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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 22

In today's #DavesCarIDService we ponder the question: is there a car model named for where you live?

1. 1957 Dodge Texan
2. 1964 Chrysler New Yorker
3. 1961 Pontiac Ventura
4. 1958 Chevy Delray

It's still pretty common these days for vehicle models to be named for a place, mostly SUVs with a frisson of frontier mountain ruggedness: Denali, Yukon, Telluride, Sedona, Montana, etc., and mostly seen at Costco.

But naming car models at all was a rarity pre-WW2, and generally would stop at "Deluxe" or "Special." But after the war, and moving into the 1950s, the boys in the Detroit ad departments began christening car models that were evocative of places around the USA (and abroad).

One of the first of these was Plymouth, which in 1951-52 had the Concord and Cambridge - both Massachusetts towns that dovetail with their brand name and Mayflower hood ornament. Sorry Concord, Cambridge was the deluxe model.

The best known place related model naming convention was Chevy's, starting with "Bel Air" in 1950 for its deluxe-est version to evoke SoCal ritzy-ness. That lasted until 1958, when it was demoted to #2 behind "Impala." Their poverty versions (previously just the "150" and "210") were renamed "Delray" and "Biscayne," which is kind of a diss to Florida I guess.

Pontiac also focused on a California theme with the base model Ventura and mid-range Catalina; the top shelf version was the Bonneville, more of a nod to Utah salt flats speed than snooty coastal beach lifestyle.

Over at Chrysler, the focus was more on snooty old money New England positioning; besides the New Yorker, there was the Windsor (for Windsor CT) and the Newport (for Newport RI).

I would add that the Dodge Texan emblem seen at top was only available at Texas dealers, but the upscale Dodge Dart Phoenix was available nationwide.

1. 1957 Bel Air
2. 1962 Biscayne
3. 1961 Catalina
4. 1962 Phoenix

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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 18

Justin Timberlake story: in 2005 I had dinner at Raoul's in NYC with some friends and they sat us down right next to him, Cameron Diaz, and Drew Barrymore.

Nothing happened, and there's no point to this story other than I recall they were all considered celebrities at the time

I probably have the world's worst collection of celebrity stories

One time Paul "Pee Wee" Herman told me he liked my glasses, and I guess that's probably my top one. And one time I went bowling with Adam "Animal Mother" Baldwin

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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 16

Welcome to Part II of the #DavesCarIDService Fathers Day Weekend ID Extravaganza, with a tribute to the two patron Big Daddies of car culture: Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, and Big Daddy Don Garlits.

1: EBDR with his 1960 "Outlaw" show rod (aka "Excalibur") and the Revelle model kit of same

2: BDDG with his original Swamp Rat I dragster, the car that completely revolutionized drag racing in 1957

I've been privileged to meet both of these fellas, and written extensively about Roth, whom I consider to be the finest artist of the 20th century (no, I'm not kidding). I'm not the first, either; Ed Roth was central to Tom Wolfe's breakthrough Esquire article / book, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake Streamline Baby.

Starting as a wacky car painter-customizer-monster t shirt painter in SoCal, he near single handedly established the idea of outsider surrealist pop art; a Warhol / Rosenquist for the masses of monster car drawing grade school kids.

His contribution to car culture, and wider American culture, is hard to overstate. No Ed Roth, no underground comics, no Wacky Packages, no Juxtapose Magazine. Mazooma!

Where Roth was (RIP BDR) all about show, Don Garlits is all about GO. In the late '50s, the undisputed global Mecca of drag racing was Southern California, and racers there began hearing of ludicrous sounding speeds and times claimed by some rando from the distant podunk outpost of Tampa, FL. Skeptical, they invited this "Don Garlits" out to SoCal to see if he could back it up against the Cali big boys.

And back it up he did; in 1959 he kicked their collective asses with his Hemi-powered Swamp Rat at the Bakersfield Fuel & Gas championship. After nearly dying in a transmission explosion in 1970 with Swamp Rat XIII, he revolutionized drag racing again with a rear engine car.

Milestones? First man to pass 170, 180, 200, 240, 250 and 270 mph on the drag strip. The absolute Babe Ruth of the quarter mile. And after a 70 year career in drag racing he's still doing it at age 92, though mainly in electric dragsters.

