My wife and I were up in the Camden, Maine neighborhood a few weekends ago and had the good fortune to be on the Maine coast on the same weekend that the Owl’s Head Museum hosted their Wings and Wheels extravaganza. The Owls Head Museum sits out on a point near Rockland. It includes a beautiful enclosed facility with a nice selection of landmark cars sitting along side reproductions of some of the earliest flying machines and airplanes. The grounds include a large show area where auto enthusiasts displayed their classic and collector cars and an airstrip which sits adjacent to a civil airport with hangers. If you find yourself along mid-coast Maine, I highly recommend a visit.
On this day, in addition to the museum itself, there was an air show and car show. While my little digital camera only captured specs in the sky, this shot is of a classic Curtis bi-plane being started by hand. This fellow, while apparantly in very good shape, was worn down pretty badly trying to start this plane. It did eventually start and the pilot proceeded to put it through its paces, which included numerous flips, rolls, stalls and low passes over the air-strip, all which thrilled the gathered crowd.
There was a pretty nice selection of privately-owned classic cars on hand including this 1949 Ford Convertible, with which my wife fell in love. It’s 239 cubic inch V8 produced 100 horsepower. About 51,000 were sold but not many remain. This one was in fine restored condition but sadly…not for sale. Sorry Honey!
Also on hand was a Blackhawk helicopter. Spectators were allowed to climb around inside and get a sense for what it might be like to ride one of these aircrafts into battle. I have to admit that I have even more respect for our service men and women after examining this well-built but very vulnerable machine and realizing that it is one of the primary methods of carrying troops in and out of war zones.
The museum itself is a great take regardless of whether or not they are having a special event. It includes some spectacular reproductions of historic early aircraft like this Wright Brothers’ Wright Flyer, complete with Orville piloting the historic first flight dated December 17, 1903. The Wright Brothers’ fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium.This method became standard and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft to this day.
There were also a few less noteworthy vehicles such as this 1938 Eliot Cricket III built by Samuel Eliot. It features a stainless steel body and steering via a control stick similar to that used in early aircraft. You would push the stick left or right to steer and forward to stop. The Cricket was powered by a 130 horsepower Franklin four-cylinder engine, more than enough power for this very small car. Eliot, who was an inventor, is also responsible for Boston’s first parking garage, built in 1933 on the corner of State Street and India Street.
Of course, the most famous automobile on display along with a reproduction of the first powered aircraft is a replica of the first patented automobile, the Benz, which sits majestically at the entrance to the museum. Built by Carl Benz of Germany in 1885 and patented in 1886, this vehicle is recognized as the first to use an internal combustion engine to power itself. The single cylinder engine burned gasoline ignited by a spark plug, one of the first to use an electrical spark, and produced just 3/4 horsepower. Steering was done by a hand-lever and pointer.
These are just a few of the many motor vehicles and aircraft on display at the Owl’s Head Museum so if you ever find yourself along the mid-Maine coast near Camden and Rockland, take some time to visit this interesting museum. You’ll have fun and learn quite a few things, too!
Under normal circumstances, this is where I recap one of the Larz Anderson Lawn Events, reporting the winners of each category. That just would not do this past Sunday justice. This was one of those days that reminds us why the car is so important to us. Reminds us that, while many cars have turned into rolling appliances, and less and less people know how to drive a stick shift each year, those that still care have a place to go and revel in what they cherish most about automobiles. Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, Mazda invited a bunch of enthusiasts to their technical center in Irvine, California to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the MX-5 Miata. Yup, the Miata is 20 years old . . .
I was Editor in Chief of R&T at the time the car was introduced, and we named that first 1990 Miata as one of the five “World’s Best Cars.” And the accolades have never stopped. Read the rest of this entry »
My time spent at the Larz Anderson Museum has been quite fruitful so far this Summer. First, with the classic delights of British Car Day, and then with the thoroughly modern experience of getting behind the wheel of the all-new Porsche Boxster Spyder, its safe to say I’ve had my share of thrills.
That paled in comparison to what was to greet me Sunday June 20th (last Sunday). German Car Day was in full swing, and it was enormous. On the drive up to the museum, Porsche 356 roadsters could be seen darting up back roads in packs. Entering the grounds, I was greeted with the largest collection of cars ever to turn out for the German Car event (the largest single show was one of the past iterations of the Tutto Italiano, taking place August first this year). Read the rest of this entry »
Last week, members of the New England motor press, including yours truly, were treated to automotive wares old and new, as historic automobiles set the stage for some face time with the latest Boxster from Porsche. The setting was the Larz Anderson Auto Museum, the stone and mortar structure is a masterpiece made for a spectacular location. Any automaker choosing this site for a press event surely must keep their product in high regard.
The vehicle in question on this evening was the 2011 Porsche Boxster Spyder. What another version of the Boxster? Oh, but its so much more. The Spyder is a holistic approach to lightening the vehicle in the name of a more pure driving experience. Most notably, the convertible top has been completely gutted, and replaced with a makeshift canvas bikini top. It is held down by tension hooks on the corners of what is one of the prettiest rear cowls I’ve ever seen. That lack of a power top resulits in a 46-lb weight savings, and that’s just the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »
Spending time around classic British roadsters is good. Seeing them on the lawn of a historic auto museum styled after a French Chateau is even better. That was the setting for British Car Day 2010, part of a series of meets for various automotive genre put on by the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, MA. As the oldest Automotive Museum in the country, this non-profit is home to vehicles such as a true “horseless carriage” built by Winston in 1899, but the story on this day was outside, on the Museum lawn.
