1925 L.A. To Yosemite Economy Run -- Star and Flint Vehicles Dominate the Run -- Franklin, Duesenberg, Stutz also Scored Class Wins

The Rules were changed for the 1925 L.A. to Yosemite Economy Run. Observers were in all cars, "de-clutching" or coasting was prohibited, and small variants in individual cars were no longer allowed. All cars entered were to be the same as a car that would be purchased off the showroom floor.

The big news for 1925 was how successful Durant cars were in the various classes. Billy Durant, after being deposed at General Motors, went on the form his own car company that was named after him, and his Star and Flint brands were quite popular during the mid-1920s. And obviously, they were economical as well.


Star 4 Touring -- 29.09 m.p.g.
Star 6 Touring -- 23.60 m.p.g.
Flint Coach ----- 25.48 m.p.g.
Franklin Sedan - 20.00 m.p.g.
Duesenberg8 --- 19.86 m.p.g.
Stutz 8 Sedan -- 16.74 m.p.g.







1925 Star Touring



1925 Flint E 55
1925 Franklin Sedan
1925 Duesenberg 8 Touring1925 Stutz Sedan

A Brief Review of Ilya Ehrenburg, The Life of the Automobile (1929) -- Globalization and the Automobile Industry

P.167 -- "The automobile has come to show even the slowest of minds that the earth is truly round, that the heart is just a poetic relic, that a human being contains two standard gauges: one indicates miles, the other minutes."

Sometimes getting the flu is not such a bad thing, as it gives one pause to read books that have been on thee shelf for some time and to think in repose, albeit coughing and sniffling repose. From time to time I have seen citations of Ilya Ehrenburg's The Life of the Car (1929, rpr. 1976, 1999). As I discovered today, this is a remarkable book, with meaning for today as well as an insightful view of the world between 1919 and 1929. The book is organized into seven chapters:
1. The Birth of the Automobile
2. The Conveyor Belt
3. Tires
4. A Poetic Digression
5. Gasoline
6. The Stock Exchange
7. Roads

In my mind, the primary themes revolve around: 1) the automobile and an evolving world of conformity, alienation, and speed; and 2) the complex interrelationship of so many activities and geographical areas of the world with the automobile at the apex of a materials, financial, production, and consumption pyramid. And things have not changed in structure in the years between 1929 and 2009, although complexity and scale certainly have developed in a a profound way. The automobile led to many jobs (Ford and Mass Assembly), much wealth (Andre Citroen, although he gambled much of his away), and considerable suffering (for example the rubber plantations in Malaysia). As Ehrenburg so effectively argues, what it means to be human changed profoundly with the coming of the automobile, not only in how we used this system of technology, but also in terms of the desires of the common person and the nature of our work. Stock markets, finance, speculation, and the drive to control oil and rubber were considered at the highest levels of government ( Hoover, Churchill, Clemenceau), and any notion of an industry reflective of free market dynamics were illusory even during the 1920s.

Speed, nerves, time -- how has the technology that is around us in our lives -- alarm clocks, appliances, cars, cell phones, TV and Radio, DVD, Internet -- forced us into patterns of behavior that genetically we are ill-equipped to handle well?

More on the L.A. to Camp Curry Yosemite Economy Runs -- 1924 -- Overland and Gardner Cars

Attached are a few very hard-to-find images concerning the 1924 L.A. to Camp Curry Yosemite Economy Run. The presentation photo was taken from the May 25, 1924 Oakland Tribune, as is the table of contestants. The images of the Overland and Gardner are for those like myself who had very little knowledge of the many cars of that day that were very competitive in these competitions yet have disappeared from the scene. The Gardner, for example was made in St. Louis, and the McFarlan was a very high-end automobile fitted with custom bodies made in Connersville, Indiana. Very few of these orphan cars survive. Yet, they were tough enough in their day to make the challenging road trip to Yosemite, including the hill climbs over the Tioga Pass that faced drivers the second day of the trip.
And the miles per gallon numbers were impressive, both in the day and today!

Autoweek Review of my Book, The Automobile and American Life

Hi folks -- on page 52 of the October 19, 2009 issue of Autoweek, Kevin A. Wilson wrote this about my book:

Faced with the automobile as a subject, writers often feel compelled to choose: are cars just a lot of fun, or are they serious business? Heitmann is a professor of history at the university of Dayton in Ohio and an accomplished scholar, so his answer is different from Toly Arutunoff's (see below -- you will ahve to get a copy of this issue!). Cars are a subject he clearly loves, and his focus on the way the automobile has influenced and been influenced by our national culture gives him latitude to address the fun aspects. This book is a great starting point for any student of American automotive history and a worthwhile addition to a collector's bookshelf.

