Bob Schuman is a Cadillac man, specifically, a ’41 Cadillac guy. He’s owned a couple of them because they’re great-looking cars and fine touring machines, which is just how he has enjoyed his own 1941 Cadillacs. He’s also a fan of 1950-’51 Cadillac Series 61 coupes, although that fan club is much smaller (if one exists at all). It’s not that the Series 61 coupe is unloved, it’s the fact that this shorter-wheelbase Cadillac was uncommon when new and is almost unheard of today.  

Schuman has admired the Series 61 coupe since he was a car-crazed kid, and it took decades and his connection to 1941 Cadillacs to find the 1950-’51 Cadillac perfect for him. Well, almost perfect.  

“I have got a friend who lives near Seattle, Washington, who invited me to go with him and his wife on the Cadillac & LaSalle Club National Driving Tour in 2010 and I did that,” he said. “Before we went on the tour, we stopped by a friend of his with two 1941 Cadillacs and this ’51. I saw it in his garage, in the back — I looked at it and asked, ‘Is that a 61 Series?’ I said, ‘I would like to buy that car and drive that one home.’ He said, ‘That would be the last one I would sell.’

“I didn’t look at it too closely,” Schuman continued. “A year later, my friend said the fellow decided to sell the car and maybe in a week or so I ought to give him a call. I thought about it and decided I better not wait. I ended up buying the car sight unseen.”

The car was in just the type of condition a hobbyist could hope for — it looked great, drove great and was in mostly original condition. But there was just one thing Schuman would have changed.

“What I had hoped to find was a 1950 or ’51 Series 61 coupe with a manual transmission,” Schuman said. “They made a fair amount in 1950, but in ’51, I have some Cadillac literature that says Hydra-Matic (automatic transmission) was standard in almost all models but it was still optional in the Series Seventy-Five and Series 61… I had hoped to find one with a manual and that’s fine, the Hydra-Matic is a fine transmission.”

Despite the obscurity of the Series 61 and manual transmission Cadillacs of 1950 and ’51, the most famous Cadillacs of this period were both. Sam and Miles Collier shifted to a 10th place finish at Le Mans in a manual transmission Series 61 coupe; car owner Briggs Cunningham was just behind when he rowed the gears to an 11th place finish in a second Series 61 that had its coupe body replaced with a unique roadster body. Stateside, legendary Mechanix Illustrated automotive critic Tom McCahill put his money where his keyboard was and bought as his personal car a 1950 Cadillac Series 61 coupe with a manual transmission. He mentioned the “straight shift” Cadillac several times in his popular road test column.

Schuman well remembered reading McCahill’s comments on his Cadillac Series 61, but he came to covet what he regularly saw in the tin.

“I always liked the Series 61 since the ’50 and ’51s were new,” he said. “There was somebody not far from where we lived that had a 1950 Series 61 coupe,” Schuman said. “I always liked the shorter back end of the 61 because I thought they were better proportioned.”

Short on wheelbase, long on Cadillac

Indeed, when Cadillac received a major restyle for 1950, for the first time the Series 61 Cadillac used a shorter wheelbase than the Series 62, which also offered coupe and sedan body styles (plus the Series 62 convertible). Starting in 1950, the Cadillac Series 61 shared a body with General Motors’ smaller B-body cars (think contemporary Buicks and Oldsmobiles). The Series 61’s shortness came in its wheelbase, which was 4 in. shorter than that of the Series 62. This wheelbase difference had an obvious impact on the Cadillac’s proportion, but there were other differences. On the outside, the Series 61 wore shorter rocker trim. Whereas other Cadillacs had full-length rocker trim, the Series 61 had trim along the rocker panel only at the bottom of the vertical chrome faux side vent that ran to the back the rear wheel opening.

Inside, the Series 61 featured a slightly plainer look than other Cadillacs. Vertical upholstery pleating throughout the 1951 Series 62 line added glamour to those models’ interiors while the only embellishment to the Series 61’s simpler, unpleated seats was piping where its two different cloth materials met. The Series 61 also had less chrome trim on the door and side panels and had ash receivers in the rear compartment, but lacked rear lighters of other Series 62 models. While hydraulic window lifts were standard in the Series 62 Coupe deVille and convertible and optional in other Series 62 models, Series 61 owners were forced to make do with manual labor when changing the window position.

With a plainer interior and a shorter wheelbase, it’s not surprising the Series 61 was the lowest-priced Cadillac. However, it was still a Cadillac and the car maker was quick to note that the Series 61 remained a quality car, even if it was more affordably priced.

“In basic mechanical design and quality, there is only one standard for Cadillac,” stated the Series 61 description in the company’s 1950 brochure. “All Cadillacs offer the same incomparable performance — the same standards of operating economy — the same long life and dependability. That’s why the Cadillac series Sixty-One… is such a favorite with Cadillac buyers everywhere — for it offers all the basic Cadillac virtues at an extremely moderate price. Like all other Cadillac models for 1950, the Series 61 is dramatically new in appearance and luxurious appointments. It is powered by the great Cadillac overhead valve engine whose performance, power and economy is so outstanding.”

Cadillac’s Series 61 story was similar in 1951, but better addressed the car’s price point and how it related to the potential Cadillac buyer.

“The motor cars of this Series 61 are, indeed, most remarkable. For they offer every detail of Cadillac’s thorough-going goodness, at a price actually competitive with numerous other makes of cars. In basic mechanical design and quality, in operating economy and — as you can readily see — in beauty, the Series 61 is every inch a Cadillac. Because of its moderate price, this series is particularly popular with those motorists who are taking their first step up to Cadillac.”

All Cadillac customers received a lot of beauty for their money in the early 1950s. The 1950-’53 styling cycle eliminated the pillar between the side windows on all two-door models, an innovation that debuted at Cadillac on the 1949 Coupe de Ville Sport Coupe two-door hardtop. Until the midyear introduction of the Coupe de Ville, all postwar two-door Cadillacs had been fastbacks with frames around the door windows. The hoods and decklids of all 1950 Cadillacs were also lowered to meet the fender tops, which were likewise lower than they had been in 1949. It all created a very “Cadillac” design, albeit a lower and wider and perhaps even more cohesive Cadillac design.

Oversquare overhead-valve power

Power for these Cadillacs came from the soon-to-be-famous overhead-valve V-8 engine that went into all Cadillacs beginning in 1949. This completely new 90-degree V-8 engine design had an oversquare configuration in which its bore (3-13/16 in.) was greater than its stroke (3-5/8 in.). Also innovative to this engine was its new “slipper” pistons, developed by Byron Ellis. The lower sides of the new engine’s pistons were cut away so as to allow them closer to the crank at the bottom of their stroke, thus allowing for shorter rods and an overall more compact engine design. The new overhead-valve 331-cubic-inch V-8 engine — engineered by Cadillac employees Harry F. Barr, Edward N. Cole and John F. Gordon — weighed 188 lbs. less than the flathead V-8 it replaced, was 4 in. shorter and 4 in. lower than the flathead, displaced 14 fewer cubic inches and yet it developed 10 more horsepower. There was a lot of room to grow, too, and Cadillac would begin to take advantage of the engine’s performance potential as the 1950s progressed. Through 1951, though, only minor revisions were made to its engine components, such as the two-barrel carburetor. The 331-cid V-8 retained its original 160 hp rating until 1952 when power jumped to 190 hp.

With an efficient and powerful V-8 engine in Cadillac’s lightest body, the Series 61 was a hot car in its time. Its closest rival was an Oldsmobile 88, which also featured an overhead-valve V-8 engine. Although the 3795-lb. Series 61 coupe weighed over 100 lbs. more than the 3659-lb. Olds in 1951, the Cadillac’s 331 put out 160 hp compared to 135 hp from the Olds 303-cid V-8. The performance came at a price, as the Cadillac Series 61 coupe had a factory base price of $2809 compared to $2267 for the top Oldsmobile two-door model, the Ninety-Eight Holiday coupe. That $542 in 1951 equates to about a $5300 difference today.

As light, nimble and speedy as the Series 61 was compared to the rest of the bigger and heavier Cadillac line, demand soon evaporated for the smaller Cadillac. American prosperity was high and to show it, bigger was better. In 1950, Cadillac had sold 6434 Series 62 coupes and another 4507 of the slightly dressier Series 62 Coupes deVille compared to 11,839 Series 61 coupes. When tallied, the number of 122-in.-wheelbase Series 61 coupes and longer 126-in.-wheelbase Series 62-based coupes was pretty equitable. Once 1951 rolled around, buyers jumped to the bigger Series 62 coupe models in droves, and the Series 62 coupe and dressier Series 62 Coupe deVille each sold about 10,000 cars on their own. Yet by mid 1951, the Series 61 coupe had accounted for only 2400 cars with Series 61 sedan sales equally bleak. In May 1951, the price-leading Series 61 went the way of the LaSalle it essentially replaced and suffered its own extinction.

