Richard, I think there are a world of wonderous things about cars and 1:43 models of them to discuss. Here are some topics for upcoming Motor Chronicles that I would like to see. A few examples each time would get something started with all the knowledge people here have. Some of these cars have to be available in 1:43, I suppose.
- Muscle cars before muscle cars. There have always been manufacturers who "build a light car with big motor" combination. I understand the "Rocket 88" was somewhat that way. Studebaker had some fairly hot cars (for their time), and there had to be many long before the muscle car era I know nothing about. The Chrysler 300 was, in in ts own way,a bit of a rocket. Then there were cars like the Studellac.
These are all quite interesting, and I really don't know a lot about who made what or even what existed in this category prior to about 1960, except for a few cases.. There are probably many more hot production cars that are not well known.
I'd like to have 1:43 models of some of these, particularly if they were sleepers, cars that did not look that fast.
- Silk purses from Sows ears. The most famous case here, I guess, is making the Mustang out of the Falcon - a few changes and presto-chongo, you have a new, successful model from a previously unglamorous model. There had to be other cases where a manufacturer took a dowdy or down-market model, make a few changes, and came up with a winner. Most interestingto me would be those where the change was almost nothing - ery minor, or strange, but led to success: the mythical add-a-strip-of-chrome-and-a-fancy-name model that sold in the thousands.
- Duds. Just as interesting, of course, are the cases where the sow's ear remained a sow's ear. Not just the Edsel, or the Airflow, or the Pacer, or the Aztek, but there had to be many other examples where the manufacturer thought they were aiming at the market bullseye but didn't even hit the target. Little is as fascinating as ignominious failure. There have to be a few interesting 1:43 models available, too.
- Strange cars or features. There is a world of interesting cars that had strange "features": the Knight sleeve valve, the Stout Scarab and its "office" internal layout (I have a model), the Crosley's Cobra (copper-brazed) engine, a few cars where the driver sat in the middle, etc., a businessman's coupe with a bed that would unfold in the rear, the removable portable radio Oldsmobile put in some cars in the '50s (you pulled it out through the locking glove-box - a aunt had one). Those are just a few about (although not as much as I would like. There are probably dozens of other oddities, particularly in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, that I don't know about.
- Or just pick one feature for a weekly chronicle, like rumble seats, or "businessman's coupe" designs, some of which were very different and had clever features.
- We didn't mean to: Mistakes so egregious that there was no way you can't admit you screwed up. Two that come to mind both involve spark plugs I had to change. The early Sunbeam Tiger. You had to change the rear plug on the passenger's side through a removeable panel in the back of the glovebox. Chevy had a car - I can't remember what now, where you had to loosen the motor mounts and jack up the side of the engine to remove a plug. There had to be amny other, "We didn't see it until too late" examples over the years.
- Weird options and features. I'll put retracting tops in this way back when - common now, magical when the Skyliner was first out, and maybe even rarer before that?
Bt what I'm really thinking of is the strangest option I ever saw: an uncle had a Buick with a small chrome button, about 1 inch diameter ,on the dashboard. Iit had a 1/4 inch hole in it connected by a pipe and value to the intake manufold. When he held the end of his lit cigarette up to it, the heat triggered a sensor that opened the valve on the pipe and engine vacuum sucked the ashes off the cigarette. I am not making this up! I was fascinated by it and always asked him to smoke when he was driving us somewhere. It was the most fun to watch!
Airplane themes and influence. A lot of cars were influenced, for good or bad, in many ways by the glamour and image of airplanes: the tailfin, names (Spitfire), shape of grills, windshields, chrome "gun bezels" on the hood, etc.. and there had to be many other things, some perhaps good solid technology that really benefited folks (did shatterproof glass first come from airplanes, etc?). You could probably do other themes too (ships, animals?).