Thank you, Kevin!

Los Angeles to Camp Curry Yosemite Economy Runs, 1916 to 1926

Map of Camp Curry in 1926

A Tour Bus taking folks through the valley at Yosemite, date unknown

Road map of Yosemite Park, 1919

[AUTOMOBILE IN YOSEMITE] IN 1914

“Speed will be limited to six miles per hour, except on straight stretches when approaching teams will be visible, when, if no teams are in sight, this speed may be increased to an approximate maximum speed of ten miles per hour.”

For many years I used James J. Flink's The Automobile Age in my auto history classes. It is a great book and definitive in many respects. My students, however, found the detail overwhelming at times. And I too wondered why certain topics were developed, including that of the relationship between the National Park System and the diffusion of the automobile. Well, again I have to defer to Dr. Flink, as I have recently discovered in my work on the early Los Angeles to Yosemite Economy Runs. Flink lays some groundwork for what I am now following up on , which really is a part of the historical continuity connected to the Mobilgas Economy runs.

Historians often work backwards in time, and thus in examining the origins of the Mobilgas Economy Runs I was forced to go back well beyond my original time frame of 1936-1968.

In reviewing many newspaper articles in the period 1916 to 1926 or so, I have discovered that there was a mania not only to get to Yosemite from either Los Angeles or the Bay area, but also that there was enormous interest in fuel economy, particularly after the U.S. entered WWI in March of 1917. Various marques sponsored their own economy runs, including Maxwell and Essex. And communities began to promote short weekend trips to places like Yosemite, which is promoted on the Yosemite end of the trip by camp owners like Foster Curry, who in 1917 began sponsoring a Camp Curry Cup Economy run from, Los Angeles. It was a competition that dealers because quickly engaged in, and the publicity derived from the runs served as the basis of many newspaper advertisements at that time. The economy runs also served as starting points for campaigns to get better roads built in California. The AAA would sanction these runs by 1924, and safeguards began to be employed to minimize cheating of various kinds.

The cars are largely unfamiliar to us living in 2009, and include the Overland, Maxwell, Stephens, Oakland, McFarlan and Kissel.

For example, here are the results from the 1924 run:

1924 Los Angeles – Camp Curry Yosemite Economy Run

Standard Oil California – Red Crown Gasoline

Official Records – Class Winners

Class	Car	Driver
1A	Overland, Model 92	R. Bonaccini
2A	Overland, Model 92	Joe Bozzani
3A	Oakland Sedan	A.L. Peterson
4A	Kissel	H.L. Nichelson
5A	McFarlan 6	V.V. Hilliard
Closed Car	Oakland Sedan	A.L. Peterson

Note that the sponsor is Standard Oil and Red Crown Gasoline.

Some things you can't buy -- Rick Ross, "Maybach Music" -- Do you have any idea who the Maybachs were?

1932 Maybach Zeppelin DS 8
2009 Maybach Zepplin 12

Rick Ross and his Maybach

One thing about all this hip-hop material and the cars they use in the lyrics -- Money doesn't buy class, or social standing. A liberal education does, however. How many folks even have the slightest sense as to who Wilhem and Karl Maybach were, and what he did? And not just the high-end car?

Wilhelm Maybach (1846-1929) was born in Heilbronn, Germany. An orphan at age ten,
at 19, he met Gottlieb Daimler. Daimler's protégé, M0aybach and his mentor worked together until Daimler died in 1900.
In 1869, Maybach and Daimler moved to Karlsruhe and worked for the Deutz engine company. While at Deutz, Maybach began to design lightweight, high-speed internal combustion engines that could be used in a number of stationary applications.

Following a dispute with the management, Daimler and Maybach left Deutz in 1882 and moved again: this time to Canstatt, near Stuttgart. The pair continued to work on new engines. Between 1882 and 1885, they designed a new engine and put it first in a cart, and then in a carriage. At that point, Maybach realized adding an existing horse-drawn engine to a carriage was not the way to go and began working on a new vehicle designed to be a true automobile.

