Had you heard that the Natl Highway and Traffic Safety Admin was trying to discourage bikers from attending Bike Week in Fla, and Rolling Thunder in Va? Yes.

the NHTSA‘s Motorcycle Law Enforcement Demonstration Program provides states with federal funding for traffic checkpoints that stop only motorcyclists. The checkpoints allow law enforcement to inspect motorcycles and determine if they meet state standards ranging such as noise levels, tire conditions and handlebar lengths.

Very focused on discriminating against bikers. Yes, their bikes are too damn loud. Agreed. But so is my 69 R/T. I know it, so do they, yet we still thumbs up each other on the freeway over how damn loud each other are. Yup, I haven't grown up yet.

Good news, a couple senators and house of reps congressmen have gotten bills in place to see if this NHTSA nonsense can be made illegal

http://blog.motorcycle.com/2014/03/07/industry-news/new-bipartisan-senate-bill-ban-funding-motorcycle-checkpoints/

Packard video about getting the word for the body structure... from where I was born and raised, the Upper Penninsula of Michigan

the horses are hitched to the truck... how under powered is the truck engine for that load? I doubt anyone would put that much wood in a new 1500 Dodge, Chevy, or F150 Ford!

Among a treasure trove of 1920's and 30's Packard videos https://www.youtube.com/user/mrpitv/videos?sort=dd&shelf_id=1&view=0

Thanks to George!

Ford Fairlane Hemisfair.... connected to the Ford Sponsorship of the Hemisfair in San Antonio, in 1968

It seems the huge financial success of the New York Worlds Fair 1964 had some investment types thinking they needed to try to cash in on the idea again, quickly. So in 1968 San Antonio was chosen.

It seems that this World’s Fair didn’t have a whole lot to offer in the ways of retrofuturistic design and cool technologies, but one should consider what was going on while this Fair was open elsewhere in the world to appreciate what it was doing. Vietnam was at its highest, man was about to walk on the moon and the Summer of Love was about to begin, so this was a pretty interesting time.

HemisFair ’68 was the first officially designated world’s fair (or international exposition) held in the southwestern United States. San Antonio, Texas hosted the fair from April 6 through October 6, 1968. More than thirty nations hosted pavilions at the fair. The fair was held in conjunction with the 250th anniversary of the founding of San Antonio. The theme of the fair was “The Confluence of Civilizations in the Americas.”



Cultural events at HemisFair included theme exhibits, such as Confluence/Cosmos, which presented space exploration, and "El Encanto de un Pueblo," which displayed 5,000 toys and miniatures from the Alexander Girard Folk Art collection in a series of miniature "views" of Latin-American village life.

The fair sponsored a lavish production of Giuseppe Verdi's Don Carlo, an exhibit of major art works from the Prado Museum in Madrid sponsored by the government of Spain, touring stage shows, performances by celebrity entertainers, and appearances by such groups as the Ballet Folklórico de México and the Bolshoi Ballet from Russia.

Major corporate exhibitors with individual pavilions included Eastman Kodak, Ford Motor Company, General Electric, General Motors, Gulf Oil Corporation, Humble Oil (now Exxon Company, U.S.A.), IBM, RCA, and Southwestern Bell. Frito Lay/Pepsi-Cola (see FRITO-LAY CORPORATION) presented a spectacular outdoor event, "Los Voladores de Papantla" (The Flying Indians), and Coca-Cola's pavilion featured the Krofft puppets.

 HemisFair, which opened in the spring of 1968 with an announced start-up cost of $156 million, was financially troubled from the beginning. Attendance never matched expectations, and the fair lost money, a reported $7.5 million, despite Mayor Walter McAllister's pledge that the exposition would not cost San Antonio taxpayers "a thin dime."

 On the other hand the fair attracted more than 6.3 million visitors and focused international attention on the city and state. But the site did not become the permanent unifying element that its planners had envisioned. Instead, multiple uses were found for the permanent structures that were left on HemisFair grounds, such as the Tower of the Americas and the Institute of Texan Cultures

info from http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/lkh01

is it weird I've never seen or heard of this Fairlane? Have any of you seen or heard of one?

Some images from http://www.worldsfairphotos.com/nywf64/ford.htm
and http://masspanicatomic.wordpress.com/2010/05/12/worlds-fair-68-san-antonio/sanantonio68_1/  and https://masspanicatomic.wordpress.com/page/41/

For more about Worlds Fairs (as I find history amazing, and Worlds Fairs very interesting, but only ever heard of the few in the USA) see http://www.expomuseum.com/1968/

 Above found on http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth66132/m1/1/

Smog in Los Angeles is drastically down from the 1960s

Found on http://goldengeesenews.blogspot.com/2014/03/liberals-are-insane-no-i-mean-it-theyre.html

what became of the 100s of B 17s, B 24s and other warbirds? Flown to Arkansas and Kingman Arizona and cut into pieces, then smelted and turned into aluminum ingots

Found on http://www.planesofthepast.com/b17-flying-fortress-scrapping-after-wwii.htm

Today, a total of only 39 surviving B-17 airframes are located in the United States.

Twelve B-17 are still airworthy today, two F models, and 10 B-17G models. Several are very well known, including "Memphis Belle".
 An additional 18 B-17s are on static display around the United States, including "Virgin's Delight" located at the Castle Air Museum in Atwater, California, and "I'll Be Around" at the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, both shown below.
 In addition, 9 aircraft are undergoing restoration or are in storage.

things I just learned about car makers during WW2, and what they made instead of their normal vehicles

Military trucks and ambulances were built by Dodge, Chrysler, the PT Boat and aircraft engines produced exclusively by Packard, including the V-1650 engine which powered the amazing P-51 Mustang fighter. Studebaker built the US6 truck, the M29 Weasel cargo and other crew carriers, the Journal Standard reports.

