Sunday, January 23, 2011

Photos from a 1980 Car Show, Part 3

The front grille of a 1961 Lincoln Continental. I'm pretty sure this is a junkyard shot, not the car show, but it was in the same folder as the show photos and I never miss an excuse to feature a Lincoln in this blog!

1959 Ford Skyliner retractable hardtop, showing off all of its moving parts. These cars are still jaw-dropping when seen in action. I could watch the roof go up and down all day long!

Early 1950s Muntz Jet. This was a very limited production car, built by Earl "Madman" Muntz a very successful used-car salesman and early TV impresario from California. For a short history of this very cool footnote in automotive history, click over to this How Stuff Works page.

The interior of the Muntz Jet featuring classic fifties Tuck-and-Roll pleated vinyl upholstery and full instrumentation.

The free-standing taillights of the Exner-designed 1962 Imperial. This was a Crown convertible, one of the loveliest body styles for these cars, ones that were extremely rare even when new with only 554 produced. For a website on Imperial's 1962 production figures, with some cool illustrations, click here.

"Fluid Drive" was a Chrysler transmission introduced in 1939 and offered through the late '40s. It wasn't an automatic transmission, but offered some of the same ease of driving. For a detailed explanation, click here. This was a time when the automakers gave their new features great marketing names and often touted them on the exterior of the cars themselves. This great scripted font was found on the rear bumper of a late 1940s Chrysler sedan.

How'd this British sports car sneak in? Regional Connecticut cars shows tend to not be marques- or country-specific, even to this day. The British car show I went to last summer had several domestic makes included. Nice cars are nice cars, and usually allowed on the field. We ain't no Pebble Beach, lol, though we certainly have our esteemed concours as well, notably the Greenwich show. Shown above is the Triumph TR3's hood lettering and artistic logo.

1957 Desoto Firesweep. These tower of taillights are as distinctive and dramatic today as they were in 1957 and in 1980 when I photographed this example.

16 comments:

  1. Mad Man Muntz - wow I remember that guy!

    Love all your old photos of cars, it's like flipping the pages of an old scrapbook.

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  2. Thank you for part 3!

    And thanks particularly for the shot of the Imperial taillight. (Is that one L or two?) That was the last gasp of that particular concept. And fluid drive is one of my favorite concepts -- I'd love to have the chance to drive one -- my Grandma's 51 Dodge had it (it was called Gyro-Matic) but I was just a little kid then. It took me years to understand how it works (not the internal workings but the actual process of driving) and it's really so simple. I think my goal in life (short-term) is to drive a Mopar with fluid drive!

    Another goal is to attend the Greenwich Concourse. Maybe this year. I know it's an easy train ride from Grand Central but somehow it creeps up and then I've missed it. I think it's the first weekend in June, yes?

    Paul, NYC

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  3. You know what? I've never been to the Greenwich Concours either. I think you're right about it being in June. I'm pretty sure Barry that checks in here once in a while, has brought his Mark II convertible to Greenwich before. He and his wife do a lot of shows with the Lincoln and their mid 50s Porsche Continental, an early 356 convertible that was only made for a very short time.

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  4. I had to look it up, taillight has two "L"s in it, lol. I know I've been alternating between one and two in all of my posts!

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  5. Gosh, I'd love to see a Continental Mark II convertible. I've seen pictures -- I think Ford made two of them, one of them for teh wife of one of the Fords. It would have been wonderful if the Continental Mark II had been successful but I wonder what would have happened to it after 57 -- would they have changed it to resemble the 58-60? Those are wonderful but they have nothing at all to do with what the Mark II represented. I guess all that can be laid at the feel of Robert McNamara, the ultimate bean counter.

    Paul, NYC

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  6. Happy to oblige! THis is Barry and Glynette's Mark II and Porsche. Barry has a collection called the "Continental Collection" and includes many disparate items with that name, including a vintage wooden Chris Craft from the '50s, a 1933 Continental sedan, which I looked at for him before he bought it, right nearby in Essex, and several other Lincoln Continentals. I'm going to devote a whole post to him soon, but I have to have time to really write it and get it right! His Mark II has been in many magazines, including our Hemmings Classic Car.

    http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-1956-Continental-Mark-II-Convertible.htm

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  7. ANNIE THINKING OF YOU. I HOPE YOUR OK. GN CAEY GN.