Enjoying a survivor

Schuman’s 1951 Series 61 coupe is extremely uncommon today, and as a largely original car, it’s a rare survivor by any measure.

“It is a really nice original car,” he said. “It was repainted some years ago in a darker green than the original color, but it’s very much like another color that was available. The carpeting had been replaced, but otherwise the car is all original.”

Its good condition today is at least partially credited to the mild climate in which it has been kept.

“The Cadillac owner card that is on the support in front of the radiator has a purchaser’s name from 1953 and it’s the same dealer that sold the car new in 1951 — I know that because the factory invoice shows the dealer it went to,” he said. “Beyond that — who owned the car between 1953 and maybe about 1990 when the fellow I bought it from obtained it — I don’t know the history. It shows 90,000 miles and I believe that is original. It was sold new in Montana, it was resold in 1953 in Montana. About 1990, it ended up with this fellow in Seattle, Washington, and it either wasn’t driven in winter or they didn’t use salt. It is not a show car underneath, but it obviously wasn’t driven in winter.”

Although he can tout a mostly original car, Schuman notes the car does have one modification, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“1952 was the first year for Cadillac power steering, and from what I can tell, it has 1952 Cadillac power steering that I think was installed in 1953 when the car was traded in and resold.”

Despite representing Cadillac’s entry-level model, Schuman’s Series 61 is no “stripper” model. Factory-installed options on this Series 61 include full wheel covers, whitewall tires, heater system, auto-tuning radio with a rear speaker and a windshield washer. He says the car is fitted with a tinted windshield, although that option is not noted on its factory invoice. He’s proud to say nearly all of the accessories still work after 70 years.

“The clock works and it’s original; even the vacuum antenna works,” he said. “Everything works on it like it should but the windshield washer, but I will never use it anyway.”

Schuman wishes it had one more option, one that wasn’t available from the Cadillac Clark Street factory until 1953: air conditioning. However, that doesn’t stop him from driving the Cadillac, although he usually saves his drives for the coolest part of the day during the summer months.

“I bought the car nine years ago and I don’t drive it as much as I like, but I do drive it to breakfast often. Not having air conditioning is hard — it runs beautifully and drives so beautifully.

“The ’51 is ready and willing to continue the long-distance touring but the driver is not. About 100 miles is about as far as I want to drive at my age.”

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By Tom Jarboe

I called the seller in Pennsylvania and asked many questions about the car. All of his answers sounded positive and it sounded like the kind of car I wanted, but I wasn’t ready to buy.

By the time I decided I wanted the car it hadn’t sold and was no longer advertised. I called the seller and told him I was still interested in the car and made arrangements to go look at it the following weekend. On January 29 I went and test-drove the car.

The seller told me he bought it in 1983 in super-rough condition and spent about 10 years restoring it. The engine was rebuilt, it got a new Hampton Coach interior and a new black lacquer paint job. My wife convinced me that a restored car, not a rebuild candidate, was a better choice for me — something that would not be a huge challenge and potential headache, but one that I could tinker with, buy little knobs and things for, etc., and could enjoy driving. In February 2005 I went back with a trailer and bought it.

I’d rate his product as about a No. 3 (slightly minus) condition. For example, the running board mats were original rubber, and there was some de-lamination of the vent window glass. But to me that actually enhanced the charm of the car. It was old, but beautiful-old.

I’ve since replaced the vent glass, but the running boards are original and I’ll leave them that way.

After getting it home, I realized the car needed some things I hadn’t noticed, but they were the type of things that I was able to handle. The car had aftermarket turn signals, but they weren’t wired up. Noodling out that seven-wire harness was a great teaching experience about the car’s 6-volt electrical system. A friend of mine proved his friendship many times over — standing patiently behind the car with me under the dash: “Are they on now?”

The car had a really nice set of Guide fog lights, but those as well as the Guide spotlight weren’t wired up, either.

A bigger, more immediate concern was the smell of gasoline in the car. During my pre-purchase, windows-down, inspection of the car I had chalked this faint odor up to a “this is just an old car smell” issue. At home, overnight in my garage it was apparent that it was more than that. Being a business coupe, the gas tank is actually located inside the car, beneath a shelf that replaces the back seat. I took the car to a local garage; the owner there was an old car enthusiast who owned several cars like mine. He removed the gas tank and the bottom was corroded and damp with gasoline, not a dripping leak. Clearly there was some porosity in the metal. He jury-rigged a temporary tank set-up with a 1-gallon can to get me home. I debated having the tank restored and lined, but in the end spent the big bucks on a stainless steel tank from COTF.

The muffler, too, was corroded. I purchased and installed a stainless steel system. That turned out to be a significant effort, complete with the snapping off of an exhaust manifold stud, to be closely followed by the snapping off of the dreadfully misnamed “easy out” screw extractor. In the end, I obtained some dental drill bits from my dentist and laid under the car for hours with a Dremel tool eating out the remains of the broken bolt and extractor from the exhaust manifold flange.

These stainless steel retrofits together cost more than the original selling price of the car, but have proven to be great investments — no problems for 15 years and none expected.

The car is a business coupe model, the lowest-cost configuration for 1940. It is a two-door coupe, but without a back seat. The spare tire, instead of taking up room in the trunk, is located under the floor of the trunk in the space vacated by the gas tank. These arrangements allow for a significant increase in storage capacity, and the car was well suited for traveling salesmen or anyone who had to haul around a lot of merchandise in their job.

The car is a Master Deluxe model, the middle of three models that year. Most of the differences in the models are in little things like the trim, carpets, upholstery, etc., but the lower cost Master Model had a beam front axle, while the Master Deluxe and the higher-priced Special Deluxe had knee action front suspension.

Model year 1940 was Chevrolet’s first year for sealed beam headlights and the one-piece “alligator hood,” which opened from hinges on the cowl instead of the sides. However, this afforded less access to the engine compartment, so there are removable panels between the fenders and the hood that can be extracted with just two bolts. This gives the same access to the engine compartment as earlier models. It was also the last year for running boards on a Chevrolet.

The engine is the original 216-cubic inch in-line six cylinder producing 85 hp. Chevrolet later bored this block to 235 cubic inches and it was used up into the early 1960s. The first Corvettes used this engine.

Chevrolet had changed from a floor-mounted gear shift to the column-mounted “three on the tree” in 1939. Because the shift lever was now much shorter, they incorporated a vacuum assist feature into the linkage to make shifting gears easier. The previous owner had removed this on my car and I find the car shifts easily enough without it.

The rear end is a 4.11:1 ratio, which is great for climbing hills, but by the time I get to 55 miles an hour I wish I had another gear or overdrive. Most of my driving is in the 40 to 50 mph range, anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Chevy did put a 3:73 rear in the lower-priced Master model for better fuel economy.

I have always liked the stock appearance of older cars and I intend to keep this car that way. Early on when people first began chopping cars up into hot rods these cars were only 10 or 20 years old and there were plenty of them around. It’s a different story today. By the time a beautifully designed automobile has managed to survive 80 or 90 years it’s time to leave it alone. When you watch a car show on TV you often hear the phrase “these are getting harder to find”, and then they proceed to destroy it. Chop up a 1995 Chevy Cavalier if you must, but leave the old stuff alone.

My concessions to hot rodding this car are the fuzzy dice on the mirror, the necker knob on the steering wheel and the whitewall tires. The car gets driven fairly regularly when the weather is nice, and my granddaughters in particular like to ride around the neighborhood in the “taxi”.

The first family car I can remember was a 1940 Chevrolet sedan. When my father wasn’t around my sister and I would climb all over it — it seemed like it was made out of cast iron. I went with my father when he traded it in on a used 1948 Buick. I remember sitting in the front seat, looking at the knobs and lights on this new strange dashboard, and wondering how my dad was going to figure out how to operate all this stuff?

The Chevy dash is pretty much bare bones. These days when I ride down the road and look out over the dash and the hood, I think about how this is the precisely the image my father viewed in his Chevy 70-plus years ago.

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Most “car guys” can relate to the moment. It’s that memory of the first time you saw a particular vehicle that blew your mind. You might have been 3 years old at the time. You might have been 33. But you’ll never forget it.

“Wow! What was that?!”

Bill Stanley’s moment came when he was a teenager in the 1960s and he saw a rare circa-1937 Hudson Terraplane pickup express on the road.

“We were up in Vermont and I thought it was just the coolest thing in the world,” recalls Stanley, a resident of Cheshire, Conn. “They only made them for two years, and the styling … I was just amazed by it.”

