A slightly different version of the tramell guage was used for many years in body shops to straighten frames. Several of them were hung from the frame by small chains; each had an upright pointer in the center. You stood behind and underneath the car and sighted down the pointers. If one of them was not aligned with the others you knew that's where the problem was, and applied frame straightening to the area. Once cars switched from full frames to the monocoque design where frame straightness is measured in millimeters instead of the old "half an inch is close enough" it was necessary to come up with something a little more scientific.   ... View more

Absolutely beautiful modernization of the P1800. But how about the same body with just a normal factory engine, transmission, and suspension, selling for something more like $50,000?  ... View more

What you're calling a Cleveland Lean was known in Northern California as a Gangster Lean. As in "diamond in the back, sunroof top, diggin' the scene with a gangster lean."  Those Lakester cars had a body that was made from war surplus external fuel tanks from bombers. A lot of the low rider cars had hydraulics that were powered by 24 volt batteries stolen off construction equipment. Some beautiful cars here that really took me back. ... View more

Cars painted flat black or flat gray. Unpainted carbon fiber hoods.  ... View more

BSA, Triumph, Norton. The golden age of motorcycles. ... View more

Well that should make Land Rover popular.  ... View more

Just for general info, East Bay Muscle Cars is in the incorporated city of Brentwood, near Antioch (another hot-rod hot bed) and about 50 miles east of San Francisco, which is often confused with the more famous UNincorporated city of Brentwood near Beverly Hills.  ... View more

With all the electronic gizmos manufacturers are putting on bikes I'm surprised that no one has added the obvious one - a gyroscopic stabilizer to keep it upright when stopped.  ... View more

I worked as a claims adjuster for 40 years. Suspension parts, wheels and tires are just about the only pieces of a car that insurance companies will not replace with used parts (or to use the insurance company term, LKQ parts). Alloy wheels can have internal cracks that are invisible but will fail at high speed. Same for suspension pieces. Used steel wheels have been known to break apart at the point where the inner wheel is welded to the outer wheel. A big problem that developed in the last decade is Chinese wheels that come from the factory so out of balance that no amount of shaving or balance weights can fix them. Steering and suspension parts are the last place you should economize.  ... View more

I don't see the point of simply driving up and then down a spiral ramp with no destination - it's like a parking garage with no parking. The location called for something much more low key and natural, like log cabins. And building a planetarium on top of a mountain that already had a good view of the sky is just bringing coal to Newcastle. Wright was more of an artist than architect; everything he ever built ended up drafty, leaky, impractical and impossible to live in, and no doubt this project would have suffered the same fate. Fallingwater may be beautiful but the living room has a huge hole in the middle of it for the stairway to the river, and the bedrooms are windowless concrete bunkers set underground to counterbalance the cantilevered portion of the building. I do like his taste in cars however.  ... View more

This trans is going right behind that new Ford crate engine you featured recently, and into my imaginary built from the ground up hod rod.  ... View more

Proof that there's no better way to make a car look pedestrian than to paint it black or white.  ... View more

Is THAT what that thing is. I inherited one from my father and I had no idea what it was.  ... View more

Into a built from the ground up hot rod - custom made frame, etc. .  ... View more

Lego. $200. These words just don't sound right together. And I agree with Cody - the old Cadillac conversion ambulances have a beauty all their own. For less than $200 you can get a nice 1/8 scale (might be 1/16, I forget) metal model, but you'll have to do the Ghostbusters conversion yourself.  ... View more

Interesting bit of automotive history. Beautiful car, except for the headlights. ... View more

Worse yet, those Trans-Am wheels were actual polycast plastic rather than aluminum. ... View more

I think you need to define what a supercar is. Some of these cars are absolutely wonderful, but there's only a few that I would call a supercar. My definition being a ridiculously over-powered, impractical and usually rather unattractive car that looks more at home on the race track than on the street. A definition which now that I think about it, could be simply shortened to " Mc Laren."  ... View more

Used to work with a guy who was a youth baseball coach (and a good one) for years. He finally quit, and he said it was because while the kids were great, the parents were insane. The kids wanted to play baseball, the parents wanted to win at all costs.   ... View more

I was taught that horsepower is defined by how much weight a horse can lift to a certain height in a certain time. And also taught that the horse that was used for the original test was an exceptionally strong draft horse and that in reality the average horse can produce about 3/4 HP.  ... View more

It is not necessarily true that an insurance company has to have your permission to access the driving data in your cars "black box." The position of the last company I worked for was that permission was implicit in the insurance contract and that in the event of an accident they had the right to examine it without asking or informing you. It's only a short legal step from checking the data stored in your car's computer to storing data stored in the Cloud. Of course, to be fair the company in question was a substandard carrier and it was pretty common to find a crack pipe laying on the floor of the car, so there's that. ... View more

"I can remember when" 55 - 57 T-Birds were selling for at least twice as much as the figures you're quoting. All has to do with the age of the people they appeal to I suppose. At age 72 I see the early T-Birds as more of a Bobby-Soxer generation car than "my" generation.  ... View more

Did the Honda S600 come with all the missing parts? ... View more

Something to note: most of these designers worked long before the modern era of computer modeling, when all they had to work with was a slide rule, a few engineering tables, and their gut feeling. Until the first prototype coughed to life they didn't know if their design would even run.  ... View more

Before I retired I spent about 2 years researching RV's and trailers and came to the conclusion that the Vixen was head and shoulders above any other RV, at least for a family of two. Unfortunately they are nearly impossible to find. Unlike any other RV's, owners hang on to the Vixen (and the GMC) and keep them well-maintained. For what it's worth, I also realized that the cheapest and best trailer option is to buy an old model from the 50's or 60's and pay someone to completely rebuild it. You will end up with a trailer that is better made, better looking, and lighter than any modern equivalent, and at less cost.  ... View more

The Seven was not just a milestone, it was in a class by itself, a world of its own. The very essence of automobile, distilled into a form so pure that nothing could be added or subtracted without making it a lesser creation. And so basic and simple that you could build it yourself from a kit.  ... View more

You lost me at 43 HP. ... View more

I vaguely remember having a catalog for a company that made aftermarket fiberglass parts for Vettes back in the 70's, including a replacement back end to turn the car into a station wagon. But theirs were much better done, and looked more like the E Jag hearse from Harold and Maude.  ... View more

How well I remember saving my pennies (literally) and then going into the one department store in Twentynine Palms that sold plastic model kits, and buying whatever I had had my eye on for the last month. And the thick aroma of glue filling my room, at what cost to my developing brain cells I hope never to find out. And very carefully painting everything with a tiny brush, millimeter by millimeter. And that fateful day in 1958 when my father looked at my carefully displayed finished products and said "why do you waste your time with this crap? You don't learn anything from it" (meaning anything that would increase my future earning capacity) and in one swoop gathered up the models I had spent years building and dumped them in the alley trashcan. And I couldn't even cry about it because in those days, boys weren't allowed to cry. And I also remember how every time we moved all of my toys mysteriously disappeared.  ... View more

Had a 1973 Duster with the Gold Duster package - fold down rear seat, vinyl roof, special stripes. Slant six with no A/C and no power brakes. Had it until 1986 and it was nearly trouble free. Chrysler made a big mistake by replacing the reliable Valiant/Dart with the trouble prone Volare/Reliant, a model that could have benefited from a little more development time.   ... View more