memaerobilia

Alsancle You are such a tease! Some of us are dying to see photos of the (at least two)race cars next to the #14 Chrysler Indy car

If I recall, correctly, My Dad,Joe Gertler Sr., said the parimutual bidding for the new midget races only lasted a week (or less?) or so, because it was just too easy for the guys to "pre-determine" the winners, and they had friends on the other side of the fences, making their bets for them. He built some 200 cars (midgets, sprints, customs, foreign exotic, modified classics and race cars) over the course of decades, at his Raceway Garage, in The Bronx. His specialty (bread and butter) was scratch built midgets, sometimes 6 at a time. Everything exotic was always passing through the shop, from Auburns, Cords, Duesenberg, Ferrari, American and German Grand Prix cars, The famous Bluebird land speed record car. As a kid, he would take me along to all the Long Island race tracks. It used to make me a little sad that a fair number of car owners kept ducking him, because they owed him money for parts. He eventually gave up his very mediocre driving experiences, when people appreciated the constantly changing midget and other constructions, more. 1937 and on. In his opinion, two of the things that killed off midget racing were the fact that fans got tired of waiting for each car to be push started. His number one "peeve" was that he said, the Kurtis Krafts became so dominant, that "if you took the paint off of every car, you could not tell on from another."

Does anyone have any of the programs from the Roosevelt track's brief foray into midget racing. Initially they had parimutual betting. Any photos of a #8 midget there? My Dad had said one of his midgets was feature in the first PR photos? Of course he had an album with his pre-war press clippings, but one of his 'stooges" asked to take it on his ship, that was sunk during WWII

You would probably love it, Bob. Every time I have gone, they had a great selection of rare race cars.

Thank you so much for these great photos of the beautiful cars. I have a fairly good amount of original photos of 1929-mid 30s Auburns and Cords (with L-29s) from Cliff Henderson, who ran the National Air Races from 29-39. He used a great many Cords and Auburns, and some "look like' Duesenbergs? He was good friends with E.L. Cord.I admit it is pretty hard for me to tell them apart from certain angles. Any tips or tricks?

Could be for Liberty V-12 WWI aero engine.

Hi Dave: I sent you an email, with a Southern CA contact. And Thanks, Terry, for the kind words. Getting to know you, Hardman, and many of the other collectors, were some of the the most enjoyable memories of a lifetime of collecting.

Been buying/selling antique aircraft & parts, all over the World, for 49 years. Look up memaerobilia.com for contact info. May be able to help you, once I know what you have there

ID help would be appreciated..I am in process of trying to ID old family photos, to pass on family history to my adult son. This is my great uncle. and the license plate is possibly 1923 or 1928? Wow! no shortage of headroom in this vehicle... (I am guessing that he may be on the way to add air to the left front tire)

Looking to buy QUANTITIES of Bethlehem spark plugs. Seeking the type that has approx 1" diameter black micarta top. Some have holes through micarta, or through bottom of metal body, at hex. Has a large circular electrode that almost fills entire bottom, except for small gap, all around, to rim

Looking to buy QUANTITIES of the old Bethlehem spark plugs. (some are labeled "five point") Want the type with (approx.. 1" diameter) black micarta tops and some have holes through the micarta, or through the metal hex section. The have a large circular electrode that almost fills the bottom of the plug, except for a very small gap space

Hi Bob; That answer and Dad's original old negs and photos would fill a book. His first love was any type of racing car, boat plane. He loved the lines of classic cars, and when they were just 15-20 year old "old cars" that few people wanted. He restyled and re-engined a fair amount of them, into exotic show cars. He also did some extraordinary rare and unusual hydroplane race boats in all classes. When I joined him in 1969, we were strongly into vintage aircraft, engines and parts and had the shop building, in the Bronx, piled to the ceiling with antique planes, engines and parts,, nearly to the ceiling, or hanging from it. Additional planes & parts were store in the alley between us and the private homes, in old back alley, wooden, one car, private garages, *and even on the Roof! We got back into restoring and collecting mostly pre-war, vintage race cars, around late 70s, when they started having clubs and meets for them.had or did, 38 of them. In the two Auburns below-note the length of the hood and side panels on the dark one, and the space of side-trim to the firewaall. Dad lengthened the frame and engine panels one foot, in order to put a Duesenberg engine in it, Also faired headlight pods into the front fenders. He kept the beautiful lines of the Cord Phaeton, when he put a Chevy 409 engine into it. He had several old Cords in the back garages that were cut in half, by someone! All were used for projects, parts, or restorations, None scrapped. He did a lot of work on the famous Fitch "Bitch, race car, This is the car outside the private home next to the Raceway Garage shop. Note, that most of Dad's negs and photos, show the cars on the partially paved Bronx street, and his favorite place to take photos of completed or special cars was either outside the shop, or acroos the street, in some-es driveway. It was mostly a residential street of private homes. Last photo shows the World Famous LSR "Bluebird' being unloaded outside the shop, and Dad would do a ton of work and modification to it for a planned new attempt at speed record (that never happened) but it went into the International Motor Sports Show at Madison Square Garden, in mid-1950s, with the faired in wheels. (* If anyone has good photos of it in that show-other than the 2-3 little ones that turn up in Google, I would sure like to find some more. Most of our Bluebird originals were stolen some 40 years ago..) I have numerous photos/ Dad's private negs of it in the shop, apart and being worked on.