Stanley says he never forgot about that truck, and many years later started to entertain the idea of finding one for himself. He knew it wouldn’t be easy, as they are in the “hen’s teeth” category when it comes to scarcity. Eventually, though, he spotted a classified ad for a ’37 pickup in Ohio. “I called the guy up and he was very modest about,” Stanley recalled. “He said he restored it and it was nice … Well, he sent a few more pictures and they kind of looked good, but you couldn’t really tell. But we agreed on a price and I went out there — I wasn’t going to buy a car without looking at it.”

When he arrived in Covington, Ohio, Stanley met up with Dale Bundy, the owner and seller of the truck. Bundy had spent countless hours working on the truck over the previous four years, but he was ready to let somebody else feed and care for it. “He told me they didn’t have a lot of history, but he said the Hudson collector he got it from bought it from a car lot for about 150 bucks back in the 1960s … and he’d been holding it for all that time,” Stanley said.

“My expectation was that it was going to be in pretty good shape, but it was in much better shape than I expected when I got there. He had done virtually a concours-level restoration … He drove it a little here and there, so it was not a perfect No. 1 [condition] car, but it was not far from it. He told me on the phone that he was a body man … Well, some guys you can just tell are being modest. I was pleasantly surprised when I got there. The motor, drive train, transmission — it was all original and gone through back in the ’90s. I’m sure when he was done with it, it was done way better than when it came out of the Terraplane factory.”

In the three years Stanley has owned it, the ’37 pickup has, in fact, been a concours participant, rubbing fenders with cars of the rich and famous, and it even took home First Junior and First Senior Awards from the AACA.

“Sometimes you just get lucky,” admits Stanley. “I think he probably just wanted to sell it to somebody who would appreciate it and take care of it.”

RISE AND FALL OF TERRAPLANE

The Terraplane name began in 1932 as a model of the Hudson Motor Car Co. Wilbur Wright was the first recipient of a new car, and Amelia Earhart reportedly got the second.

Terraplane automobiles gained notoriety for being clocked at 80 mph, which could compete with the new Ford V-8’s performance. Within a year, Essex-Terraplane became known simply as the Terraplane. Hudson decided to try its Terraplane in racing and hill climb events and the cars went on to collect many hill climb and speed records. The industry’s first all-steel turret top was introduced on a Terraplane in 1935 and “Duo-Automatic” hydraulic brakes arrived in 1936.

For all its strong points, however, the Terraplane was seen by some within the company as a threat to its parent nameplate. The following year, in 1938, it was renamed the Hudson-Terraplane, meaning it was basically a model under the Hudson umbrella. The following year, the Terraplane name disappeared altogether.

RARE AND RUGGED SURVIVOR

The Terraplane cab pickup was unique at the time in that the front half of the vehicle closely resembled a passenger car complete with a fancy streamlined grille and sidemount spare integrated into the passenger side front fender. The swoopy, Art Deco design and low profile of the pickup might make it look a little too fragile and sophisticated for real grunt work, but Stanley’s pickup is actually a beefy 3/4-ton brute underneath its pretty skin. The Double-Drop 2-X frame was certainly suitable for heavy lifting, and the 7-foot-long bed — designed with tool boxes on either side — and 212-cid inline six connected to a three-speed manual transmission with an ultra-low “granny” first gear made the Terraplane a more-than-capable work truck.

“It’s pretty funny thatit’s actually a 3/4-ton truck,” Stanley notes. “It’s kind of low and looks kind of chopped … but the springs on the back are unbelievable. It definitely rides like a three-quarter-ton truck. And I’ll tell you, it gets a lot of attention!

“It drives nice, but you get up to about 45 [mph] and it’s not too happy. The truck really has to work. I can cruise pretty nicely at about 35… It’s non-synchro, so shifting is a bit of an issue. First gear is so low I don’t even use it. Getting off the line is no problem in second gear. First gear would be good for pulling stumps on the farm, I’d guess.”

The Terraplane pickups weren’t quite as fancy inside as they were out, but they were probably a little more refined than most of their completion with a nicely arranged instrument panel located at the center of the dash. The center panel included gas and temperature gauges and lights for the generator and oil pressure — basically early versions of “idiot” lights. The push-button starter was accompanied by a key and a choke adjustment knob. A cowl vent lever controlled the fresh air that was funneled into the cab.

One notable technical achievement that Terraplane enjoyed in those days was a vacuum electric shift assist system that was fitted on the steering column and basically overrode the floor shifter. It was a pretty nifty gizmo, but Stanley’s bare-bones pickup is not equipped with it.“Mine was very basic,” he says. “It’s got no heater, no radio, no clock. Just the basics.”

It’s clear when you talk to Stanley that he couldn’t be prouder of his truck, and every day he gets to drive it is a good day. The novelty of having such a rare hauler that is almost guaranteed to be the only one of its kind wherever he goes hasn’t worn off in the three years he owned it, and it’s doubtful it ever will.

“We are having a lot of fun with it,” Stanley says. “I don’t drive it too much. You’re a little afraid to drive it because if somebody runs a stop sign and hits you, now what are you going to do? It’s not like you can go out to a parts store and get a fender or grille for a ’37 Hudson.”

________________________

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By Brian Earnest

Ken Amrick can look back and chuckle about it now. He admits he made a pretty big mistake — at least by his own exacting standards — when he really got neck deep into restoring his 1954 Chevrolet Corvette roadster. It was Amrick’s first frame-off restoration project, and “my first fiberglass body,” recalls the Pittsburgh-area resident now, some 23 years later.

“With the help of my daughter and some inner tubes, we got the body off the car, and had scraped everything underneath … and then I went and painted everything underneath the floor. Well, I didn’t know that wasn’t correct! Back then they didn’t paint underneath like that, other than around the fender wells. So I spent all of one weekend painting underneath, and all the next week removing it!”

Judging by the final product, it was one of the few missteps Amrick made in his do-it-yourself remake of his fabulous ’54. The car has gone on to rack up a shelf full of big hardware, including its NCRS Top Flight Award, Bloomington Gold certification and AACA Senior Award.

“I was really into having everything correct,” Amrick recalls about his brief painting miscue. “Like all the heads on the bolts on the car had to have correct markings. I wanted everything to be as exact as it could be.” His efforts all paid off handsomely when points judges confirmed that he had done almost everything correct down to the smallest detail. “When I won those awards, I felt good about it because I’m an amateur restorer and you are in there competing with professional restoration shops when you are at that level. It’s a nice feeling that the car can compete with them.”

The lengthy restoration on his ’54 vaulted Amrick head-first into the world of early Corvettes and led him to be an active member of the Solid Axle Corvette Club and the editor of the club’s magazine. It’s a pretty unlikely outcome for a guy that insists he wasn’t even looking for a Corvette in the first place. He was actually on the hunt for a car that turned out to be the early ’Vette’s main competitor — a first-gen Ford Thunderbird.

“I got the car in like ’87 or ’86, somewhere in there, and I didn’t actually start the restoration until 1989 or ’90. My wife [Marilyn] actually found it. She’s into cars just about as much as I am,” he laughs. “I was actually looking for a two-seat Thunderbird at the time and my wife saw this car in one of those local advertising papers that they give out. She showed it to me and we decided to go look at it. So it was a local car. It turned out to be a semi-started restoration project. They had started taking the motor apart and started sanding the paint on the body, and then lost interest and just abandoned it. Fortunately, they kept it in the garage and not outside. It had been in the North Hills area around Pittsburgh and I think it had two owners in that area, then this person bought it. They had it for quite a while because there was a photo of the car that was taken in 1971, so they owned the car the whole decade of the ’70s and much of the ’80s… They just used it as transportation for a while, and then they decided to ‘recondition’ it, I guess you could say. I don’t know what was wrong with the motor, but it was partially apart and I never really found anything wrong, but I decided to go ahead and restore the motor. It had 67,000 or 68,000 miles on it and in those days, that was about the time to re-ring it or something.”

Year 2: Still on shaky ground

Hard as it is believe today, the Corvette was very much an acquired taste for the buying public during its first few years, and after an almost experimental first year carried on into its sophomore campaign with few changes. Indeed, the 1953 and ’54 Corvettes are tough to distinguish from each other, even for ’Vette aficionados. Both had the initial Corvette fiberglass bodies, chrome-framed grille with 13 heavy vertical chrome bars, rounded front fenders with recessed headlamps covered by wire screens, no side windows or outside door handles, a wraparound windshield and protruding, fender-integrated taillamps. The interior featured a floor-mounted shifter for the Powerglide two-speed automatic transmission and gauges to monitor the oil pressure, battery, water temperature and fuel, plus a tachometer and clock.

