O Scale Motor Vehicle Chronicle April 10

Thanks for keeping this post going each week Richard. I would imagine most of us were interested in cars since we were young and much of the information (especially these links posted above!) is terrific to view and remember. 

Here's a favorite of mine from our Christmas display at our real estate office. Love these old Chryslers!

When I was active in vintage cars (before the Auburn and other auctions seem to drive

the prices up, and old cars became an "investment" for people who couldn't change a tire, vs. a hobby), I actively collected sales literature, etc., for medium priced orphans

up to 1940, but primarily for 1925-35.  With over 5,000 makes of cars once sold in

the U.S., it is a fertile field, with some very rare makes' literature almost impossible

to find.  It was once a very active part of the hobby, but, due to the cost of the cars, now, a lot of this lit goes unsold.  I trudged Carlisle and Hershey for years looking for

it, and now I find little there.  I made a few coups, buying a collection of Velie lit

out of an old dealer attic (resold to a tractor collector, as Velie was related to John Deere), and another orphan car's beautiful color brochures out of an old dealer's farm barn.  Velie, like Model T Ford, was one of the last to give up thermosiphon cooling. (I found the other dealership's old building still standing in Terre Haute, Ind.)

1958 Lincoln

Speaking of brochures: In 1967 I was shopping for a new car and talking with a Chevrolet  salesman about a Chevelle SS396.  I asked him where the claimed 360 HP was measured, at the rear wheels or at the flywheel? 

He looked me in the eye and said, "Mr. Willis, the claimed horsepower is measured at the brochure."  

So true.  I appreciated his honesty, although I did not buy the Chevelle. Ultimately I bought a small block Camaro instead: it just handled so much better in turns. 

Now that's funny - and honest. The actual fact is, in that era Detroit engineers measured horsepower at the flywheel, with everything that could possibly reduce horsepower removed. No generator, no fan, no air cleaner - perfect lab conditions with the engine on a dyno stand. The actual horsepower measured by the engineers on the dyno might or might not make it to the sales brochure. in the early days of muscle cars, horsepower claims were often exaggerated. Later on, they were frequently downgraded to make it easier for the buyer to get insurance. The insurance companies would penalize power/weight ratios over a certain number. Cars like the first-generation Z/28 Camaro (the thinly disguised race car with the 302, not the later versions) rolled out of the showroom with substantially more horsepower than claimed.

Here's my Lincoln.