At the Paris World Exhibition in 1889, Daimler and Maybach displayed their new car. It had features like steel wheels and a sliding pinion gearshift system.
A year later, in November 1890, Daimler and two partners founded "Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft" (DMG) or Daimler Motor Company. Wilhelm Maybach was chief engineer of this firm. However, the position did not work out, and Maybach left the company after only .

Over the next eighteen months, Maybach worked in an apartment and Gottlieb Daimler continued to provide financial support. Out of this period came important engine developments, including the new Phoenix engine with its improved carburetor and belt drive system.
Following a better offer, Maybach returned to DMG as chief engineer in 1895. There, he produced more innovations like the fan-cooled honeycomb radiator and the first four-cylinder automobile engine, laying the groundwork for the modern automobile. By this time, the French were calling him the "King of the Designers."
His most famous design came inApril of 1900. Emil Jellinek, Daimler's representative for Nice, asked Maybach and Daimler's son, Paul, to design a new, more powerful car he could sell to the wealthy residents of the French Riviera. Since Panhard already owned the rights to the Daimler name in France, Jellinek asked that the new car be named for his daughter, Mercedes. With Maybach's powerful engine and a revolutionary new body, including a pressed-steel frame, the new Mercedes quickly became a success and marked the end of the "horseless carriage" era of automotive design.

Wilhelm's son, Karl, was also a brilliant engine designer. In 1921, he created the Maybach automobile which became Germany's premier luxury car line. Karl Maybach (1879 - 1960) grew up with cars and followed in his father's footsteps.
The first Maybach, the W3, debuted at the 1921 Berlin Motor Show, where its advanced design gained a lot of attention. Like his father, Karl Maybach wanted to build the most technically advanced car possible and designed his products around the tastes and desires of the wealthy. Every Maybach was unique, with a custom body designed to the buyer's specifications. Maybachs were prized for their powerful engines and sophisticated transmissions. In 1929, he introduced the Maybach 12 DS, the first production car with a V12 engine.
In 1930, Karl Maybach unveiled the first of the legendary Zeppelins. The Zeppelin was an ultra-luxury car, even more expensive than the Horch, its only real competition. It carried a price tag of 29,500 Reichsmarks and some ran as high as 50,000 Reichsmarks, enough in those days to buy five large family homes or thirty-three Opel P4s. It's probably no surprise that fewer than 200 Zeppelins were built during its entire run.
From 1921 until the Second World War, Maybach built a total of 2,300 cars, including show cars and the early W1 and W2 prototypes. Today, only about 150 Maybachs remain, some bringing upwards of a million dollars at auction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdjcqFZgwJw

[Girl One] + (Girl Two)

What is this? (Maybach music)

I like this Maybach music

[Both Girls]
Sweeeeeeeeeeet!
Ha-ha-ha!

[Sample]
Come and take a ride
Come and take a ride

[Rick Ross]

Billionaire
Yayo

JUSTICE LEAGUE

[Rick Ross]

57 years, yes!

Blood for a D-Boy Hand my mack 11 to the engineer to record
Got the baddest women in the world for me to feed on
Double deck yacht, docked Boss, blowing weed up
Revenue incredible, it put me on a pedestal
Columbia to Mexico, I figure there was a better rule
Look at me, a model now
Models and bottles 'round
A Blood holla', ballin'
But the boys in blue, shot 'em down
Gang-affiliated, colors prosecutors painted
'Cause the niggas I employed, name synonymous with Mi-Yayo
Instrumental that are mental, Maybach kind of mental
400 off the lot, the block is monumental
Some things money can't buy
Like Heaven in the sky, even a better ride
In the rear, so many instruments I hear
Tucked behind curtain, no signs to fear (ROSS!)
I'm higher than a leer / Aaliyah
This Maybach music, designer shit I wear
May cause you to lose it
Close your eyes and inhale the smoke
It's Maybach music, the realest shit I wrote, nigga!
5 ounces, take a toke
Of this Maybach music, the realest shit I wrote
BOSS!

[Jay-Z]

YOUNG!
Fuck it then!