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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 4

https://x.com/JoeSmit34957337/status/1797986152227758225

Austin without Texas = Berkeley
Texas without Austin = Oklahoma

https://x.com/JoeSmit34957337/status/1797986152227758225

The thing that made Austin cool in the first place was it welcomed all the weirdos and misfits from other parts of Texas. Don't bad mouth Austin while listening to Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, and Stevie Ray Vaughn.

https://x.com/WaldoTJ/status/1798009729907835015

FFS Austin didn't "turn" that way, it's always been that way

https://x.com/WaldoTJ/status/1798009729907835015

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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 2

A somber #DavesCarIDService salute to Sylvester H. Roper, by some measure the inventor of the motorcycle, on the 128th anniversary of his death. He was pacing a bicycle race at a track along the Charles River in Cambridge MA aboard his own Roper Steam Cycle (built on a Columbia bicycle frame), when the crowd egged him on to open up it all the way up; on his final lap he clocked 40 mph when a pallor was seen to take over his face. He crashed, and died trackside.

While the proximal cause of death was head wounds, and autopsy ruled he had suffered a heart attack. Possibly from the stress of the 40 mph breakneck speed (certainly a world record for a 2-wheeler at the time), or just from old age; he was 72 at the time.

But here's the kicker: this was far from Roper's first powered two wheeler. "1896" may sound hella early, and it was (his death was a few days before Henry Ford puttered into the streets of Detroit with his first experimental Quadricycle), but Sylvester Roper had already been making motorcycles for 30 YEARS.

His first foray into steam-powered two wheelers was his Roper Steam Velocipede (#1). Dates of its invention range from 1867-1869, barely after the Civil War. Roper was not a great record keeper, and was more involved in firearms, sewing machines. and padlocks, with several patents in those fields.

A consummate New England Yankee tinkerer, he worked at the Springfield Armory during the War, and afterwards came up his Velocipede. It's certainly the first American motorcycle, and occurred about the same time as the Micheaux-Perreaux steam velocipede independently developed in France (#2). Replicas of both vehicles can be seen in the amazing Barber Museum in Leeds, Alabama.

Amazing-er still, Sylvester Roper made a car even earlier than he made a Velocipede. In #1, an 1865 Roper Steam Buggy; and in #2 our hero in his hopped-up, bigger boiler steam hot rod in 1870. And he was 46 years old, even then.

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David Burge

@iowahawkblog

Jun 1

Step on it you mugs, it's time to go on a hot rod crime spree with #DavesCarIDService!

First up, the 1956 season-opener of Highway Patrol, "71 In Hot Rod," starring this very ginchy 1932 Ford lowboy roadster following the daring daylight holdup of Chuck's Fountain & Grill.

As the stern narrator explains, "in their never-ending war to escape law enforcement agencies, criminals are constantly devising new weapons. The weapon of the Burke brothers was SPEED. An automobile on which they had lavished thousands of dollars, and a great deal of mechanical skill." The lavishments here include a channel job, dual quad Olds Rocket engine with lakes pipes, Dago axle, hairpin radius rods, and rear split bones.

I wish to thank my Aussie pal Tim Blair for explaining his unbridled enthusiasm for "Highway Patrol" (despite his numerous unfortunate encounters with Australian road police) during a telephone conversation yesterday. For those who are unaware, it was a late 1950s crime show starring Broderick Crawford as gruff no-nonsense patrolman Dan Matthews, forever solving crimes and wildly violating civil liberties on the highways of some state that was never specified.

Of course, the lurid crime threat of the day was... HOT RODS! And the lawless criminal greasers who built them. And crime never pays! In the case of the Burke brothers (spoiler alert), their heist spree takes a deadly turn when they nail an innocent old lady standing in the road at 120 mph, which somehow never dents the car nor the old lady. It's the chair for you, Burke boys, and impound for your souped up crime roadster!

My subsequent research has uncovered that the same car was featured in another lurid 1956 hot rod crime film, "Hot Rod Girl," albeit with a Ford flathead engine, on its side, and lantern jaw police detective Chuck Connors shaking his head at the senseless deaths caused by these teens and their hopped up buggies. The car still exists, and has been restored to its flathead hiboy version.

Another hot rod-themed episode of Highway Patrol from 1958 "Dan's Vacation," features the 1947-48 Ford coupe. Dan discovers its second carburetor is only a dummy, concealing a smuggling chamber! This blows the lid off and international narcotics ring that somehow decided to be centered at a remote fishing lodge.

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