Wanna Limo

There are many opportunities to see a Tucker in person, as the Tucker Automobile Club of America has outlined on its website, but you’ll have to act quick if you’d like to see one at the AACA Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania: The museum is currently displaying Tucker #1013, on loan from the Swigart Museum in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, but will be sending it back home this weekend.

While all Tuckers share a certain significance in the collector-car hobby, #1013, a Waltz Blue example, carries a little extra significance for appearing in the chase scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s movie, Tucker: The Man and His Dream. On top of that, when at home in the Swigart Museum, Tucker #1013 shares space with the Tin Goose, the 1947 prototype Tucker, making the Swigart the only museum in the world with two Tuckers on display. The Swigart has owned both the Tin Goose and #1013 since September 1996, when they were purchased at auction.

The AACA Museum’s current pace cars display runs through October 9, while its motorcycles display runs through August 7.

I’ve had this image floating around on my hard drive for so long, I’ve forgotten who sent it to me or why I’ve not run it until now. We know quite a bit about the image: Taken in 1904 in front of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan, it depicts a pair of electric sightseeing buses of the type we’ve seen a couple times previous here on the Hemmings Blog (and once in HCC Lost and Found). These two seem to be of a larger and slightly different design than the others we’ve seen, and the photo doesn’t appear to have been taken for the purposes of selling copies to the tourists that boarded the buses, as was the case with the others. We’re also still left wondering who built these buses – whether it was one company or several. Columbia would seem to be a likely candidate  -after all, that company seemed to have had something to do with producing the Electrobat hansom cabs that plied the roads of New York City at the same time as these buses – but at this point, that’s no more than an educated guess.

The Hemmings Nation comes through yet again. We received a packet of ancient negatives from reader Gary E. Banas of Warren, Michigan, not long ago. Gary found them at a series of postcard shows, a great place to find ancient memorabilia of all sorts. The negatives (our longtime photo contributor, Don Spiro, thinks they were shot by an early Leica camera) depict an early match race between two early giants, Barney Oldfield and Ralph DePalma, on the one-mile dirt of the Indiana State Fairgrounds in 1917.

DePalma’s ride when he showed up for the race at the mile in Indianapolis was his famous “White Packard” Twin Six, a massive, beastly thing with 12 rapping, belching cylinders. The negatives, by the way, were in an envelope cadged long ago from the Hotel Havlin at Vine Street and Opera Place in Cincinnati.

Oldfield, already an American legend from his velodrome heroics, drove this hugely innovative automobile called the Golden Submarine (pictured in the lead image), designed and built by Harry A. Miller , who would become a racing legend in his own right. Its four-cylinder engine was a harbinger of the Offenhauser that Miller’s designs did so much to inspire.

The lineup of cars included this Delage, a French make that logged a lot of laps on American fairgrounds dirt ovals back then. Ironically, Oldfield had driven a Delage before Miller’s weird creation enticed him. William F. Nolan’s biography of Oldfield reports that he won four out of seven matchups against DePalma in 1917, including the Indy mile showdown. Oldfield nearly died, however, when the Sub overturned at Springfield, Illinois, and erupted in flames.

Hammer down, DePalma rifles the White Packard into a corner at the fairgrounds, a sight that still exists nearly intact today.

Here’s proof. I shot this image at the Hoosier Hundred on the Indy mile in May. Here’s Brad Kuhn shoving the testosterone pedal right to the floorboard tin in his USAC Silver Crown car.

Reid Fleming is the World’s Toughest Milkman. The hard-drinking, milk-truck wielding, chain-smoking, anti-authority hero of the working man is the comic creation of David Boswell. Reid Fleming was the star of his own series of comic books from 1986-1998. Given Reid’s propensity for alarmingly frequent milk truck destruction, his boss Mr. Crabbe would no doubt appreciate this no reserve auction listing for a 1965 Divco Milk Truck. A screenplay was penned by Boswell for a feature length Reid Fleming: World’s Toughest Milkmanmovie, but for some reason or another Hollywood decided to reimagine previously imagined movies in triplicate instead. Propmasters and tough guys looking to make like Reid Fleming are so advised to head on out to the Labor Day Auctions America by RM car and motorcycle bonanza in Auburn, Indiana.

How’s this for a tasty tidbit of history: Jeff Koch just pointed out that today’s the 75th anniversary of the wienermobile, the most famous of all productmobiles. Conceived by Carl G. Mayer, nephew to Oscar Mayer, the wienermobile was originally intended only as a means of transportation for company mascot Little Oscar, but the vehicle ended up outlasting the mascot and modern versions continue to promote Oscar Mayer products today. Being car guys, we must know that the original wienermobile – according to an SIA article on productmobiles – was built on an International chassis with a 13-foot metal wiener and bun and an International four-cylinder engine. The General Body Company of Chicago was responsible for the body.

