the surviving Bullitt car, the one McQueen had tried to buy back had been bought from the studio by
Frank Marranca, a police detective, who bought the car from the studio in 1971 with a letter from Ford certifying that the Mustang with VIN 8R02S125559 had been purchased by Solar Productions for the movie.
Marranca shipped the car to New Jersey, and along the way, the shift knob and the aftermarket wood steering wheel were stolen. When Marranca’s growing family needed a station wagon, he put the otherwise untouched car up for sale.
An ad on page 121 of the October 1974 issue of Road and Track magazine read: “1968 ‘Bullett’ [sic] MUSTANG driven by McQueen in the movie…Can be documented. Best offer.”
A man from Madison, New Jersey, saw the ad. He had always wanted a ’68 Mustang fastback, so he bought the Bullitt car for $6000
The third buyer, one Bob Kiernan, fell hard for his new car and when he got a company car, his wife drove the Mustang to her teaching job at a nearby school.
News Flash! Saudi Arabia announced it will allow women to drive, next June
September 26th, 2017 by admin
The change, which will take effect in June of next year, was announced on state television and in a simultaneous media event in Washington.
Saudi Arabia is the last country in the world to allow women to drive, and the location of the holiest of islamic religious sites. And that’s the connection.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/26/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-women-drive.html?smid=fb-share
Originally posted here:
News Flash! Saudi Arabia announced it will allow women to drive, next June
Great news! The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is coming to San Diego!
September 3rd, 2017 by admin
San Diego is officially taking part in the world’s largest charitable motorcycle event for owners of classic and vintage styled bikes on Sunday September 24th.
The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride brings together over 70,000 well dressed gentlefolk in 600+ cities on stunning motorcycles for men’s health across 95 countries. The goal for 2017 is to raise awareness and $5m for prostate cancer and men’s mental health on behalf of charity partner the Movember Foundation.
All participating riders must be registered upon The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride website to unlock local ‘ride details’, and to be in the running for amazing prizes and rewards for your fundraising efforts.
Register now to create your fundraising profile at www.gentlemansride.com
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Great news! The Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride is coming to San Diego!
whoa, a history lesson all laid out of the time a penniless race team handed Shelby and his highly funded Toyota racing team a smack down defeat
August 27th, 2017 by admin
grab the Aug 21st 2017 issue of Autoweek, and flip to pages 10-13
Hino started out making cars and trucks, which caught the attention of a guy named Dunham, who pointed out that to succeed big, they’d need to win some races, in America. This would open the US market, and then they’d get a foothold where they could sell serious numbers of vehicles
Dunham met Peter Brock, and BRE was making the Hino competitive. The 1st season the Dunham raced it, the 2nd season Brock raced it, and made some podiums, enough to impress Hino. They then sourced bigger engines, and in 1966 Brock and Dunham take the 1st and 2nd places in the Mission Bell 100 in Riverside –
On Christmas Day, December 25, 1830, the Best Friend of Charleston became the first regularly scheduled steam locomotive passenger train in the United States.
August 5th, 2017 by admin
The locomotive made its initial run on the first six miles of track of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company. Chartered in 1827, the same year that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was incorporated, the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company steamed out of Charleston. The new line was designed to make Charleston competitive with Savannah, Georgia, for the cotton trade.
Over the next three years the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company became, for a time, the world’s longest railway line. The company was a predecessor of J. P. Morgan’s Southern Railway Company, which grew out of the realignment of southern railways following the Civil War.
https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/december-25
This “Best Friend” was built in the late 1920’s for the centennial of the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company.
https://vacationrick.blogspot.com/2013/10/an-important-piece-of-charleston.html
According to a report in the City Gazette, November 22, 1821 issue, a railroad was suggested to run from Charleston to Hamburg and a branch on to Columbia. Horatio Allen (1802-1890) was the chief engineer for The South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company from 1829 – 1835. (This line is now a part of the Southern Railway System.) On December 19, 1827, The South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company was chartered. Work began, January 9, 1830, on the line to Branchville, SC which was 62 miles from Charleston and it was opened in November, 1832. The line to Hamburg (adjacent to Augusta, GA) was opened on October 1, 1833. The line was now the longest continuous railroad in the world, 136 miles in length, and first to carry the US mail. (Derrick 1930, 10) This route took passengers on the 11 ½ hour trip with 7 stops for $6.75 one way. (Edgar 1998, 283)
The “Best Friend” had a brief, but historic, life. It was completed and put into regular service on December 25, 1830. On June 17, 1831, three men were injured in an explosion. A tied down safety valve due to the noise of the steam escaping, caused the boiler to blow up. Parts of the “Best Friend” were used in construction of the “Phoenix.” The “Best Friend” having been designed by C.E. Detmold, chief engineer was Horatio Allen, who early on advocated steam power locomotion and Nicholas W. Darrell became the first railway engineer. Nicholas W. Darrell died in 1869 after running engines for many years and having the distinction of being the first man to open the throttle on the “Best Friend.” The “Best Friend of Charleston” was modeled after its forerunner “Best Friend” and was known as the first locomotive built in the United States and used in service of transportation. (Southern Railway System, 1)
http://www.teachingushistory.org/lessons/charlestonrailroad.html
The “Stourbridge Lion,” in 1829 was the first locomotive to run on tracks in America.
The first overhead valve engine, was a Buick
July 30th, 2017 by admin
Once.
David Buick teamed up with the inventor, Walter Marr, who created the OHV in 1900, and by 1904 was producing a flat twin OHV, but later that year they went under, and were bought out by Durant.
