oldcarfudd

My toys are brass-era. When someone asks me whether I have pre-war cars, I say: "Well, yes, but which war do you have in mind?"

Bordering on? It's well over the border!

That much tailwind isn't something I want to be airborne in unless it's in a commercial jet, a LONG way up. At some point, I'd have to turn around and land into that wind, and I'd be going backward over the ground. I presume people who advertise speeds in aircraft are talking about airspeed. In a rotary-wing aircraft, helicopter or autogyro, one blade of the main rotor is going forward relative to the fuselage and the other is going backward. The blade going backward has to be moving at a helluvan rpm so that more than just the tip can generate lift. If the other, advancing blade, is going the same rpm - which it will be - the airspeed of its tip is humongous, possibly supersonic. I prefer to observe from the ground, well to the side of the flight path.

I want to comment on a couple of the most recent posts. 1. I, too, would like a gas-sipper (or electric) car for my daily driver. But I play with brass cars, which I haul in a 24-foot box trailer to (mostly) HCCA tours. I can't do that with a Miata or an electric. I have a VW diesel Touareg that gets about 25 mpg in normal driving (about half my annual mileage) and 12 when dragging a trailer (the other half). It would be a LOT more expensive to have a second daily driver to use when I wasn't hauling a trailer, than just to put up with 25 mpg instead of 50 or 60 in daily driving. 2. I also go to cars-and-coffee events, but I drive (I don't trailer) a brass car. I get very little chance to see the other cars - and, in truth, there aren't many I want to spend time looking at - because I'm mobbed with people, both casual spectators and the other car guys, wanting to know how my car works. I'm forever cranking, or pulling off some part, or pointing out the primitive but effective ways people did things 100+ years ago. Last Saturday I let a couple of guys crank my one-lung Cadillac, and they were enthralled. My favorite question, from non-car-guy spectators: "Does that car really run?" My reply: "I sure hope so, 'cause it's too heavy to carry and too far to push!"

A 200-mph autogyro? It boggles the mind. Either the advancing blade would be supersonic or the retreating blade would be going backward.

The gray car is a Ford Model K roadster, 6 cylinders, guaranteed to do 60 mph. Certainly the fender and hood lines look like the one's in the original post. Rob Heyen in Nebraska has one of these and has done extensive research into them from original sources.

I enjoy seeing cars of many eras. At Hershey, I will husband my aging energy to walk over to look at Model As, Model Ts, sports cars, full classics, tri-5 Chevies and HPOF. Oh, yes, and trucks. But my principal interest is touring in open cars of the brass era. I enjoy driving them, talking to the public (especially kids) about them, giving rides in them, and hanging around with the other nuts who drive them. I typically do 6 week-long brass-car tours a year, plus a lot of day rides, plus going to the bank, the pizza place, the barber, or yoga any chance I get. I have five brass cars, which is probably one more than makes sense, and they’re all different from one another. In those days, everyone was trying to figure out how to make a car work, and the number of ways they came up with was fascinating. Nowadays, if you own a Chevy, you can rent a Toyota and have no trouble driving it, although you might not be able to figure out the radio. But being able to drive my Model T doesn’t prepare you for the Curved-Dash Olds, or the 1912 Buick, or (heaven help you!) the Stanley steam car.

If the pictures were in color, they'd look like an HCCA tour today!

The Model 16 was available as a roadster or a toy tonneau. The 17 was a full touring car, with a much heavier-looking non-detachable rear body.

1910 Buick Model 16 toy tonneau

The safety bolts weren't used only on racing cars. My Curved Dash Olds has them, and so did a 2-cylinder Buick I used to own.

Be still, my heart!

DAMN autocorrect. That was supposed to be rapelled!

I'm 83. Last March, as a mere stripling of 82, I bought a Curved Dash Oldsmobile. This summer I drove it on the New London to New Brighton in Minnesota, in pouring rain. Next year, as a creaky old geezer of 84, I'm going to ship it to England and do the REAL London to Brighton, probably in COLD pouring rain. My child bride of 80 did a week-long horseback trip in Argentina this year, followed by one in Ecuador, followed by a trip to Central America with her 51-year-old son where they hiked to Mayan ruins and appealed into caves. We figure we're going to be dead a long time, and there things we want to do before we get there. Don't wait!

But that one has electric headlamps! I believe this Buick originally came with gas lamps. When the car was converted to electric, the Presto-lite tank stayed on as a decoration.