That said, it’s time for the puns. Let’s hear some good ones in the comments.

Duesenberg enthusiasts will recognize the name George Whittell Jr. fairly quickly, but he didn’t limit himself to that storied American marque. Indeed, one of the many cars in Whittell’s collection was this Springfield-built Rolls-Royce, a Larkins and Company-bodied 1927 Phantom I coupe, which resided in a garage in Woodside, California, for almost 40 years. John G. Tennyson had the story of this barn-find Rolls in SIA #100, August 1987.

What a cherry pickup, this 1966 Ford F100. Painted bumpers, six-cylinder engine, three-on-the-tree, dogdish hubcaps and blackwalls. Not a single fancy thing to it, and it deserves to remain that way, to show what a plain-jane pickup should look like. From the seller’s description:

Actual mileage 75230. Well maintained with records available. All original. Owners Manual. Ownership lineage through four owners, all local. All body panels/parts original. Twin I-Beam Suspension. Removable box with working radio/tape-deck and speakers on hump under dash. Minimal rust at drip edge over passenger door and at front base of driver door. (See pictures) Great for restoring, or can be used for general service as is. Licensed. Line-X Long Bed Cover. Tires good. Good mechanical condition. Runs great.

Harley-Davidson Servicar with a hobby horse on the back for a 1950s American Legion parade. Photos courtesy Harley-Davidson Media

A new collection of rare and one-of-a-kind Harley creations from the 108 years of the company’s existence opened on June 11 at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee. Called “Collection X: Weird, Wild Wonders of the Harley-Davidson Museum,” the exhibit will feature odd prototypes that were created as concepts but never manufactured or sold, along with other WTFery from the H-D archives. Most of the concepts featured early 20th century motors made by Harley-Davidson for everything from generators and lawn mowers to snowmobiles, air boats and airplane engines. Thousands of old photographs, riding apparel, goggles, belts, and other accessories are also on display. Some of the rare one-offs include:

The Cyclone Motor-Sled, “Pop’s Trolley.” This 10-foot-long canvas-covered spruce sled is one example of the many uses found for Harley-Davidson motors over the years. The motor-sled was sold as a kit by the Mead Ice Yacht Co. of Chicago in the Thirties, and this prototype was powered by a 1925 H-D JDCB 74-cubic-inch V-Twin. $38.50 bought the entire sled, except for the countershaft, propeller and engine. Some sleds were powered by Harley-Davidson motorcycle engines from the owners’ motorcycles that weren’t being used in the winter.

1913 General Electric transformer from Milwaukee’s Juneau Avenue factory – This eight-foot-tall, 8,000-pound electrical transformer helped power the Harley-Davidson factory (now corporate headquarters) in Milwaukee from 1913 through the 1990s. Until this year, the transformer was still being used as backup power. Visitors to the exhibit will see the nearly century-old transformer next to a photo from the day it was delivered in 1913 to the factory from General Electric’s generator production facility in Schenectady, New York. For many years, Harley-Davidson was the largest individual user of electrical power in Milwaukee and the only company in the city to have an electrical furnace.

Harley-Davidson-produced LR-64 Rocket. Manufactured by H-D for the U.S. Navy at their York, Pennsylvania, assembly plant, the LR-64 was used to power drones during military training exercises. Harley produced more than 5,000 of these rockets between the mid-Sixties and the Nineties.

1927 airplane engine based on a Harley JD V-twin. This looks very similar to the 1928 Wilson Miller airplane powered by a Harley-Davidson engine on display at Wheels Through Time Museum in Maggie Valley, North Carolina.

1916 Harley-propelled “Red’s Motor Boat” Ice Boat

1913 “motor bob” snowmobile based on an H-D engine.

Photos by Darin Schnabel, courtesy RM Auctions

Of the four now-famous Exner designs that appeared in the December 1963 issue of Esquire – renderings of classic American automobiles reinterpreted to contemporary tastes – three became full-size, real-life automobiles. The Stutz Super Bearcat became the Pontiac Grand Prix-based Stutz Blackhawk; the Duesenberg dual-cowl sport phaeton became the 1966 Ghia-built revival Duesenberg prototype; and with the help of a generous benefactor, the Mercer Type 35 became the one-off Mercer Cobra.