For ’54, minor changes were made to the window storage bag, air cleaners, starter and locations of the fuel and brake lines. Unlike the previous year’s model, 1954 Corvettes were available in Pennant Blue, Sportsman Red and Black, in addition to Polo White. The soft top was now offered in beige. A new style of valve cover was used. It was held on by four bolts through the outside lip instead of two center studs. The valve cover decals were different with larger lettering. The optional radio had Conelrad National Defense System icons on its face. In early 1954, the original two-handled hood latch was changed to a single-handle design. Six-cylinder Corvettes after serial number E54S003906 had integrated dual-port air cleaners. A clip to hold the ventipanes closed was added in late 1954 and also used on all 1955 models.

Under the hood was the same 235-cid Blue Flame six-cylinder with 150 hp (later in the year, a new camshaft increased the hp to 155). It used three Carter one-barrel Type YH carburetors.

The cars rode on a 102-inch-wheelbase chassis and measured 167 inches from nose to tail.The suspension consisted of coil springs, tube shocks and a stabilizer bar in front, and leaf springs, tube shocks and a solid axle in back.

Options included a signal-seeking AM radio ($145.15), turn signals ($16.75), heater ($91.40), windshield washer ($11.85), parking brake alarm ($5.65) and courtesy lamp ($4.05).

Production of the 1954 Corvettes began on Dec. 23, 1953. About 80 percent of the cars were painted white. It was reported at the time that Chevrolet brass hoped to sell as many as 10,000 Corvettes in year two. The 3,640 that were actually built was more than 10 times as many as the debut year, but still meant that most American car buyers either hadn’t yet warmed up to the Corvette, didn’t know much about them, didn’t want to throw down 2,774 greenbacks for a two-seat toy or a combination of all the above.

Regardless, it was clear after the Corvette’s sophomore season that Chevrolet would have to raise its game — and probably its piston count — if it wanted the ’Vette to survive. That transformation began a year later when the Corvette jumped into the V-8 world to keep pace with the debuting Thunderbird.

Duntov’s special touch

Aside from the machining on the block, the transmission overhaul, the convertible top and the chrome plating, Amrick said he did all the restoration work himself, including all the upholstery and paint, inside and out. “I had painted cars before, but never one this expensive,” he joked.

His meticulous approach really became a challenge, he says, when he was trying to decide what to do with a broken heater control switch. “The switch is a Corvette-only part and trying to find a ’53 or ’54 Corvette part all these years later … I never did find what I wanted. I found a dealer that had one and he wanted a fortune for it. I worked on mine and eventually made it work.” He said that ultimately resulted in a trip to Radio Shack and “trying every resistor they had” until he found one that behaved close enough to the real thing. “It’s not the correct resister, but it’s sort of located above the switch and you can’t see it. Nobody would ever be able to tell.”

Amrick has never put many miles on the Corvette and it’s very doubtful he ever will, considering the condition of the car, the lofty market value of such machines today and the fact that he has a lot of other cars in which he can enjoy seat time. The ’54 only gets about 100 miles a year these days, he says, but the trips are fun while they last.

“It’s got bias-plys on it, so it doesn’t drive like a new car,” he chuckles. “But of course I wanted it to be as original as they were in those days. But it starts really easily. There’s no power steering because they didn’t have it in those days, but it steers like it does have power steering. You get up to speed and it really handles great.It’s got the old six-volt system, but as long as you keep it tuned up and stay on top of everything, it runs great. It rides good and doesn’t rattle or anything … I’ll tell you, when we do take it somewhere, it steals the show. Like when we go to a local show, yeah, it gets a lot of attention. Of course, part of that is that people think it’s a ’53. They see a white one, and they just assume it’s a ’53.”

One Corvette guy who could actually tell the difference between a ’53 and ’54 was Zora Arkus-Duntov, the famed Chevrolet engineer who and race driver who helped turn the Motorama Corvette dream car into a true American V-8 sports car. Duntov actually drove Amrick’s car when the paint was barely dry following its restoration in 1993.

Amrick had been recruited to participate in the festivities surrounding the Pittsburgh Vintage Grand Prix. He had originally be scheduled to take a parade lap with Duntov’s wife, Elfi, but instead got Zora himself. “He was supposed to bein a ’53, but they had a problem with the ’53 and everybody moved back one car and he jumped into my ’54,” he remembered. “I asked him if he wanted to ride or drive, and he said he’drather drive. So he drove!

Duntov signed the dash to commemorate the occasion. “He wrote, ‘I driven this car on 7-24-93,” Amrick notes. “We’d say, ‘I drove this car,’ but he was an immigrant and he was Russian, so he wrote it ‘I driven.’ It’s great!”

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This baby is a little rough around the edges — spectacularly rough, and we love it!

The rusty mean green machine is a 1950 Oldsmobile Rocket 88 Futuramic “tin woody” station wagon that we spotted for sale on Craigslist in San Mateo, Calif. “This car runs and is very rare and in good condition,” according to the seller. “It does need new floor pans. It has the original 303 V-8 engine with two-speed automatic transmission. All the numbers match. The front suspension bushings and bearings have been replaced. I have a new hood as well as an extra front bumper and some other miscellaneous parts. I have all the original wood from the inside. I also have all new hand-crafted interior wood to replace everything. I have the skirts and there are new tires on the original rims.”

The asking price is $12,500. That’s in the ballpark for this great wagon, which would be equally cool weathered and a little beat up, or restored and in show room condition.

You can check out the listing here: https://reno.craigslist.org/cto/d/san-mateo-1950-oldsmobile-tin-woody/7084921229.html

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The post We’d Buy That! 1950 Oldsmobile station wagon appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

By Brian Earnest

Danny Barnett has had about 35 years to rehearse his answer to the inevitable question: “What is that?!” He hears the inquiry almost every time he takes out his strange, yellow, bulbous European sedan.

For years, he would happily oblige inquisitors with a lengthy history lesson on the background of his 1966 Tatra 2-603. These days, he keeps his replies a little shorter. “I try to give them the Reader’s Digest version now,” he laughs. “’It’s from Czechoslovakia, built in Eastern Europe, rear engine, blah, blah …When people start to yawn, they are getting bored and I’ve gone on too long!”

There was a time when Barnett was asking that same question. He was a car guy and together with a friend started seeking out and buying old Hudsons around Las Vegas and countless Nevada back roads. The Hudson “fixer-uppers” were his passion until he spotted a Tatra pictured on a cigarette card in a book. “I had never heard of it. Here was this car with a dorsal fin and shaped like a zeppelin, engine in the back… It was just so different. We decided to make it our goal to see if we could find one and buy one. Over the next few years, we found a few Tatraplans that needed a whole lot of work and weren’t running. Well, I didn’t want to wind up with something I couldn’t keep running or needed a ton of work. In those years, Czechoslovakia was behind the Iron Curtain and you couldn’t just go to a local parts store and buy parts!”

Barnett wound up passing on the few Tatras that he found, but patience paid off. In 1984, he found out about a car that was scheduled to be sold at a Dean Kruse auction in Las Vegas. It was a white 1966 2-603 that had been in the United States almost its entire life. The demand for such a car was pretty low, Barnett figured, so he hoped he might have a shot at landing it for a bargain price. “I couldn’t believe it,” he recalls. “The car had been advertised for sale a few months before, so I knew about it. But it didn’t sell. Those were the days when hardly anybody knew what it was, and when I went to the auction I knew exactly what it was! … It went up, and they had a turntable and everything, and it was bid up to $1,850 with no sale. Well, I was still interested in it so I followed the guy out in the parking lot. I told the guy I would really like to have it. He said, ‘I’ve got $2,500 in it. If I could get my $2,500 back, I’d be happy.’ And I thought, ‘Bingo!’ So I drove home in a Tatra that day and I’ve had it ever since.”

According to the story Barnett got on the car, the Tatra had been imported new to Los Angeles in 1966 by an expatriate Czech named C.J. Coffee, who sold Jawa and CZ motorcycles at his shop in Southern California. He received permission from the Czech government to purchase the car and export it to the United States. He apparently watched the car being built at the factory in Koprivnice. After he shipped it to the states, he would park it in front of his motorcycle shop in L.A. to attract attention. He also drove it to Seattle once back in the day. In the mid ’70s, Coffee retired and moved to Prescott, Ariz., and eventually sold the Tatra to a collector, who in 1984 put it up for sale. “I was delighted to become the owner of this wonderful unusual car, and thought it was funny when spectators at car shows had no idea what it was, and even other car collectors couldn’t believe that they actually manufactured cars in Czechoslovakia,” Barnett says. “People are still surprised to watch me open the rear deck cover [and unveil] the 2.5-liter air-cooled hemi V-8! I have been asked if it is a Chrysler Hemi, and at one recent display, a fellow collector asked me how hard it was to adapt and install the motor in my car. He couldn’t believe it when I told him it is the way in came from the factory.”