Of course, the 455 GSX was a monster, and the GN turbo 6 is a legend. But in over 100 years, they didn’t get Buick out of the shadow of GM
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The first overhead valve engine, was a Buick
the GTOs in the Bardinon family. French tax authorities would love to dial in their value, and get their cut. It might be a 75 or 200 million dollar collection
July 18th, 2017 by admin
Last Feb, the family, squabbling over inheritance, etc, sold just one of these for 38.5 million dollars. That immediately slapped the French govt in the wallet, and they liked the way that tax money felt. The French govt wants more. All they can get
Making it difficult for them, is that rich people over appraise the things they give to charity, and undervalue things they sell and get taxed on.
The Bardinon Ferraris brought the issue to the world stage. Pierre Bardinon, born in 1931, was an heir to the Chapal family, a French leather and fur dynasty famed for making pilot bomber jackets. As a boy, Bardinon fell ian love with cars and started buying old racing Ferraris in the 1960s, when few other collectors were interested in them.
He went on to buy more than 70 rare Ferraris.
He turned the family chateau at Mas du Clos, near Aubusson, into a Ferrari playground, with a museum housing the cars, and a two-mile racetrack.
He built his own circuit on his estate for trackdays and personal use, the layout was designed without too strong braking, so that the old drum brakes did not suffer too much, he loved his cars that much.
Although it was closed around a decade ago because he was suffering bureaucratic rubbish about needing to adhere to modern safety regulations at vast expense – when the circuit was not used for racing purposes in the true sense of the word.
The Ferrari collection had dwindled to around 20 cars by 2012, as Mr. Bardinon sold them off.
He had a butler who blackmailed him. He told him that either he would pay him or he would tell the French govt the real value of all the cars he had stored. Bardinon refused, the butler “sang” and from there he had to start selling cars and the thing began to decline.
After Mr. Bardinon died in 2012, and his wife a year later, the French government levied an inheritance tax of millions of dollars on their three children, according to court documents. The Bardinon siblings are now battling in court over the future of the collection.
Marcel Massini, a Geneva-based Ferrari historian who knew Mr. Bardinon and frequently inspected the collection, said the remaining cars in the Bardinon collection could be worth over $200 million. He said at least three of them could fetch over $30 million each in today’s market.
“These are like the Mona Lisas of the Ferrari world,” he said. “They are the best of the best.”
And yet for tax purposes, certain members of the family valued the entire collection at 70 million euros, according to court documents.
As the court fight continued, two of the siblings decided to auction off a trophy of the collection, a 1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti
Wealthy collectors hope that the situation could lead to more of the Bardinon Ferraris being up for sale.
There are a lot of billionaires in the world who want these cars. Bardinon started collecting competition Ferrari long before the current vogue – and had numerous of the Ferrari big hitters such as a ‘64 250 GTO, 330 P4, 250 LM, 312 PB, Competition 250 SWB etc
He looked for and bought the most beautiful Ferraris of the world. Tracking the most prestigious models of competition (almost exclusively cars of the factory stable), he acquired a unique set that included the
250 TR and 330 TRI / LM Victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, respectively in 1958 and 1962 (both with Olivier Gendebien and Phil Hill),
the 250 GT victory in the Tour de France 1961 (chassis No. 2937GT, formerly W.Mairesse-G.Berger) The 312P ex-P. Rodriguez-D.Piper (n ° 0870),
330 P4 (n ° 0860) or GTO 1964 (n ° 5573GT)
http://www.thegentlemanracer.com/2017/07/ferrari-under-skin.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/business/revaluin-treasures-for-the-taxman.html
http://www.racecar.com/News/51685/Historic/Pierre-Bardinon-RIP
http://www.aonclassiccar.fr/2014/01/ferrari-orphelin-de-pierre-bardinon/
http://revistacar.es/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Pierre-Bardinon-carrusel.jpg
http://revistacar.es/pierre-bardinon-coleccionista-ferrari/
On the back lot of Sony
July 15th, 2017 by admin
Douglas Aircraft was in Long Beach, and was the company to make the 1st planes to fly around the world, and the first air conditioned manufacturing plant
July 12th, 2017 by admin
http://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6259522&postcount=16563
See original here:
Douglas Aircraft was in Long Beach, and was the company to make the 1st planes to fly around the world, and the first air conditioned manufacturing plant
Charles Glidden, made a fortune from the telephone industry, as he was helping Alexander Bell, and retired to a life of fooling around with automobiles
June 5th, 2017 by admin
in 1866 he went to work for the telegraph company, by age 20 he was working with Alexander Bell, and built up a large company that sold subscriptions to customers, and then sold that company to Bell at age 43.
In 1898 he bought 3 electric cars, but they didn’t satisfy. In 1901 he bought a Napier loved it so much he bought two more. He decided to drive around the world and see it all
He was the 1st man to drive around the world, and even spent 1800 miles on railroads on his way to Minneapolis.
In 1901, Glidden undertook a journey to the Arctic Circle, where no roads existed, accompanied solely by his wife. Not only did they survive, but they did it again. In 1902, aboard a beefy Napier, the couple undertook a very early circumnavigation of the globe, driving through Malaysia and Japan, doing the global loop not just once, but twice.
He kicked off the Glidden tours to get other car owners to go long range and enjoy their cars too
http://searcharchives.vancouver.ca/mr-and-mrs-charles-jasper-glidden-arrive-at-c-p-r-station
https://leminhkhai.wordpress.com/2013/01/24/the-sultan-of-johors-place-in-the-victorian-ecumene/