    GRANNY

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  8. Thanks for that link to Serious Wheels! I just put a shortcut on my work desktop. The pictures of the Contiental are amazing. The other one I've seen has a traditional fabric top covered by a boot, which I'm a fan of. But this one is so sleek and elegant -- it's really beautiful. And the pictures -- the pictures of the interior and dashboard -- they've always been among what I think of as among the most beautiful of the modern era (55-57 the modern era?) and these pics really show it off. All I can say is WOW!

    Paul, NYC

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  9. You're welcome! There are other websites with it also, Car Domain I believe, but I don't have the links right now. Barry is one of those awesome people that don't do anything half-assed, lol. That Lincoln was photographed better than 99% of the fashion shoots in Paris we used to cover at Women's Wear Daily, the ones they take 6 months to set up.

    He also has a Mark III convertible. I believe it was modified before he bought it, with the roof mechanism from the '69-'70 full sized Ford/Mercury lineup, but it needs restoration. I remember seeing photos of a triple black '77 Town Car also, the last year for the full fender skirts, which I'd covet as a daily driver today. Can you imagine using a car like that everyday? My little 4'10" 90 lb mother used to pilot cars like that all the time back then.

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  10. Well, those big cars were very easy to drive -- lots of power, steering that you could direct with one finger, as the brochures of the fifties used to show, brakes that took very little effort (remember Rambler brochures that showed a very tailored pump stepping on an egg on the brake pedal), so as long as you had good spatial perception, you had it made. There were a number of the last big Town Cars that were made into convertibles -- I remember particularly in the movie "Breaking Away" there's one used at the start of the big bike race. Lincoln should have convertibles -- in their day what was more glamorous than a Lincoln convertible? Not much!

    I clicked on the link you provided to the Fluid Drive story and found it fascinating -- I never realized there was a fluid coupling used with the regular manual transmission. I always thought of Fluid Drive as what I remember from postwar cars up until the full automatic was introduced on the 53 Imperial halfway through the model year. Chrysler really went its own way in those days when even Ramblers and Hudson Jets had full automatics and a New Yorker had fluid Torque (as it was called by then). I think their cyclical problems started then. But I still love them!

    Paul, NYC

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  11. I think being able to provide links in stories is one of the best parts of this format. Years ago I would have had to furnish footnotes, and then a bibliography and who would have followed all that to the source anyway? I've learned so much from publishing this blog!

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  12. Hi Paul, there was to be a Continental Mark III, and it had suicide rear doors.

    I found a complete set of cross-section drawings for the car. It was to be a unit body car.

    Look here for the drawings.

    http://www.markiiforum.com/showthread.php?t=896

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  13. Thanks for the link, Barry. I hear from Casey that you have a lot of amazing cars!

    I believe at least one of these Mark III four-doors was built -- I seem to recall a Hemmings article about it -- Casey can probably confirm that.

    I'm just noticing an amazing coincidence -- the verification word is "conti" believe it or not!

    Paul, NYC

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  14. I just checked out the link -- it seems that I was confused about Mark III. The one in the blueprints is a continuation of the Mark II, and not the Mark III that was introduced in the late 60s. The revived Mark III is the one that was made into a four door and featured in Hemmings. It's a shame that the sedan in the blueprints was never produced. But I believe this shows that there was some intention of continuing the theme of the Mark II. Of all sad songs or tongue or pen....

    Paul, NYC

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  15. Sadly, I never heard of some of these name plates and I have a car website, feel like a shmuck. Thank God Casey has a mind of historical stuff that we can all learn from. : )

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  16. Well now that you've heard of the here, start googling and learn about them, lol! seriously, I've learned so much from writing this blog, from all the comments especially. I think this format is GREAT for learning new things. I really learn something new every single day.

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