Then there are so many pages with photos and specs of all the cars, with tables and photo groups for numerous different body styles and price ranges, with VERY detailed specs down to carbs and mags and much more, in the multi-page tables. It is a bit mind-boggling to see how long the chart for Cars that cost More than $3,000, in 1914!

No ads in these, just many hundreds of photos, lists, charts and detail reports. Example, one reason i love these, are the many race reports. have you ever seen details and photos like these? practically lap by lap,minute by minute, details of tires, oil, mechanical problems, pit problems etc for each car and driver. here is a small part of multi-page report on the 1914 American Grand Prix, at Santa Monica, only a few days after the race. It featured Eddie Rickenbacker,Barney Oldfield, Ralph DePalma, and many others in Mercedes, Mercers, Sunbeam, Mason-Duesenberg, Isotta Fraschini, Marmon & many others. It even includes a detailed dwg of the race course.

Hi Dave; Your question (and sharp observation) makes me smile It is one of a half dozen original negatives I have, of a beautiful Duesenberg, that came to my Dad's shop, Raceway Garage. on a side street, in The Bronx NY, in the early 1950s. Dad worked on restorations and even "hotrodding' of some of the old cars back then, and had many famous and wealthy customers. Everything from scratch-built midget and sprint racing cars, US and European exotic sports racing cars, and full customs. Early Ferraris, Bugatti, Auburns, Grand Prix cars, including pre-war Adler, Mercedes gull-wing, He even did major renovation of the famous "Bluebird." Bob/1937 got to see some of them,"back in the day.I have LOTS of photos of them on my website www.memaerobilia.com I know that putting a Chevy 409 into a Cord Phaeton is blasphemy today, but in the early 1950s it was more f an "obsolete" car than a treasured Classic. He had numerous cars that won trophies in The International Motor Sports Shows on NYC I dont know if the Duesenberg bumper was Dad's (or one of his workers) mistake, or one of the reasons it came to the shop for work on.

For the advanced collector and Connoisseur, and bibliophile. This Extremely rare collection of bound original weekly issues of “The Automobile” were jointly owned by Alec Ulmann and Austin Clarke, several decades ago. When Alec passed on, in 1986, I purshased them, from his wife, Mary, in a private sale. There are four bound volumes per year, covering all of 1914 through 1917, Each of the 16 bound volumes have approx 650-700 pages, Each two volume set includes some 1200-1300 lllus pages, and every six months has an enormous 8 page index. The indexes pages are three columns of some 120 lines per page. Two feet of shelf space. It is an extraordinary history of all facets of early automobile history, with thousands of photos, dwgs, technical reports, long illustrated listings and charts, of most all different makes and manufacturers of autos, for many different classes, for each year. Also incredibly detailed reports, photos and charts of all types of auto racing, with photos, and reports, often listing races with charts of each lap, of car, driver, postion, reason for retiring, etc. Covers auto (even Many exotic WWI aeroplane) motors, chassis, accessories, racing drivers, and racing car reports from racetracks all around the U.S and some Europe. and profiles. Revelation upon revelation. A uniqely thorough reference of auto manufacturing, racing, advancement, people involved, with countless, specific dates and events. I paid more than I am asking and got my money’s worth and enjoyment out of them after 30 years.. Many (not all) of the outer dried leather bindings are cracking and deteiorating. But all contents still well bound. $3,200 for all plus shipping (probably 80 lbs or so) (@ only $200 per 6-700 page volume, compare to $30 or more per single odd issues that rarely turn up. *and numerous multi-part reports continue on, in following issues.. Have some other “Turn-of-the-Century” auto & Velocipede volumes and large French illust auto magazines (lots of early racing photos and reports) for 1900-1905 from Alec. Along with a few of his Sebring Race posters and programs etc.

