Innholdsfortegnelse for November 2021 i Classic American

Welcome to our Station Wagon special – it’s not the first time we’ve done one of these, but they’re perennially popular, as American station wagons are themselves. I’ve been lucky enough to own two, a Seventies right-hand-drive AMC Matador that I co-owned with my colleagues at the time (and which was rotten as a pear!) and a 1976 Buick Estate wagon that served as the magazine’s show vehicle for a couple of seasons. For once, the size of American vehicles made these incredibly practical and in many ways it’s a mystery why they fell so out of fashion that they’ve all but disappeared. Having said that, it would seem that collectors in America are now starting to show interest in them and push up the prices on clean examples. This…

This year’s Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show, with Discovery, will be a little different from previous years; however, the organisers are keen to emphasise how they’re bringing a show to the classic car community that we all know and love in a safe and controlled environment. There will be a number of Covid safety measures still in place that can adapt with any changing guidelines. The Lancaster Insurance Classic Motor Show, with Discovery, brings together a great array of classic car and motorcycle clubs, along with their iconic classic and vintage cars and motorbikes and is an event definitely not to be missed. It’s the ultimate season finale for any classic car/ bike owner, collector, enthusiast, club member, or simply anyone with a passion for classic vehicles! But it’s not…

Dear Classic American, We spoke some time ago regarding a boat-tail Riviera I’ve bought. I only just collected the car due to storage issues… anyway, it’s a numbers-matching 1971 Riviera GS, two-owner car in gold, with a white interior and it has had a very hard life living outside in Yorkshire for 25 years, not turning a wheel and not being run. It’s now up and running and the resto’ is under way. What I’m trying to find out is the first UK owner, to try and shed some light on its history – the car was UK registered in 1971, so has been here from new. The story goes that it was meant to be the car used in the London motor show in 1970, to show next year’s…

Dear Classic American, I really enjoyed the Over Here Revisited feature by Zack Stiling. The two Packard pictures on page 49 prompted me to write to you. I own a 1937 Packard Super 8 Five-passenger Touring Sedan which would have been in the London area in the Fifties. The car was then owned by Violet Scriuner Roskell and has a unique reg number, CAR 515. Do any photos exist in the archives, or do any readers know of the car’s history, or anything concerning Violet Scriuner Roskell from Canford Cliffs, near Poole? She had a chauffeur, I believe. I have read Classic American from number one and still have most of them as well. I have enclosed a photo of my Packard for you and would be grateful for any…

Sometimes it seems to me that there are two types of American car owner in this country; those that keep their cars forever and those that change them as often as… well, their underpants. Darren Grimes from Tonbridge Wells in Kent falls into the former category, as this stunning Antique Cream Country Squire has been in the lives of four generations of his family. Darren’s father acquired the car effectively new (it was ordered new in the US and delivered to a dealership in Switzerland) and he remembers the Ford as a child. Today, he is its custodian and he is keen on keeping it as original as possible. No aftermarket wheels or engine mods here – the only possible modification from original may be the fitting of a stainless…

This year’s Beaulieu International Autojumble has left me with mixed feelings. It was undoubtedly great to get out and about again with some sense of normality having returned, but I felt really uncomfortable about the large crowds, the majority of whom didn’t wear masks or keep any social distancing whatsoever. Those famous words uttered by football commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme in the 1966 World Cup Final kept ringing in my ears: “They think it’s all over...” The trouble is, it ain’t, not by a long way. Normally, the public gates open at 10am. However, no doubt in an attempt to reduce queuing at the main entrance, folk were allowed in earlier. A good idea in theory except that they were only allowed into the Automart and auction area and not into…

Syd Mead is perhaps best remembered for his conceptual artwork and design for films such as Blade Runner, Alien and Tron. He was labelled a futurist during his lifetime, and that’s a fair assessment when you consider his prodigious cinematic output. However, it’s easy to overlook his contribution to car design. And make no mistake, shaping automobiles and commercial vehicles was his first love. A graduate of the Art Center School in Los Angeles, he was immediately recruited by Ford’s Advanced Styling Studio. There he provided input for the 1964 model year Ford Falcon Futura (he joked later this comprised mostly of shaping the tail-lights). Prior to that, he co-created the Gyron concept ‘car’, a two-wheeled machine that purportedly employed gyroscopic stabilisers. And then there was this, his take on…

Dear Classic American, I've just received the latest issue of Classic American and read the article on Delwyn Mallett’s 1950 Ford. Great to see a feature on this fabulous model, as I have a 1949 Ford. Although I imported mine in 2014, it has only been properly on the road this year, as it had starting issues (it is six volt and wouldn’t turn over sufficiently rapidly to fire, even with a new six-volt battery and starter motor). My mechanic friend Steve finally came up with a solution that allows it to run on six volt, but it has 12 volt to the starter motor. And all because I was too tight (and concerned with originality) to do a 12-volt conversion from the off! Anyway, it runs well now, and…

Here at Classic American magazine, we like to bring you a variety of cars for your reading delectation. Sometimes, it’s the seriously rare, exotic, concours, bristling with muscle, or fins ’n’ chrome, and a great many of these have skyrocketed in value. Then there’s the more reasonably priced cars that many enthusiasts prefer reading about; ones that they could actually afford to purchase and run. Our feature car here is definitely in the latter bracket. Peter Hind’s Corvair Lakewood 700 Station Wagon won’t win any concours prizes, but it remains something that has proved popular at American car shows, and even air-cooled Volkswagen meets. It seems of universal interest all round, with many greenhorns curious to know where exactly the engine is located. Much has been written about Corvairs in…