[Jay-Z]
Black Maybach, white seats, black piping
Remind me of Paul McCartney and Mike fighting
You know, +The Girl Is Mine+
\+Life's A Bitch+, so +The Whole World Is Mine+
The six-deuce long, the curtains are drawn
Perfectly like a Picasso, Rembrandts and Rocco's
I'm a major player, 40-40's in Vegas at the Palazzo
They said it was not so
Certain things that money can't buy
Like being this fly
'Til then, I'm just gonna' ride!
I'm like G-Rap with better transportation
On the road to the riches, reach my +Final Destination+
And the lair, closer to a leer / Aaliyah
Say a +Prayer+, hope I get ta' see her
When I disappear from here - baby, yeah!
But I don't see the ending through these millionaire lenses
Just the Two M's on the emblem
The partition roof, translucent and Humador
Where refrigerators, where Ace of Spades – two I store!
True story, my closet is like two stories
Cut to the happy ending, 'cause I don't do stories
Shawn Corey, real rap
The Maybach is bananas, peel back!
You feel that?
YOUNG! C'mon!

[Jay-Z]

Realest shit I ever wrote, chillin' in my Maybach
8-track episodes, been doing this since way back
Since way back, since way back
8-track episodes, been doing this since way back!
Realest shit I ever wrote, chillin' in my Maybach
8-track episodes, been doing this since way back
Since way back, since way back
8-track episodes, been doing this since way back!

[Rick Ross]
BOSS!
Can't be stopped now
We got too much cake

[Rick Ross]
They pinching pennies, while I'm muscling for meals
And the muscle be that muzzle, when I stuff it in your grill
Stuffed shells - thanks to crack, I crack
Crab and lobsters, not all mobsters
Imposters - got cha!
Boy, I got an eagle view, slanted on my balcony
Can only stay a week or two, so many people out for me
I bulletproofed the Maybach
Got a killer's intuition
Holding on that mack 11, Makaveli premonition
Waiting on my Suge Knight
One nation under God, since I chose a thug's life
Guess I gotta' play my part
Never will I die, my name symbolize
The hustle for young killers coming from the other side
Some things your money can't buy
Like Heaven in the sky, even a better ride
I'm large, my black car
Menagin' black broads, massage for frauds
I'm livin' large, sellin' fat rocks
In the +Killin' Field+ of hip-hop
Runnin' up on the car, you get popped, mopped and dropped!

I'm The Boss!

"With a little luck, we just may get stuck -- let's get a little mud on the tires" -- Brad Paisley, "Mud on the Tires," Trucks, Romance, and Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXEgCOjq6EA

Thanks again to my daughter Lisa for pointing this topic out to me. I always used to think of country music as "Shit-Kicker" music, an attitude borne from my high brow education and urban origins. In April of 2007, however, I was at a conference in Nashville and went to the Grand Old Opry one night. It was a blast! And so from time to time I now listen to country, because so many of the words concerning life ring true. The lyrics can get you thinking, and can be funny as well. And yes, at times the lyrics are "bullshit," but not always.

So let's talk a bit about song and pick up trucks. And one of the best is Brad Paisley's "Mud on Tires." It has all the classic ingredients of great music -- the vehicle, the road, or in this case the road that ends, the girl, and romance in a lonely pace, far away from the crowds. In this song our narrator finally gets bank approval to buy a new truck, in this case a 2004 Chevy. It has 4 wheel drive, and the new owner wants to try it out, but he asks his girl to come along, probably to try her out too. So he asks his girl to come along.
He’s “got the perfect place in mind/It's in the middle of nowhere only way to get there/You got to get a little mud on the tires”. "So with a little luck we may get stuck," an old desire of young men driving cars with girls at their side. What a way to end a summer drive when the “Sun sets about nine this time of year”.

I've got some big news, the bank finally came through,
And I'm holding the keys to the brand new Chevrolet
Have you been outside? It sure is a nice night
How ‘bout a little test-drive, down by the lake?
There's a place I know about, where the dirt road runs out
We can try out the four-wheel drive
Come on now whata' ya say? Girl I can hardly wait-
To get a little mud on the tires

Cause it's a good night, to be out there soakin' up the moonlight
Steak out a little piece of shoreline, I got the perfect place in mind
It's in the middle of nowhere, only one way to get there
Gotta get a little mud on the tires

Moonlight on a duck vine, catfish on a trout line
Sun sets about nine, this time of year
We can throw a blanket down, crickets singing in the background
And more stars than you can count on a night this clear
Tell ya what we need to do, grab a sleepin' bag or two
And build us a little campfire
Then with a little luck, we might just get stuck
Lets get a little mud on the tires

Cause it's a good night, to be out there soakin' up the moonlight
Steak out a little piece of shoreline, I got the perfect place in mind
It's in the middle of nowhere, only one way to get there
Gotta get a little mud on the tires

Then with a little luck, we might just get stuck
Lets get a little mud on the tires