Many of the tank retrieval trailers and tank recovery vehicles came from the well known taxi cab factory, Checker. Hudson joined the efforts with its aircraft guns, engines, parts and the “Hudson Invader” engine, known having been used to power landing watercraft on D-Day at Normandy, June 6, 1944.

Many of the military appliances and other specific supplies were assembled by Nash-Kelvinator, while Henry Kaiser became a legend thanks to his California shipyard, where he built the “Liberty” and “Victory” cargo ships in very little time.

From http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/car-manufacturers-world-war-ii-military-might.html

Duesenburgs modified to be trucks (trucks weren't very common, inexpenisve, and got better gas rationing than cars during wars)

The top photo dating from 1924, which depicts a Duesenberg Model A that was presumably converted into a shop truck, as opposed to being built as a truck from the outset. With its bed railings, it resembles an early fire rescue truck or a police emergency squad, especially in New York City fashion. This Model A was a service vehicle, owned by the Duesenberg California Company, the local distributorship, located on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. Jon said evidence indicates the auxiliary bodywork was installed by Beverly Auto Body Works, also of Los Angeles. Incidentally, last year at the Amelia Island Concours, one vehicle on the show field was a similar shop truck conversion based on a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. "Back then, Duesenberg was probably happy to get any kind of an order it could," Jon explained. "This one may have been shipped out west as a bare chassis, and then finished up at Beverly Auto Body. I'm not sure anybody knows the exact story behind what happened after that," conceding that after its useful life, the Duesenberg California may well have been resold or simply scrapped.

We can tell you a lot more about the "farm truck," if you will, that's depicted in the other image on the facing page. Duesenberg chassis J-350, chassis number 2370, both numbers-matching, rode on the long 153.5-inch wheelbase. It was originally fitted with limousine coachwork, like many of the long-wheelbase Model Js; in this case its body was furnished by Judkins. The car's ownership history from the A-C-D archives shows it then going to a gentleman named Joseph Taylor, who operated Springhill Farms in Mars, Pennsylvania, not far from where the American Austin was assembled in Butler. Taylor's farm specialized in Hereford cattle and Berkshire swine, the latter prized for its rich, marbled meat. It appears that Taylor cut off the Judkins bodywork aft of the chauffeur's seat, and then bolted a simple stake body to the rear chassis. The wheels are non-stock, reduced to 16 inches in diameter.

The exact time frame encompassing this Model J and its life is a little unclear, but the records show that after Taylor was done with it, it passed through four more owners, the last of whom, in Washington State, turned it back into a Full Classic. J-350 was retrofitted with a limousine body by Willoughby that was originally installed on J-237. The Judkins coachwork, or what was left of it, was lost.

"This kind of conversion (of a large luxury car into a truck) was fairly common when gas rationing was taking place. I don't think it was that common with Duesenbergs, though," Jon said. "This is the only one I've ever heard of that I know had this done to it. But you can see that the truck was very purposeful; it was built to work on a farm. It's difficult to skirt the issue about how people would have felt about it in wartime if he was bombing around town in a Duesenberg when everybody else was struggling with ration stamps. It's a fact that many Classics found themselves as derelicts, practically, on used car lots. To the best of our knowledge, there were 481 Model Js built and about 375 survive. Probably, since a Willoughby body went on [this] truck, it still exists."

Found on http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2013/12/01/hmn_feature21.html

design plaugerism

found in either Autoweek or Automobile magazine

2014 Challengers and Chargers have optional 100th anniversary badging

they upgrade is goldish paint fogged on the seat leather, put the above badge on the seat back, a rim center cap, and the fenders get a badge. The floor mats do too.

It's not a lot, but a step in the right direction

More info at http://www.autoblog.com/2013/11/19/dodge-charger-challenger-100th-anniversary-edition/

Facebook motorsports audience stats

among the biggest are:

Nascar 3.9 million friends
Formula Drift: 1.57 million friends

Another theory on why some countries drive a particular side of the road

Found in the Hagerty magazine

About everything there is to know about the B25... including where all of the known ones are that fly, are on display, are getting restored

All this is just a small part of the info at http://www.skytamer.com/North_American_B-25D.html

they even wrote that Indonesia was flying B25s until 1979

possible origin of the fire truck... a Roman extortionist

In the early days of Rome a real estate investor/ extortionist named Crassus used a team of firefighters in an effective scheme. There was no public firefighting service at that time, so when a building was on fire, Crassus and his team would show up with their water pump. Before fighting the fire, Crassus would make a very low offer on the building, and to neighboring building owners. If the owners refused, Crassus let the building burn and spread to neighboring buildings, and would later make an even lower offer. If the owner agreed to sell the property, the firefighters would try to put the fire out. Crassus became very wealthy with this scheme, owned a good portion of the city of Rome, bought his way into political office, and ruled Rome as Triumvirate with Pompey and Julius Caesar.

found on http://patentpending.blogs.com/patent_pending_blog/2005/06/the_fire_truck.html

Tour De France, aka race of cheaters

Seagrave Safety Sedan, restored by the Detroit fire dept volunteers, to be used as a fire dept hearse

I remember finding out about this a couple years ago, but was unable then to find anything out about it.
These images are found on http://www.flickr.com/photos/sjb4photos/8061362709/in/set-72157627006001214/

Mopar bulletin #2 and 28.... (some good bits), thanks to Jay!