People often complain about the weather in this country and it’s true, sometimes it can be diabolical, especially when we’re hoping for a warm, sunny summer. However, sometimes the weather gods look upon us benevolently and offer up the perfect sunny day – such was the case on Sunday, September 5, when a last blast of summer sun made for perfect car show weather at Brooklands American Day, which was effectively one of the last American car events of the year. What a perfect note to end on. This event has been running for a few years now and has grown in popularity as it’s embedded itself into the American car event calendar as the bookend at the season’s conclusion. This popularity, combined with the amazing weather, must have been…

The woodie is a special kind of vintage station wagon and over the years, these vehicles have been associated with surfing, along with the Californian lifestyle. Annually, on the third Saturday in September, there is an event called Wavecrest, a huge meeting of classic woodies. It takes place at the beautiful San Diego County Moonlight Beach in Encinitas (about two hours south from LAX). Considered the largest of its kind, the grandaddy of all woodie meets, the Wavecrest event is the perfect place to see a huge variety of examples of woodie wagons and it’s a great opportunity to hang out with people that love them. The San Diego Woodies Club (a chapter of the National Woodie Club) hosts this event, and the latest one had 176 wooden vehicles show…

You might be saying ‘Ouch!’ next time you visit the petrol pumps as petrol prices hit an eight-year high of £1.35.3/litre. The recent fuel crisis has exacerbated things with some retailers accused of price gouging by inflating prices by 20p a litre to almost £1.60 a litre. Oil prices are predicted to hit $90 a barrel by the end of the year (from a low of $16 a barrel during the height of the pandemic) resulting in even higher petrol costs going into 2022. But what’s caused this sudden spike in prices? Analysts believe that as global economies bounce back from virtual closure during the Covid crisis, demand has soared around the world. Likewise, the massive increase in the price of wholesale gas means oil has become more attractive as…

After the success of the all-Packard Convertible Rally at Beechfield Restorations this time last year, Garry and Diana Grigsby, owners of this antique restoration business, kindly invited owners back for a second year. This year’s event was notable for two very special reasons: firstly, it’s 25 years since the very first all-Packard Rally was held at the historic Brooklands Museum in the spring of 1996. And secondly we were graced by David Ross, plus wife Ann, with David being one of the very few direct links with long-term British Packard importers, Leonard Williams Ltd. David worked for Leonard Williams Ltd at the Brentford Works, right next to the Lincoln Depot, and opposite the stunning Firestone Buildings, all these elegant Art Deco structures sadly since demolished in the name of progress!…

It was probably bound to happen. For years the Fox chassis Ford Mustang has been recognised among the cognoscenti as one of the best bang-for-the-buck performance cars in North America. Almost anybody could afford one when new and in factory stock trim the 5.0-litre V8 was one of the quickest cars you could buy in North America in the late Eighties and early Nineties. Not only that, but the car developed a reputation for being extremely receptive to performance modifications. Even just adding a few tweaks, such as a performance exhaust, steeper rear gears, an ignition timing advance and short drive belt, could enable an experienced driver to shave almost a full second off quarter-mile elapsed times at the drag strip. The sequentially fuel-injected 5.0-litre small-block V8 quickly put to…

Dear Classic American, Richard Howes here. I was disappointed that I couldn’t make it to the Redhill cruise recently, but I saw a video on YouTube of the event, which was almost as good as being there! The reason I am writing to you is because in that same video I saw a really rare 1958 Studebaker Champion that I have never seen before. I would love to get the opportunity to see it in person and take a picture or two of my own, because although it wasn’t the most beautiful car at the show, it holds a significant place in the history of Studebaker. For that reason I have taken a couple of screen shots from the video for you to ask for your help to track it…

By the mid-1950s there was a lot of competition for any manufacturer of American cars. In previous years it was common to launch that year’s model with new mechanical parts or new styling – Ford had released their new Y-block V8 in 1954, then introduced a brand new body style for 1955. But now arch rival Chevrolet dared to debut both at once. The 1955 Chevrolet boasted an all-new body with an all-new V8 to haul it, both a result of newly appointed chief engineer Edward Nicholas Cole’s 1952 expansion of the engineering department from 850 to 2900 people in order to “turn Chevrolet around”. The brand new Turbo Fire 265 V8 was almost developed as a V6 since one had been created by General Motors in 1947, but Cole…

The term station wagon actually derives from what these vehicles were originally designed to do: pick people up from the train station and deliver them and their luggage home or to a hotel in the area. Before the war coachbuilders converted cars and chassis using wooden bodywork to create these multi-purpose practical vehicles. Later after the war, production moved in-house and the wood was replaced with plastics and laminates. Here in the UK we called these vehicles ‘estates’, a term derived from their early use on aristocratic estates to ferry guests from the great houses on these estates to shooting parties where they would shoot grouse or other game. The estate cars were also used to transport food/picnics and the shot game. This upmarket, aristocratic image was one that American…

If this Colony Park looks familiar, that’s because we featured it in our March 2015/CA287 issue, following its appearance on the Classic American stand at the NEC as a finalist in the Car of the Year competition in November 2014. Could this be one of the nicest wagons in the UK? We reckon it’s probably not only one of the nicest, but maybe the only 1970 Mercury Colony Park in the UK. When new, Mercury claimed it was ‘The wagon that Lincoln Continental would build, if Continental built a wagon.’ That ‘rich, yacht deck’ panelling (sheets of Di-Noc wood effect on the sides) came as standard on the Colony Park, as did hideaway headlights, dual-action tailgate and deluxe wheel covers. These wagons were equipped with Select-Shift three-speed automatic transmission, power…