Czech-ered Past

One of the first rear-engined cars to enter production, the Tatra was also one of the world’s most progressive vehicles, pioneering unibody construction and streamlined design. Evolved from the Schustala wagon factory, which dates to 1953, the company formed at Nesseldorf entered the automobile business in 1897, when Czechoslavakia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. An experimental “Prasident” vehicle, powered by a two-cylinder engine, led to production of 10 motorcars in 1899. Each had a different name, but by 1901 the Nesseldorf name was adopted. A 3.3-liter Model S with an overhead-cam engine appeared in 1906, and six-cylinder engines came into use by 1914. By that time, the cars also had independent suspensions and four-wheel brakes. After World War I, when the nation of Czechoslovakia was formed, the town of Nesseldorf adopted a new name, so the name of the car produced there was changed to the Tatra, after a mountain range where the cars underwent testing.

The Type 11 that arrived in 1923 had advanced features such as air cooling, swing axles and a tubular backbone-style chassis. It was powered by a horizontally opposed two-cylinder engine. By the 1930s, the model lineup had ranged from three-wheelers with one cylinder power to a limited-production V-12. Meanwhile, the company had become no less renowned for the manufacture of trucks and railway locomotives.

In 1934, the car that put Tatra’s name in the history books arrived. The Type 77 fastback sedan was powered by a rear-mounted V-8 engine and had styling cues similar to the Chrysler Airflow, but with a personality all its own. It was capable of speeds near 100 mph with its 3389cc 75-hp engine. Design features included triple headlamps. A similarly shaped T87 model came later, along with a smaller 3-liter overhead-cam V-8.

The 1930s also saw a smaller rear-engine prototype built that would bear a strong resemblance to what would later become the Volkswagen. In 1967, Tatra won a lawsuit against VW for patent infringement and was awarded 3 million marks.

Ownership of the Tatra company was nationalized under the communist government following World War II. The next big development proved to be the development of the T600 Tatraplan — which was similar in looks to the prewar sedan, but with a four-cylinder engine. By 1957, the T603 had arrived with a rear V-8 instead of a flat four. Two years later, the body got a facelift and a more potent V-8 was added. In 1969, a total of 250 cars were produced by Tatra, but that was a small part of the company’s total output, which was about 4,000 vehicles. Trucks made up the bulk of the Tatra business, and automobiles from the company are a rare sight today, particularly in the United States.

“Tatra is still in business making heavy-duty diesel trucks,” Barnett points out. “Car production ended in 1997 with the Tatra 700 series.”

Stranger in a Strange Land

“My car is the second series, or 2-603. It has a 2.5-liter air-cooled rear engine, with a four-speed trans-axle with column shift,” Barnett notes. “It also features power drum brakes. In 1967, Tatra introduced four wheel disc brakes, and electronic ignition. The engine produces 99 hp, and with the extremely aerodynamic body, built like an airplane fuselage with even the under body completely smooth, it can cruise at 60 to 70 mph, no problem. It is a real comfortable cruiser and easily holds up to six passengers. The radio even has a short-wave band on it. I guess during the Cold War, you could get Radio Free Europe on it while you were driving along. It also came with an accessory hand crank to start the car if the battery died, which many East Bloc cars had up through the 1980s. Also, about the same time my car was built, the Tatra factory workers assembled a 603 sedan for Fidel Castro. It is the only 603 ever to have air conditioning. I assume it still exists in some government garage or warehouse in Havana.”

Barnett wasn’t quite sure how challenging it would be to restore an offbeat, Communist-built car from the 1960s when he finally got his hands on one, but he didn’t back down from the challenge, either.

Not long after he got it, Barnett started working on the exterior of the car, which was made easier by the fact that it was void of rust. He scrapped the white paint in favor of a striking Marigold Yellow, which makes the 603 stand out even among fellow Tatras. “You could have it any color you wanted, really. These cars were mostly reserved for political leaders, factory executives, people like that,” he says. “The chances for an ordinary Czech to get one in those days was very remote.”

Over the years, Barnett said there has really been no part of the car that has gone untouched. He re-did the interior and all the seat upholstery not long after the body and paint were done. Then came a methodical overhaul of all the mechanicals, including the air-cooled V-8 in back.

“I put a lot of work into it. I also am very lucky to have a good friend and also a Tatra owner, Ken Ufheil of Plano, Texas, who as a master mechanic with many good connections in the Czech Republic and the old East Germany, is able to get parts to keep my 603 roadworthy,” he says. “Recently, my car made bearing noises in fourth gear, and Ken found an elderly gentleman in Chemnitz, formerly Karl Marx Stadt, East Germany, who rebuilds those trans-axles! The cost air freighted to Las Vegas was very reasonable, $2,500. There are vendors in the Czech Republic reproducing parts for these cars now, too, and a restoration service at the factory, which does any Tatra car you want to have restored.”

Barnett, not surprisingly, has become a well-known member of the small community of Tatra owners enjoying their cars in the United States. Among the car owners he has rubbed elbows with is Jay Leno, who owns a 1947 Tatra 87. He says his proudest and most memorable moment with the car came in 2014, when he displayed the Tatra at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Monterey, Calif.

Slowly, but surely, he says the surviving Tatras have become more well-known in collector circles — and more valuable. He recalled a time when surviving 603s would regularly change hands for prices in the $1,500 range. Nice examples now go for $50,000 or more. “Those early cars, the Model T77s, they only made 100, 120 of those. I’ve heard they change hands now for over $1 million, that’s how rare they are,” Barnett notes. “Then the T87s that came after that, they are very iconic and those are going for in the neighborhood of $250,000 now, and I remember you could pick them up for $15,000, $20,000 30 years ago.”

You believe Barnett when he says he has never been tempted to sell his beautiful yellow sedan. He knows he’d probably never find another one to match it, and the car has become too much a part of his identity to part with. That hasn’t stopped a few people from trying to convince him otherwise.

“There are a couple of guys in Europe … that are really seriously into the Tatra collecting hobby,” he says. “A couple guys in Holland and one in Germany, and they know my car quite well. A couple of them actually came to the United States on holiday and actually came over to my house and wanted to take a look at my car. The thing that always impresses them and blows them away is this car was manufactured in ’66 … crated to the United States, and basically the car has never been out of the southwest United States its whole life. It’s never had any rust on it, and in Europe, these cars can rust very badly. One guy just couldn’t believe it. He says he’s never seen one like it.

“So there are some guys who would like to have it, but I love the car so much and have so much fun with it. I’m sure they would take very good care of it back in Europe, but I don’t know — I don’t think it would happy back in Europe. My car likes it out here in the dry.”

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By Micheal Petti

Ransom Eli Olds thought his single-cylinder “curved dash” Oldsmobile was the ideal car for the middle class.However, his associates wanted to build more substantial automobiles, and they held a majority of stock.

So Olds left in January 1904, and by August 1904 he formed the Reo Motor Car Co., which was named using his initials but was pronounced how it was spelled. Car production began in 1904 and trucks followed in 1906. In October 1910, the Reo Motor Truck Co. was formed as a sister business venture.The advertisement slogan was “Reo — Built for Business.” The trucks became known for their strength and durability.

Early Reo trucks used one- and two-cylinder engines. Four-bangers were offered from 1913 till the end of 1934. In 1915, Reo was the first to equip its trucks with pneumatic tires as standard equipment. In the same year, the firm offered shaft drive, electric equipment and a self-starter. During this period, Reo made its own engines and other components when many trucks were assembled products using many components from other companies.

The Reo Speed Wagon, also called the Hurry Up Wagon, was introduced in 1915. The latter name did not stick.Top speed was 22 mph, although it was claimed to reach 40 mph. This was at a time when trucks could often go no faster than 15 mph. Initially, the Speed Wagon was a 3/4-ton, but the series was expanded to include vehicles up to 3 tons. Speed Wagons were built into fire trucks, tow trucks, dumpsters, delivery vehicles, buses, hearses and ambulances. A 1/2-ton Junior Speed Wagon was available from 1928 to 1931 and it looked like Reo’s Wolverine car.

Reo truck production peaked at 23,509 in 1928. The nearly indestructible Gold Crown six-cylinder engine, featuring a chrome-nickel block, was unveiled in 1929. It was employed for the most demanding tasks. Two- and three-axle frames were available in the 1930s and a semi-streamlined style debuted in 1935.

In 1933, Reo built 3,042 trucks compared to 2,623 cars. The Reo board decided that automobiles were a losing proposition for the company and decided to concentrate on truck production; car production ceased in 1936. Ransom Olds preferred cars to trucks and retired in 1934 at 70 years of age. His retirement came shortly after the board determined automobile production would end.

A rare Reo survivor

Gene Bertholf of Lock Sheldrake, N.Y., owns the pictured 1936 Reo Speed Wagon dumpster.