Body, frame, shell, set-up etc All Look VERY different between photos 1 and 2

Thank you for the NEW link. That did the trick!

Does anyone know why the Auburn Cord Duesenberg webpage seems to be down? For past week, my link to it gets a (404 error message) saying the page does not exist.

Hi Bob I found a box of 119 Original French Glass stereo slides, 'in the bowels of my collections." Apparently they were all taken in and around the Weymann aviation company hangar, around 1932-33, and show so many rare images of various models of his unique planes. Almost all of the planes he designed, were one-of-a-kinds, that did not go into production. And most of them were unusual designs of many types, including Autogiros, and unusual design and contruction concepts. I even uncovered one model that is not even mentioned ONCE in any of the old magazine runs I have, or on the entire Internet, and I have several great photos of it. I recognized the Bugatti front end, and assumed it was NOT the famous Bugatti Royale that Weymann did. the cars in the stero slides, above, are relatively small in the ALREADY small (9 x 13 cm) glass slides. I was happy to be able to enlarge them, as much as shown here. I recognize Weymann in several of the images, and unfortunatley, I THINK he is in several others, but usually with his back turned from camera, while looking at his aircraft. i believe most of these are the only known images. The internet has about 3-4 images in Total, of 3 different Weymann aircraft. Some of these show GREAT images, illustrating Weymann's genius of design details. The box with all these original French glass slides, was found by me, in a very leaky attic, (An actual two foot dameter hole in the roof, above them!-but covered with one of those tissue-thin plastic paint tarps, that saved them)two hours drive, south of Paris, about 1988-89, and have been sitting in a crate in my climate-controlled collection storage room, and I come across them every couple of years, when searching for other records and documents and photos. This time, I was searching for a group WWI German glass stereo slides of WWI German flying officers, private shots, (that I did NOT find, yet!)

This image is from an 80 year old French glass stereo slide of Charles Weymann's Aircraft hangar in France, Circa 1932-33. Aside from his fame as a fabric body builder for many top Classics, such as Stutz, Duesenberg, Bentley, Bugatti and others, he was a famous record-setting aviator since before WWI. He designed and built a fair amount of one-of-a-kind aircraft from 1930-1933, and was a partner with Lepere, for a short time. Does anyone recognize a Weymann bodied car in this group parked at his hangar? The two on the left, appear a bit smaller, as this photo is between the two photos of the stereo slide. The one on the Right is from the right photo of the two images.

sold

Hello Bill; Thank you for your interest. Car s likely sold, but waiting until it is piccke up, before marking as sold. In Florida Panhandle 9Central Time zone) Have emaild you with phone number. I STILL have the Granite State spl very REAL, Original pre-war flat tail sprinter with tons of documentation, for sale,at about half price, I have sold "lesser" cars at.

sold

Hi Keiser31; I, too, find the upside-down Duesenberg bumper, interesting. I believe the close up of that photo, shows a 1951 License plate. Photo was taken outside my Dad's well known Bronx NY, Raceway Garage. Don't know if somebody at the shop put it on that way, or if it was AT the shop to have it put back the right way? Along with all the race cars Dad built, he built and worked on all types of customs, and exotics, and Classics from 1937-1990. Made a rear-drive Cord with Chevy 409 engine, Put a Duesenberg engine in a stretched Auburn Speedster, and even faired in the wheels on the famous Land Speed Car, "The Bluebird," and won various trophies at major auto shows like the World's Motor sSpots show in NY, and others. You can see some of them on my website: www.memaerobilia.com *But Meanwhile.. I MUST Sell These last two of the 38 vintage race cars that we did together, that I had kept as favorites. Due to very poor health situation, and potential moving to smaller quaters, I NEED to get these sold. so I am VERY flexible. They are NOW at approx half! what we used to sell similar cars for in the 80s. SOMEbody, come and give them a good home...and have a great time with them. They draw the biggest part of most car show crowds, every time..This Elto and the terific very REAL 37 racer with great history and provenance and documentation, the Granite State Spl sprinter-two time Championship, cover and centespread feature car.