I was immensely pleased to see a full helping of Jaguar E-Type roadsters(above), their long hoods and elegant lines captivating young driver’s imaginations long before Lamborghini’s were status quo for automotive pinup. It was fascinating to see those classic E-Types placed along side their successors, XJ-Coupe(below left), which was produced for only three years (’75-’78), and the XJS (below right), which was produced up until 1996. The black one seen here is an aggressive-looking XJS V12, “post-facelift” model, as they are called after 1991. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s a new race track in town . . . okay, so it’s not exactly “in town.” But nobody gets permission to build a race track in town these days so let’s just say it’s freeway close. And just so we don’t get hung up on semantics, let’s say that this new track, Chuckwalla Valley Raceway (CVR), is located in Desert Center, California. For those of you not familiar with California or the desert, grab a map of the Southwest showing California and Arizona. Locate Los Angeles and Phoenix and draw a straight line between them. That line will be Interstate 10. Chuckwalla Valley Raceway is 175 miles from LA, 200 miles from Phoenix, 208 miles from San Diego and 230 miles from Las Vegas. This means it is centrally located in the middle of nowhere. Actually that’s not quite true. It’s about 25 miles east of Chiraco Summit and far enough away from any urban or suburban development to assure that it will not be crowded out by urban sprawl during at least the next 100 years. The 1100-acre raceway facility is located right next to a 4200-foot runway (5-23 for you pilots in the audience) with tie downs for 30 aircraft. So the Roger Penskes and the Rick Hendricks of the racing world have a place to land the smaller of their corporate aircraft. Read the rest of this entry »
I got an email from Oscar Koveleski the other day. Actually, I get a lot of emails from Oscar, but this one was special. Oscar, for those of you too young or too old to remember, was an amateur sports car racer from Scranton, Pennsylvania who took on the likes of Bruce McLaren, Denny Hulme and Jackie Stewart in the original Can Am series. He never won a ran in the series, but he and teammate Tony Adamowicz, running year-old McLarens were frequently the highest-placed independents, which was quite an accomplishment. Oscar won an SCCA National Championship in 1970 behind the wheel of the same 1969 McLaren M8B that he raced in the Can Am series that year. Oscar’s 1971 racer was Bruce McLaren’s 1970 Championship car. Read the rest of this entry »
Yesterday in WheelsTV I gave you a rundown (Actually it was a walkdown.) on some of Continental’s innovative technologies. But I saved one for special mention today: Continental’s Accelerator Force Feedback Pedal (AFFP). It’s one of Conti’s Human-Machine Interface (HMI) technologies, and I was able to evaluate it on a BMW 3 Series. Instead of having the driver watch an upshift light on the dash or listen for a tone, the AFFP vibrates or adds a counterforce as feedback to the driver to educate his right foot in driving more efficiently to save fuel and reduce emissions. Pedal vibration and/or counterforce are fully tunable. This technology can also be integrated into several other Conti safety technologies, as for example, providing feedback to the driver of his current distance to other vehicles. Read the rest of this entry »
A few years ago, if you asked a car guy to respond with the first word that came to mind when I mentioned Continental, the answer would have been tires. And the next five words would have been either Conti Contac performance summer tires or Conti Blizzak performance winter tires.
But no longer is the Germany-based Continental synonymous just with tires. Slowly, and somewhat under the radar screen, Continental has been reinventing itself, not a bad thing in a fast changing automotive environment. Today Continental is still renowned for its tires, but for those automotive folks who are hardwired into the “parts” sides of the business, Continental has emerged as the world’s third largest automotive supplier company behind Bosch and Magna. In some segments of the fast food business parts is parts, but not in the automotive business. Suppliers are the lifeblood of the industry. Today, every automotive manufacturer—Ford, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, you name it—is highly dependent upon suppliers for much of the hard and software in every one of its vehicles. Literally hundreds of suppliers, some with well known names such as Lear, Johnson Controls, Bosch and Delphi, and unknowns (except for auto industry insiders making their living designing, engineering, costing and manufacturing vehicles) such as NTN (axle bearings), Brose (electric seat adjustment), and Rehau (rear spoiler) work closely with their auto company partners, helping them create many of the literally hundreds of primary and subsystems required in every vehicle: airbags, brakes, gauge clusters, tires, seats, shock absorbers, steering wheels, transmissions, ECMS . . . the list is endless. No auto company possesses all of the internal capabilities to design, engineer develop, test and manufacture an automobile today. Thus the need for specialists such as Continental. Read the rest of this entry »
My wife and I were up in the Camden, Maine neighborhood a few weekends ago and had the good fortune to be on the Maine coast on the same weekend that the Owl’s Head Museum hosted their Wings and Wheels extravaganza. The Owls Head Museum sits out on a point near Rockland. It includes a beautiful enclosed facility with a nice selection of landmark cars sitting along side reproductions of some of the earliest flying machines and airplanes. The grounds include a large show area where auto enthusiasts displayed their classic and collector cars and an airstrip which sits adjacent to a civil airport with hangers. If you find yourself along mid-coast Maine, I highly recommend a visit.