“My father (Raymond) bought the truck in May of 1972 from the original owner. It was in excellent condition,” he said. As a Reo ad stated, “Get a truck with a tough motor. Get one that’s designed to stand up under merciless pounding, day-in-and-day-out. Get a 1936 Reo.” That proved true for the first owner and then the Bertholfs.

“It needed new paint. My father had it repainted, keeping with the original colors. The exterior is a gray cab with red stripe around it, red dump body with black fenders, grille and bumpers.”

“The motor is an L-head, 73-hp 228-cid, 6-cylinder Gold Crown engine,” Bertholf said.

The same 1936 Reo truck ad stated, “Drivers prefer the new Reo Gold Crown and Silver Crown truck engines. They know that these sturdy, responsive motors will ‘take it’ without grumbling.” The Silver Crown had a silver-painted head unit. It was a 70-hp, 209-cid, 6-cylinder.

Bertholf pointed out that his Reo dumpster has “one wiper and a flip-out windshield. Also, [it has] a hand crank for starting if the battery is low.”

The Reo also has one round dial that houses the oil, fuel, temp and amp gauges. In the center of the dial is the speedometer. “There is no adjustable seat and the small cab has very limited leg room.” There is no heater.

Bertholf also noted that his Reo has an extra-sturdy 7-inch-deep frame; a four-by-the-knee Reo-built manual transmission; and a full-floating rear axle. He noted that the steering is hard.“However, once you get moving, it isn’t too bad.”

Bertholf particularly likes the Garwood hydraulic dump body, which was invented by Gar Wood. He said he once saw a truck driver unloading 5 tons of coal using a hand crank to make the coal slide out of the dump body. It was a backbreaking 30-minute ordeal. Wood’s invention was a mechanical device for dumping out loads that was so much easier and so successful that 90 percent of the truck makers listed Wood bodies as standard equipment.

These days, Bertholf’s 1936 Reo dumpster’s coal-hauling days are over. Instead, Bertholf is babying his 1936 Reo Speed Wagon dumpster, just like his father before him.

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By Rose Miller

My companion, Dr. Robert Blake, likes to collect Hudsons. He owns and displays more than 35 of them at his car collection/museum, “Old Spokes”, located in New Smithville, Pa. Even though the Hudson marque is first and foremost in his collection, Chrysler cars are very dear to him. While growing up in Ridgefield Park, N.J., in the 1950s and 60s, his father (also a Dr. Robert Blake), generally purchased Chrysler automobiles. It all started with a blue1960 New Yorker that his family purchased from Gatti Motors in Hackensack. Most likely it was the beautiful styling as well as performance that did the trick for young Robert. Who would have guessed that almost 50 years later, another Chrysler car would enter into his life? This time it would be a highly sought-after Chrysler “Letter Car”: A 1960 Chrysler 300F convertible, 1 of 248 produced.

One thing great about being in car clubs are the friendships that are developed. The 300 Club International is a close-knit group of likeminded enthusiasts. The club assisted Robert, through his friendship with member Dave Clelland, in obtaining the 300F. Clelland, a big Barrett-Jackson fan, had been attending an event when this particular 300F appeared unlisted on the auction block. Clelland knew that Robert was seeking to obtain one, so a bid was made and the car was won at an extremely good price.

The day that I saw this wonderful car, I decided to set about obtaining its history. Again, I turned to the 300 Club International for guidance. Gil Cunningham, one of its senior members, was kind enough to provide me with a copy of the car’s microfilm record as well as club ownership history. The history was very revealing. Club records indicated that Robert’s 300F was a Wisconsin car. The dealer tag (which was and is still on the car), showed that Edward’s Motors, of Milwaukee, was the originating dealership. Cunningham was also able to provide me two names of prior owners from the 1980s listed in the club records. The first name was Mr. Craig R. Fuchs of West Allis, Wis., who was shown as owning the car in 1989 and a telephone number was provided to contact him.

On May 24, 2009, Robert called Fuchs to obtain some additional history about the 300F. Matthew Fuchs, Craig’s father, answered the telephone and it turned out that he was the owner of the car before Craig. Mat was a fountain of information. He revealed that he had purchased the 300F from a used car lot in 1983 or 1984. It was originally intended to be a parts car for his 300F coupe. When he obtained it, the car had been partially dismantled by its prior owner, an uninformed teenager, who did not know the value of the car. The rams had been removed, the four-barrel carb had been changed, and the wheels and rims had been changed. Luckily, the teenager had stored the removed parts in his garage and included them in the sale of the 300F.

Mat opted to have mercy on the Chrysler and decided to have the car partially restored. That included having the fenders repaired and miscellaneous bodywork done, although the car did not undergo a complete repaint. The engine was completely rebuilt. The convertible top was also replaced with black material. In 1990, the 300F was sold to a man in California. Fuchs mentioned that the man told him that he was going to do a full “California” restoration to the car. Gil Cunningham’s club records reflected this fact. Apparently, in 1990, the 300F was sold to a man named Earl Rynerson of San Francisco. After that point, there are no club records of ownership, other than Robert’s acquisition of the car. I attempted to contact Rynerson, but his telephone number was no longer in service. It may be safe to assume that the car may have been auctioned off by him or his estate by Barrett-Jackson.

Upon Robert’s acquisition of the car and subsequent inspection, it was discovered that several important issues needed to be addressed. There were several cracks in the sub-frame, a definite safety issue; the Arctic White paint was rather tired; and the interior was well worn with cracks in the leather in several spots. It was apparent that these items could be resolved and the 300F used as a driver. Instead, it was decided to bring the car back to its former glory and proceed with a full-blown rotisserie restoration. All that was required, at that point, was to find a competent restoration shop, preferably one that specialized in “fin” cars. Jerry Kopecky of Kopecky’s Klassics was selected to undertake the task. Jerry gained recognition in 2007 as the restorer of a 1957 DeSoto that sold for a (at that time) record-breaking $285,000 at a Barrett-Jackson auction in January of that year. The 300F was now heading back to Wisconsin, but it was not going to Milwaukee. This time, it was heading north, to the small town of Iola, home of Kopecky’s Klassics.

Anyone who has experienced the process of a rotisserie restoration understands the painstaking detail and time that is enlisted to complete the task. The 300F was completely disassembled down to a bare frame. Sheet metal was welded and re-aligned to improve the fit and finish of each body component. All parts needed to be photographed and cataloged to ensure proper replacement. Kopecky’s efforts were well documented in various articles written “Old Cars Guide to Auto Restoration.” Old Cars editor Angelo Van Bogart also wrote several articles featuring Kopecky’s ongoing efforts in restoring the 300F. Along the way, Kopecky took the partially restored Chrysler to the 2008 Iola Old Car Show and displayed it in the “Team To Learn Tent”.

Once the car had been physically completed, United Auto Trim of Fond du Lac, Wis., finished the convertible top as well as the leather seats and other interior components. As the car made its way back east to its home in Pennsylvania, a final fine tuning of the 300F was undertaken by Vern Fasel of Rochester, N.Y.

One dramatic change to the car was the color. Terracotta, a stock color option for 1960, was chosen because Robert felt the car needed “pizzazz”. I am sure that many car nuts would fault us in changing the original color, but we felt that the overall visuals of this striking color took the vehicle to another level. You be the judge!

Robert and I are very proud of this car. Yes, it requires time, patience and most of all money. I think that most people would agree that the end result is spectacular.

And to think, it was going to be chopped up and used as a parts car!

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Story and photos from John Gunnell

The 1970 Plymouth AAR ’Cuda was one hot car in its day. Even though it was powered by a small-block V-8, the AAR is a coveted muscle car with a value on par with many of its big-block brothers — even some Hemi cars! Old Cars Report Price Guide currently prices a No. 1 condition AAR ’Cuda in show condition at $85,000, which is down from six figures just two years ago. Back in 2017, top examples of the AAR ’Cuda were fetching $100,000 and more. The slide in price isn’t due to lack of interest in the AAR ’Cuda, but rather the general softening of muscle car prices under a market correction from peak muscle car prices.

Plymouth built the AAR ’Cuda exclusively with the small-block 340-cid V-8 engine. Building hot small-block muscle cars became a trend among automakers in the late 1960s and early 1970s to combat higher insurance rates on big-block muscle cars. The trick then became for Detroit automakers to maximize power from their small V-8s.

The reason for use of the small-block 340 in the AAR ’Cuda was two-fold. In addition to being trendy, Plymouth installed the hot small-block into its ’Cuda in order to homologate the car into the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Trans-Am Series of racing.

The AAR ’Cuda available at Plymouth dealers was named after Dan Gurney’s All American Racers, who raced ’Cudas in the Trans-Am Series. Gurney was signed by Chrysler’s Plymouth division for 1970 after having driven previously for Mercury. He entered a ’Cuda in the Trans-Am series with Swede Savage as the driver.

