot Rod Library published by Motorbooks International. Johnson’s books covers all the basics of classic shoebox customization, including chassis, powertrain, body, and numerous examples of completed cars with in-progress photographs. It also includes numerous diagrams for frames, hydraulics, air conditioning, and more. Illustrated with high-quality, detailed black & white photography, it’s a must-have book for anybody into this era of Ford.

How to Build Shoebox Fords Mercurys 1949 - 1954
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0879384786/classiccar-20/

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