Bird flew

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

D-oh!  Last week's link to a quick read on the "Thin Man" movies didn't connect because the New Left doesn't like American Motors, Lisa Simpson (whose mom drove an AMC) didn't renew her subscription, someone re-used that URL, or because the New Republic government is fighting Star Wars.

Not because [New Republic essayist] George Orwell foresaw that the last real AMC RWD cars would be sold in 1983 --- just a year before --- 1984.   

No matter if that post was unread.  As Ken's day-later "reveal" of Myrna Loy showed.   

And Russ's three day-later note proved.  Knowledge is not power and time is worthless.

It's time to give everyone a -really- long rest.  Reading is obviously not fundamental.    


Who knew which way the road would run when I wrote about AMC [steering] wheels, M-B [turning] wheels, and how Studebaker [wagon] wheels show an example for those who see a permanent, endowed, non-profit, civic Nash-AMC Museum and Archive?

I try to write for everyone: from those "just learning" to those really "in-the-know" (who surely got my "Mercedes turning" joke and thought right back to a marketing agreement.  Who knew which way -that- road would run back when certain wheels turned anew?)

http://www.mbzponton.org/valueadded/brochure/mb_220S_coupe.jpg

Look closely and ask yourself if maybe its two-tone paint was American...

Yes, from 1957 to the founding of M-B USA in 1965, sold by Mercedes-Benz Sales Inc., a subsidiary of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation.

And "Turning Wheels" is the Studebaker magazine.  The one magazine that's -really- for all Stude collectors. 

Woowoo.

http://tinyurl.com/r6whm

(Ooo, and do you know the other European make S-P once wanted to sell to revive its own -Packard- nameplate, in hopes of, just as AMC would hope later, to become a "bigger presence" on the automotive scene?  -Really-.


460 horsepower and 452 foot-pounds will -really- do that Kenosha stomp!

Audi grau -really- does looks blau!

http://www.ivv.org/deutschgrau.htm

http://www.ivv.org/deutschgrau2.htm

(That is -really- on the internet?)

LED lights will look -really- cool!


>>
The 70-72 Hornet's are really 1960's cars. They crack me up: the rear bumper is a cosmetic-only joke, a 20 lb chrome strip bolted with little Z brackets right to the two rear quarter panels; one tap and it's history. The doors are just skins over a thin frame; in 73 they got a federally-mandated U channel across the doors, etc. I prefer the old-car simplicity.)
<<

That's one of the things that should make AMC -more- collectible, if it ever gets its show going.  Like Bentley, Checker, Hindustan, or Trabant, AMC kept the past alive far longer than its competition.  Not the way to prosper and survive in a new-car marketplace, but a -great- way to sell nostalgia to hobbyists now.  AMC sold '60s cars -really- far into the '70s: Pacers, Matador coupes, coffin noses, and fender humps notwithstanding.  All it needs now is to -really- make more from such longstanding charm.   


>>
AMC did put that 327 in the 1957 Rambler (Rebel) with fuel injection and I guess it was pretty tough to beat but there weren't very many.
<<

So tough and few, it wouldn't even be beaten by many '58 DeSotos.  D'oh!

(Unless "very many" -really- means one...)


>>
yup, it adapts the packard v8 [was that the 359, or the nash 327?] to
the early ford tranny.
<<

Or was it the -352- instead: the Packard, the Nash, or the Ford?  D'oh!

(Unless 351.9" -really- rounds to "359"...)

http://www.vintagemotorssarasota.com/Car_pages/Ford/58ford/58ford18.jpg

http://www.mosesludel.com/news/media/2/352-Packard-V-8-for-Web.jpg


>>
Another American idea/invention going to Japan!!
http://sltrib.com/utah/ci_2841984
<<

We hope they've improved its function.  I bought a little (1.7 cu. ft.) replacement refrigerator for wet bar in my den/library at home.  It is very well made (as well assembled as a Miele, a DeLonghi, or a mini Sub-Zero) and it has very cool blue (Hornet hue?) LED lighting instead of a Westinghouse man (you probably only get that joke if you're refrigerated also), inside, but "cooler" would be more correct.  Its "Peltier effect" -really- isn't up (down) to Frigidaire, Kelvinator, Carrier, and Weather Eye.

http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~airboy/nash_for_1954/actext.gif

http://www.nashcarclub.org/inquiry/nasheye.jpg

(AMC fans should put the heat on those who hyphenate that Nash name...) 

http://tinyurl.com/ew4g6
  

>>
teague's cormorant?  i don't get it.

i read a nero wolfe mystery recently and noted rex stout named wolfe's
car a cormorant.  connection?

Me either. In fact, I looked it up. Other than a sea bird, cormorant means
"greedy and rapacious", which further means "given to seizing for plunder or
the satisfaction of greed; inordinately greedy; predatory; extortionate: a
rapacious disposition." Maybe in the Wolfe mystery it was meant as a gas
guzzler (greedy for fuel).

Now how was AMC any of those? I think she mis-used the word and really meant
something else. Maybe you heard it wrong? Or did you see a transcript and it
got written wrong? Sounds like she meant to say something positive, not
negative.

it's definitely the name of wolfe's own car, and the oblique bits of
description suggest a very large and prewar chauffeured limousine.
from context i assumed 'cormorant' was merely stout's way of
suggesting a luxurious brand.

i don't know about that, though stout was extremely literate and
probably knew exactly what cormorant meant, and that car appears
periodically throughout the wolfe series on the rare occasions when
he has to travel.

hmmm...  wolfe is sometimes greedy and rapacious, though never at the
expense of the defenseless or just.

this digression still leaves the mystery of teague's cormorant...
<<

Who knew?  Nero -really- didn't fiddle while Rome burned (64 A.D. was far from the 1500s) and didn't ride in a chariot --- but in a Packard!

Was it painted white; was its driver wearing white; was it Tom Wolfe?

Help me.  It's too funny.

http://tinyurl.com/mtwvm

>>
Wasn't the cormorant the hood ornament on the Packard - or some other high-end car?
<<

(Not one that Packard didn't sue: as Ken's later "read" then reveals...) 

Yes, I was just connecting S-P history to that of AMC: connections that are (or should be) common knowledge and connections that folks like Pat Foster don't write on (or know about) still.  I snuck one of those into the last post: George Mason saw REO as a truck division within AMC.  He saw REO even more clearly after Studebaker trucks slipped out of a deal.  (He also didn't stop seeing Packard as an AMC flagship --- eventually.) 

If you recall, I recently asked about February beginnings and endings, and I tried to show how the first steering wheel Dick did for Packard, he re-did as the last steering wheel for AMC.  Years ago, I connected the very first Cadillac Eldorado he did with the very last Matador coupe he did: two luxury one-offs in (both cars' paint name, -really-) Alpine White.

I've connected his first assignments at GM with his first for Packard: he was particularly known for his illustration and "finesse" in trim.  

Richard designed the Henney-built Balboa, Dick did some of the detail, and the rest was history.  

http://tinyurl.com/nlxl7

If you see the "Cassini" (remember the Cord) show us the "Chevy" that appeared at Packard that very same year.  Ooo, what fun.  Hope you're having some.