Although the AAR ’Cuda option package was built to homologate the components built into Gurney’s race car for the Trans-Am Series, the production car evolved with a split personality. “The new AAR ’Cuda is every inch a hot rod,” said the July 1970 issue of Car and Driver. The magazine’s reviewer found the car poorly weight-balanced for a road course, but it had plenty of guts for straight-line acceleration.

Having a player in the Trans-Am sedan racing series was a must for Detroit’s purveyors of pony cars in 1970. There were factory-backed Trans-Am Series efforts from American Motors, Ford, Pontiac and Chevrolet. For Trans-Am racing, Dodge also outfitted its E-body pony car, the Challenger, with similar equipment to the AAR ’Cuda and appropriately named it “T/A.” While most of the Trans-Am programs were supported by the manufacturers, Chevrolet and Pontiac technically had back-door programs.

Factory-backed Plymouth and Dodge participation was new in ’70. It came together at a time when there was a new Plymouth Barracuda body design (the Dodge Challenger was altogether new), and because competition rules changed so that the 5.0-liter engines used in the racing cars didn’t have to be exactly the same size as the production engines from which they were derived.

Chrysler’s potent 340-cid small-block V-8 could “legally” be de-stroked to 303.8 cubic inches to come in under the Trans-Am sanctioning body’s displacement limit. Manufacturers could legalize their Trans-Am equipment by building 1,900 or more special models. Plymouth’s result was the 1970 AAR ’Cuda, which had a production run of 2,724 units.

The production AAR ’Cuda’s 340-cid small-block V-8 had high-performance heads and thicker webbing in the block to allow the racing team to use four-bolt mains. Even though only a single four-barrel carburetor was allowed in racing, that didn’t prevent triple two-barrel Holleys from being used in the production model, which developed 290 hp. A fiberglass cold-air-induction hood let the carburetors breathe fresh air. A seal between the hood and the air cleaner pushed fresh air down the carb throats. NASCAR-style hood pins locked the fiberglass hood in position.

Other components of the one-year-only AAR package for Plymouth’s E-body model were a rear spoiler, front and rear sway bars, chrome trumpet exhaust tips that exited in front of each rear tire, rally wheels with E40x15 tires up front and large G60 tires in the back and Elasometric bumpers. Transmission choices included the A-833 four-speed manual gearbox with a Hurst gear shifter or the Chrysler 727 TorqueFlite automatic. AAR decals and striping and a flat black hood identified the package. The stripe on the sides had a unique strobe effect that incorporated the AAR ’Cuda identification. Also incorporated were front and rear spoilers.

The fiberglass hood on the AAR ‘Cuda was of a sleek design that blended in with the rest of the car. The hood was painted flat black Organasol as were the tops of the fenders and doors. These AAR ’Cuda hoods were notoriously ill-fitting. On their press car, said to be the first of the AAR ’Cuda run, Car and Driver testers joked that the oil dipstick could be removed between the gap in the hood and the fender.

The spoilers on the AAR were also unique. Up front were “eyebrow” spoilers located on the front fender, ahead of the tire. A ducktail rear deck lid spoiler was finished in black to contrast the body color

AAR ’Cudas were only produced during the months of March and April 1970. Production of the AAR ’Cuda began on March 10 and continued until April 17. However, a pilot car was produced Feb. 3, 1970. According to a couple of AAR ’Cuda Registries, there were no AARs produced on March 10, from March 25-27 or on March 30. At least one car was built April 20, 1970, so the production plan may not have strictly followed. Of the 2,724 AAR ’Cudas produced in the six-week time span, 1,120 had manual four-speed transmissions and the rest (1,614) had the three-speed TorqueFlite automatic.

Despite Dan Gurney’s racing efforts, the Barracuda did not win a Trans-Am race in 1970. Factory support for racing was quickly eroding and in 1971, there was no racing team or AAR ’Cuda.

’Cuda Vehicle Identification Numbers (serial numbers) are on a plate attached to the left door hinge pillar. A typical VIN starts with BS23J0B, followed by six numbers. The first symbol identifies the car line: B=Barracuda. The second symbol identifies the series: S=Special. The third and fourth symbols identify the body style: 23=two-door hardtop coupe. The fifth symbol identifies the engine: J=340-cid 290-hp “Six-Pack” high-performance V-8. The sixth symbol indicates model year: 0=1970. The seventh symbol indicates the assembly plant: B=Hamtramck, Mich. The last six symbols are numbers denoting the sequential production number.

The featured car belongs to The Automobile Gallery (www.theautomobilegallery.com) of Green Bay, Wis. Adcock Brothers of Manheim, Penn., completed a frame-up restoration of the car in 2008 and it was purchased in a recent Mecum auction. It is one of 1,614 hardtop coupes made with automatic transmission and one of only 255 cars painted Moulin Rouge (Dodge called this color Panther Pink). A car like this had a list price of $3,966 in 1970. That equated to $1.17 per pound.

Although the AAR ’Cuda wasn’t a first-place winner in Trans-Am racing, it was a great-looking and unique package on Plymouth’s hot pony car. For those reasons and more, it’s easy to understand why AAR ’Cudas remain desirable cars from the muscle car era.

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Story and photos by Brian Earnest

Barry Jadin is only half kidding when he says he always wants to do things the hard way.

If that’s the case, he certainly got his wish with his resurrected 1970 Cougar Eliminator. The car is a stunning muscle car masterpiece today, but it has traveled a long, hard road.

“I don’t know, maybe it’s a little bit of masochism,” laughs Jadin, a resident of Appleton, Wis. “I guess that’s always kind of been my M.O., even when I was younger. Anybody can just go buy something that’s nice. To me, it’s a lot more rewarding to take something that is a basket case and turn it into something nice. Maybe I’ve always been a proponent of a silk purse from a sow’s ear type of approach.”

And then there’s that thing about wanting to prove doubters wrong. Jadin says he had plenty of people questioning his sanity during the 16 total years it took him to pull together his awesome Mercury. He took the jabs with a smile at the time, but inside it added plenty of fuel to his fire.

“It’s funny how your friends and family turn on you!” he chuckles. “My wife (Jeanne) was kidding me for quite a while that I wasn’t really ever going to get it finished. My family members would kind of just laugh at it. It was in the shop at my dad’s. I didn’t even have my own shop at that point … My family members would all come over and there it was, with a sheet draped over it and everybody would laugh.”

The affable Jadin had been dreaming of a really nice Cougar for years, however, and he had learned the value of patience. He changed courses several times during his lengthy restoration journey, but he always kept his eye on the same goal — to end up with a really nice Cougar that lived up to his own high standards. And he didn’t mind starting at the bottom.

“My love affair with the Cougar started when one of my buddies in high school got one – a ’70 Cougar, similar to [this one]. The first time I saw the car we were going out at night, and I was following him, and he hit the lights in back with the sequential turn signal and was just in love with Cougars after that,” Jadin recalls. “That’s where it started! So obviously I had to get through high school and college, and I was finally in a position to be looking or a car. And I thought, ‘I have a couple of buddies with Mustangs, and I don’t really want to compete with them. I need to have something different.’ The Cougar fit the bill because it’s a little bit different… and hopefully we don’t have too many arguments between me and the Mustang guys.”

Jadin probably could have afforded something a little nicer, but wasn’t afraid to start with a rescue project picked up a battered base 1970 Cougar back in 2002. At first his plan was just to restore it enough to make a nice driver. But given his own meticulous nature, the eventual path he took was predictable. “I didn’t have big plans for it. Then as as I get into a little bit, you know your plan tends to evolve so pretty soon I was thinking, ‘Boy I really like the look of an Eliminator. What if I put the parts on it and make it look like an Eliminator?’ That seemed to me like a good idea at the time. But once I got deeper into it I realized, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to have $30,000 invested in a car that’s worth $10,000. If I’m going to do this right I really need to have an actual Eliminator.” That led him to find Car No. 2 — a retired ex-racer with a multitude of problems living in a yard near Deadwood, S.D.

“The guy that I bought it from was not the original owner, but he had owned it during the ‘80s. It was his daily driver for a while back in the ‘80s when cars like this weren’t worth anything,” Jadin says. “He finally got in a position where he needed to sell it, and some local guys bought it from him, and he told them, ‘If you are ever decide you don’t want it anymore. I want first chance to buy it back.’ And then the story goes, about 3 years later, he saw it sitting in a backyard in town and they had drag raced it and it was in bad shape. His heart was broken, but he talked to them and got them to sell him the car back. He had intentions to restore the car, but his health was kind of fading and he recognized he was never going to get it done, so that’s when I got my hands on it.”

“There was no engine in it. No transmission in it. It was literally a shell with a fiberglass front end on it. They had torched out the rear wheel wells so they could put big racing slicks in it.”