Funded by the Copper Development Association and built by Carrozzeria Sibona-Bassano of Turin, the Mercer-Cobra was finished in late 1964 and whisked off to a world tour promoting the CDA. It has since appeared in the pages of Special Interest Autos (SIA #39) and graced a number of noteworthy collections, and now RM has announced that it will go up for sale at its auction in Monterey next month with a pre-auction estimate of $800,000 to $1.2 million. From the auction description:

In the case of chassis number CSX2451, the Copper Development Association’s president, George M. Hartley, spied the Exner concepts on the pages of Esquire and contracted with Exner’s company to complete the design and have it built. With Ghia in financial trouble, Exner looked elsewhere for craftsmen capable of faithfully rendering the Mercer’s design features in metal. Brooks Stevens recommended Carrozzeria Sibona-Bassano in Turin. The company had been established by Elio and Emilio Bassano around 1962, but its capabilities and prestige were substantially augmented in 1962 when Pietro Sibona, one of Ghia’s master metal workers, joined them.

Exner and his son and business partner, Virgil M. Exner, Jr., completed the design utilizing a chassis from AC Cars in the U.K. to which Sibona-Bassano faithfully and accurately adapted the design. Cobras were popular choices for specials builders and movie studios, as their series production and Ford-based drivetrain kept costs down. The ladder-frame construction was adaptable to almost any special bodywork and easily lengthened for specific appearance. AC easily pulled chassis off the line before bodies were mounted and supplied them in nearly ready-to-run condition for rapid modification and construction; in the case of the Mercer-Cobra, the chassis was lengthened to 108 inches. Surviving period photographs which exist in the archives of the Henry Ford Museum show the clay model of the Mercer-Cobra in exceptional detail. Also in this collection are patent applications for the design of the body, as well as dramatic photos of the senior Exner supervising the design process. This collection of documents also indicates that the project was quite lucrative for the accomplished Exner; though the Cobra underlying the Mercer cost $2,800 with a total delivery price to Turin of $3,019 and the agreed price with Carrozzeria Sibona-Bassano for the delivered coachwork was $10,400, the contract with the CDA was for a total delivery price of $35,000.

A Singular Concept

The Copper Development Association’s Mercer-Cobra exploited the dramatic colors and textures of copper and copper-based materials to its advantage, particularly with the Brass-Era theme of the Mercer. Some eleven different materials, alloys and finishes were employed in both the interior and exterior to demonstrate the diversity of copper and brass. Exner’s design emphasizes the long hood and pushed-back passenger compartment with long blade-style front fenders open along the hood sides, abbreviated rear fenders with separate mudguards behind the rear wheels and a long, tapered rear deck. A classic-style brass grille with eight large elements in front of mesh stone guards proudly leads the Mercer-Cobra’s design statement. The headlights are ingeniously mounted on pivots where they swing back flush with the sides of the nose when not illuminated. Exner later observed, “our overall aim was to create an interesting and stimulating design rather than one which simply follows the ‘formula’ of a flat, low snout with a horizontal air scoop and a squared-off bobtailed rear.”

For practical purposes, brass and copper elements were covered with an acrylic coating to prevent discoloration and exterior moldings made of silicon bronze. The taillights are recessed in brass tunnels integrated with the rear-wheel mudguards. Interior trim, seat backs, door panels and dashboard gauges are executed in copper while a high-strength chromium-copper alloy is used in the steering-wheel spokes. The 16-inch wire wheels have multi-piece brass covers. Chrome plating is used deftly but sparingly throughout, mostly on a brass substrate, to accent the richness of the brass and copper elements. The engine has been given the brass and copper treatment on the valve covers, air cleaner, oil filler cap and dipstick housing. This treatment continues in the silicon bronze heat shield protecting the body and passengers’ legs from the chrome-plated side exhaust pipes. Even the brake discs are made from copper alloy where the high heat-transfer rate promotes exceptional performance.

Finished in pearl white with black leather interior trim and a full-width curved Plexiglas windscreen, the Mercer-Cobra was toured throughout the world at shows and technical gatherings to promote copper and brass use and adaptability, making appearances on six continents. Delivered in late 1964, only a year after the decision to construct it was made, the Mercer-Cobra attracted worldwide attention, including a lavish six-page feature in the Winter 1964 issue of Automobile Quarterly. It was retained by the Copper Development Association for some ten years, demonstrating what an effective device it was in promoting the objectives of the association members.

Chassis CSX2451 was purchased by concept-car collector Joe Bortz in the early 1970s and was later owned by collectors Jim Southard, Al Wright and Tom Barrett. It has been owned by the Lyon family since 1989 – over 20 years. Although it was never intended to be driven, it is a running, driving functional automobile, still essentially as it was when it left Carrozzeria Sibona-Bassano in late 1964, right down to the original tires. Recently the Mercer-Cobra concept car was displayed among a group of concept cars at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance. Not only is the Mercer-Cobra Roadster an important piece of America’s automotive design history, it is a rare surviving work by one of the great automobile designers of the 20th century, Virgil M. Exner. Designed solely by him and his son and built under their direct supervision, every facet and design detail reflects his concept and ideas and is a singularly pure statement of his vision.