May/June

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>
a Conoco/Phillips 66 commercial came on with a really ratty looking Pacer
Wagon pulling into a Conoco station garage.
<<

Pacers do seem drawn to Conoco stations:

http://ejh1978.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/garyg1.jpg

perhaps they enjoy the beverages served.

>>
I bought that dead-motor 73 Hornet today. Complete, if the engine

The spare tire is likely an unmolested original; Firestone Deluxe
Champion, 6.95-14, whitewall. The mould line and flashing is still
<<

Exceptionally unmolested, if alphanumeric sizing began in 1970 and 6.95
became C or D...

As GM turns into a tri-level car company and Honda, like Toyota, takes a new
tack toward helping the "troubled" American automotive industry (and
pre-empting politicians' possible protectionist policies], May turns into
June, which Edward S. Jordan (Thomas B. Jeffery's son-in-law) famously wrote
was "Rambler Time."  Perfect time for your Americans or Hornets or other
Kenosha cars to hit the roads.   But don't drive to Rochester (Farmington)
New York: where what had been the biggest car show in WNY for over 30 years
will NOT take place this weekend.  1000+ cars; no place to go.

http://holtononline.com/topsdown/carshows/june.html

Speaking of May-turning-June and of shipping, did you know the first car
Jeffery actually -sold- was shippped "by express" (our Oregon freight
forwarder might explain what that meant in 1902) to New York, to
Binghampton, to its "impatient" [a doctor, interestingly...] purchaser, but
there was not one mention of the first retail Rambler in any May or June
Kenosha newspaper?  Obviously cars then just weren't considered very
important in the scheme of things.

By 1904, though, -Jordan's- words were flowing: Jeffery's automobile is "the
height of transportation achievement --- the Alpha and Omega of road
transportation" and "every member of the Rambler family is clothed
engagingly in dark red, [sic] graceful of line, but having a business like
[sic], sturdy air withal that begets confidence."

(Let's imagine that he meant something like Matador Maroon.) 

Soon, he rendered even Kenosha's paintwork into "purple" prose and Rambler
dark maroon became "English Purple Lake" in Ned-speak auto-sales mode. Ten
years later, Jeffery was bought by Nash and in fewer than ten more, the
number of Kenosha cars being bought and sold 

http://www.uwm.edu/Library/digilib/Milwaukee/images/kwas/kw000166xl.jpg

(not to mention the number of Wisconsin cars being crashed and repaired) 

http://www.uwm.edu/Library/digilib/Milwaukee/images/kwas/kw000190xl.jpg

had turned Kenosha into a mini-Motown and every month was "Rambler Time."

Then, after millions of Nashes, Ramblers and AMCs were born there, boom was
bust and the bloom was gone from June.


Ralph, Packard offered two 1937 maroons: "G" (Packard Maroon) and "Z" (India
Maroon): it's hard to tell from your photos, but the former will look rather
purple; the latter rather red.

Also, that "baby blue Packard convertible" is one of the rare [750] '53
Caribbeans built (handcrafted should be the better term, given that 3" was
sliced from its body, its windshield was cut down, its wheel arches cut out
and much of its trim was custom-made) and it's correctly "Polaris Blue" ---
one of only four colors available (despite the many "concours" [ha!]
restorations now sporting other hues): Sahara Sand, Gulf Green (NOT Galahad
Green Metalli-Chrome) one copy of whose story Tom Jennings should be
interested in reading...)

http://www.larrykay.com/53packard.html

and, of course, Matador Maroon --- yet another Packard color that
re-appeared at AMC; even more fittingly, on the final Ambassador catalog car
ever photographed.

Fitting, of course, for details that Mitchell-Bentley (of Livonia) built
were by Dick Teague, for he designed the production version of the '52
Pan-American that Charles Feldmann [the owner of Henney!] had encouraged
Packard to put on the market.  (Sometimes you don't get -exactly- what you
might have wished for...)

If you can't tell a '53 from a '54 (on which Teague also offered
two-toning), simply look at the rear wheel arches.  He reduced their opening
to "make the car look longer."  Its eight was second to but one.  Even fewer
(400) of the '54s were sold.  Packard's clock was ticking, but it would soon
be counting down its best and worst Mays and Junes.


I can't tell if the Pierce you photographed

http://clubs.hemmings.com/frameset.cfm?club=classicamx/ChobanTour

is black or green, but it's clearly related to 

http://ah.bfn.org/h/pierce/julyLaC1/source/12.html

(click forward three times); if less to another Pierce (click once more)
brought to its old Buffalo home from my old Seattle home --- by one of the
McCaws.  Nice brothers --- nice family --- using their billions to better
this world.

(I find these repeated WNY-PNW P-A juxtapositions to be interesting...)

(And my '31 is clearly green: the way I like my cars or trees to be...)