In other words, it was a basket case, but Jadin figured two project cars were enough to make one good one if he stayed with it and stuck to his long-range plan. The ensuing years involved a lot of parts chasing, fruitless internet searches, long stretches where nothing got done, and plenty of frustration. For a couple years, Jadin stopped working on the Cougar altogether, instead spending his time resurrecting a couple of “Mazda rotary engine cars. “I really got interested in those rotary engines, and I did a couple of those cars in between. There were a couple points where, yes, I was getting tired of it… That’s why I took a break from it for a couple years. I did some other fun stuff, worked on some other cars. And to be honest, I was kind of tired of looking for items I couldn’t find.”

A COUGAR WITH MUSCLE

The term Top Eliminator was familiar to drag racing buffs, but to Mercury fans the term simply meant “hot Cougar.” Car Life wrote, “Think of it as a family car with guts and you’ll be happy with it.”

Evolutionary design changes characterized the 1970 Mercury Cougars. They included a new vertical grille and a forward-thrusting front end. Promoted as “America’s most completely equipped sports car,” the new Cougar grille had a center hood extension and an “electric shaver” style insert. Its design was reminiscent of the 1967 and 1968 models’ grilles.

Features for the basic Cougar models included upper body pin stripes, wheel opening moldings, roof moldings and windshield and rear window chrome accents. The sporty interior featured high-back bucket seats, courtesy lights, carpeted door trim panels, a vinyl headliner and a rosewood-toned dash panel. The Cougar convertible had a Comfortweave vinyl interior, door-mounted courtesy lights, a three-spoke steering wheel and a power top with a folding rear glass window. There was a two-door hardtop with a base retail price of $2,917. Prices for the convertible started at $3,264. Only 2,322 ragtops were made.

The Cougar XR-7 had distinct wheel covers, rocker panel moldings, a remote-control racing mirror and an emblem on the rear roof pillar. Interior features included vinyl high-back bucket seats with leather accents, map pockets on the seat backs, a tachometer, a trip odometer, a rocker-switch display, a burled walnut vinyl applique on the instrument panel, rear seat armrests, map and courtesy lights, a visual check panel, loop yarn nylon carpeting and an electric clock with elapsed-time indicator. The XR-7s came in the same body styles as the base Cougar, at $3,201, and $3,465, respectively. The XR-7 ragtop had a run of just 1,977 units.

The 1970 model year was the last stand for the Eliminator. The production total of 2,267 was up slightly over 1969 (2,250), but the muscle car landscape was changing and FoMoCo pulled the plug on the potent Cougar after a four-year run.

The 1970 Eliminators came standard with the new 351 Cleveland four-barrel V-8 that was rated at 300 hp. There were options galore for the muscle car’s engine compartment including the Boss 302, the 428 CJ and a new version of the 385 series big-block 429. This “Boss 429” package included Ram-Air induction and a 375-hp rating. “Call it the road animal,” said Cougar literature. A rear deck lid spoiler, body graphics and a restyled scooped hood returned as part of the Eliminator’s image.

One car enthusiast magazine of the era tested a 1970 Cougar Eliminator with the 290-hp version of the “Boss 302” V-8. It carried 12.4 lbs. per hp and did 0-to-60 mph in 7.6 seconds. The quarter-mile took 15.8 seconds.

A MIDWEST MERCURY

Jadin did some homework and found out his second Cougar was sold out of dealership in Lincoln, Neb. He figures that the car was a dealer order meant to catch customers’ eyes and get them to stop and take a look around the showroom. If that was the plan, it didn’t last long. “It sold literally in a week and a half after it was built,” Jadin noted. “My guess is the dealer ordered it. A lot of dealers wanted a car that looked like this on their lot, with this color, and the hood scoops and spoiler and all that. That’s what brings the 19-year-old kid with money into your car lot.”

From there the car wound up as a daily driver for a time in South Dakota, then was relegated to the race track.

“The front end of this one was in pretty bad shape. The guys had drag raced it, so actually they had a fiberglass front end on it it,” Jadin noted. “It was in tough shape, so I had to use a donor car and really put two cars together to make one.”

“The parts hunting when I started back back in the early 2000s, there was no such thing as finding parts on the Internet, or it was in the very early stages of it. There were parts for this car like the gauge cluster [on the passenger side], that’s a very rare part and only on the Eliminators and nobody reproduces that material. The only option is to find a real one or a real bad fake. I hunted for a long time. At one point I didn’t know if I’d ever find one that looked acceptable, but sometimes luck is on your side, and I found one at a swap meet in southern Wisconsin … Then I had to chase down the other one. I only had half a set. There was probably a 5-6 year period I was looking and trying to locate them. It’s a whole different game now. Whatever you’re searching for now, somebody has it. It’s only a matter of how much you’re willing to pay for it, and then are they willing to sell it to you?”

Jadin was able to salvage some original interior parts, such as the interior door panels and side panels. He meticulously re-created the sail panels behind the back seat using the original cardboard-type material and some reproduction fabric. He had the seats reupholstered and replaced the headliner and carpet.

The engine block fell into Jadin’s lap at of the big Carlisle swap meets when he wasn’t quite prepared to buy it. “We drove out there with four guys in just a car, and here I have an engine that I need to take home!” he chuckles. “There was a block that came with it that wasn’t an original block, but I wound up finding this engine that had correct numbers for a ‘70 and it was a factory rebuilt engine. When I bought it in the early 2000s it was still sitting on the pallet from when Ford had rebuilt it. After sitting all those years I had to go through it and rebuild it, but at least I had something where the heads and everything matched.”

“The engine, basically I went through it and did most of that work, and I had one of my high school buddies help me because he’s built several Ford engines. The two of us did that together. The body work, I have another buddy, Kurt Thiry. He has a shop in Rosiere, Wis., of all places. He has a small shop he runs by himself, but he’s probably more particular and meticulous than I am. So he did the bodywork and the paint. I worked with him quite a bit. We actually assembled the whole car without paint, just the panels and everything to get it all fitting right, then we tore it back down and I put the engine and drive train it, and then put the whole thing back together again and painted it at the end.”

Aside from installing a roller cam for a better torque curve and smoother-running engine, Jadin says he went to great lengths to keep the car as stock as he could. When he couldn’t find a correct part, he simply waited and kept looking. Almost everything else, from the stitching on the vinyl seats to the glorious Competition Gold paint, is just the way it would have come from the Dearborn plant.

“One thing I like to point out: The exhaust is a reproduction exhaust, but I guess this is how anal I am. The reproduction is based exactly on the original exhaust system. It comes from West Coast Classic Cougars out in Oregon. Well, I fabricated the hangers to look just like the original because, you know, if you stoop down you can see them. And you have to get that right! [laughs].

Jadin found the car’s original build sheet under the back seat and it showed that the South Dakota Eliminator came with a three-speed transmission and Competition Handling package, which meant it had the rear sway bar and a different spring rate. It also had styled steel wheels.

“I think those were the only options they had on the car,” he says. “It came stock with a 3-speed, and when I was rebuilding the car, I thought, ‘Yeah, the 3-speed is fine but it would be nicer to have a 4-speed, so that’s what I did. The originally tranny is sitting up on a shelf in the garage, and that will go with the car if anybody ever wants to put it back to original.”

“Everybody has a different approach to it. My feeling is there was only 2,000 Eliminator package cars built, and to me that is rare enough that it didn’t deserve anything other than an original restoration. I’ve gone through a lot of pain to use all original parts. I’m proud to say I blasted all the individual leaf springs, and you can still read the original parts numbers on them. This is supposed to be a rare car, it just deserves to be kept that way.”

It’s clear from the look on his face when his right foot wakes up the growling 351 under the hood that Jadin loves to drive his Cougar the way it was intended — with the windows down, decibel level up and at a brisk pace. He will never be accused of babying his baby.

“I think for me the biggest thing when I first started driving it was, I was surprised how well they ride, he says. “People think of older cars from ‘60s and ‘70s and they have this vision of them being loud, riding rough and not handling, but this setup — and it’s back to original — they actually drive really well. It really rides nice and it’s actually a dependable car. You could drive it every day if you had the heart to do it.”

Jadin has had a lot of fun short trips behind the wheel in the past four years. None were more memorable than the first one he took when the car came back after the final paint had been applied and it was all done. He had to trailer it home in December with snow and salt on the ground and wait four long months for the Wisconsin winter to make his maiden voyage. When the car finally came out in April, though, Jadin was more than ready to go for a long-awaited joy ride.

“It was definitely satisfying, after all the ribbing I took from my wife and everybody. She got to sit next to me when I took it out and her and I took that first drive together,” he says. “Yeah, it was definitely satisfying after all those years.”

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The post Car of the Week: 1970 Mercury Cougar Eliminator appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.