One Way to Re-Kindle a Romance -- Best Western and the Garten Drive-In Poster Mural

A post from Ed Garten. Thanks, Ed!

What a delight, but in today’s e-mail I received a photo from the hotel chain creative design woman in Missouri who is using the Garten Drive-In Theatre photo as a wall mural.  But I was under the impression it was going to only be used in the lobbies of the Best Western hotel chain but – interestingly – it is being used in the “Romantic Get Away” rooms in each hotel.  See the attached photo of grandfather’s drive-in and with a king sized bed in front of it and in front of the bed they have the rear clip from a 1959 pink Cadillac – tail fins and all J

Note that the creator of this “love nest” bedroom has somehow done a photo shop and inserted a frame from an Elvis movie on the theatre screen with co-star Ann-Margret.  And, of course, there is the requisite hot tub over in the corner.  This is too good to be true!

As compensation for the use of the photograph, she told me she was sending me a “package” next week that would include dinner and two nights at one of the Best Western’s that will feature this romantic get-away room.   I showed the photo to the wife and she said: “You’ve got to be kidding?”  I told my wife that we could “go all the way” in the back seat of a Cadillac. 

When the woman sent me this today I looked at the photo and thought to myself “she is making this up.”  But no its real.

The last Drive-In in the Dayton,OH Area -- The Dixie Twin Drive-In, located in Harrison Township

Thanks to Ed Garten for the photos. according to Ed, the last Drive-In located in the Dayton, Ohio area. A popular venue for B grade films druing the 1950s and 1960s, the drive-in has been the victim of suburbanization, the growth of exurbs, and rising land values in once rural outlying locations. For a time it was one place you could take your date to "spark" away from community controls. That time has passed, as now community controls are lax, anything goes in teenagers bedrooms, and parents are often away from the house for extended periods of time.

A DMC Delorean at the Friday night Cruise In

 A six cylinder Volvo-Peugeot-Renault engine with mechanical fuel injection

 a typical 1980s plastic dash

Stainless steel beauty with gull-wing doors


Hi folks -- this Delorean showed up at the cruise-in last evening. Over 8000 made in Northern Ireland, about 7 reside in this area..

A very difficult auto trivia quiz!

This si one tough quiz to share with your friends.  Thanks to Pete Dillman for sending this along!

Q: Who opened the first drive-in gas station?

A: Gulf opened up the first station in Pittsburgh in 1913.

Q: Where was the first drive-in restaurant?

A: Royce Hailey's Pig Stand opened in Dallas in 1921.

Q: True or False?

The 1953 Corvette came in white, red and black.

A: False.

The 1953 'Vetted' were available in one color, Polo White.

 Q: What was Ford's answer to the Chevy Corvette, and other legal street racers of the 1960's?

A: Carroll Shelby's Mustang GT350.

Q: What was the first car fitted with an alternator, rather than a direct current dynamo?

A: The 1960 Plymouth Valiant

Q: What was the first car fitted with a replaceable cartridge oil filter?

A: The 1924 Chrysler.

Q: What was the first car to be offered with a "perpetual guarantee"?

A: The 1904 Acme, from Reading, PA. Perpetuity was disturbing in this case, as Acme closed down in 1911.

Q: What American luxury automaker began by making cages for birds and squirrels?

A: The George N. Pierce Co. of Buffalo, who made the Pierce Arrow, also made iceboxes.

Q: What car first referred to itself as a convertible?

A: The 1904 Thomas Flyer, which had a removable hard top.

Q: What car was the first to have it's radio antenna embedded in the windshield?

A: The 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix.

Q: What car used the first successful series-production hydraulic valve lifters?

A: The 1930 Cadillac 452, the first production V16

Q: Where was the World's first three-color traffic lights installed?

A: Detroit, Michigan in 1919. Two years later they experimented with synchronized lights.

Q: What type of car had the distinction of being GM's 100 millionth car built in the U.S. ?

A: March 16, 1966 saw an Olds Tornado roll out of Lansing, Michigan with that honor.

Q: Where was the first drive-in movie theater opened, and when?

A: Camden, NJ in 1933

Q: What autos were the first to use a standardized production key-start system?

A: The 1949 Chryslers

Q: What did the Olds designation 4-4-2 stand for?

A: 4 barrel carburetor, 4 speed transmission, and dual exhaust.

Q: What car was the first to place the horn button in the center of the steering wheel?

A: The 1915 Scripps-Booth Model C. The car also was the first with electric door latches.

Q: What U.S. production car has the quickest 0-60 mph time?

A: The 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS 409. Did it in 4.0 seconds.

Q:What's the only car to appear simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek?

A: The Mustang

Q: What was the lowest priced mass produced American car?

A: The 1925 Ford Model T Runabout. Cost $260, $5 less than 1924.

Q:What is the fastest internal-combustion American production car?

A: The 1998 Dodge Viper GETS-R, tested by Motor Trend magazine at 192.6 mph.

 Q: What automaker's first logo incorporated the Star of David?

A: The Dodge Brothers.

Q:Who wrote to Henry Ford, "I have drove fords exclusively when I could get away with one. It has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasn't been strictly legal it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V-8"?

A: Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde) in 1934.

Q:What car was the first production V12, as well as the first production car with aluminum pistons?

A: The 1915 Packard Twin-Six. Used during WWI in Italy, these motors inspired Enzi Ferrari to adopt the V12 himself in 1948.

Q: What was the first car to use power operated seats?

A: They were first used on the 1947 Packard line.

Q: Which of the Chrysler "letter cars" sold the fewest amount?

A: Only 400, 1963, 300J's were sold (they skipped" "I" because it

looked like a number 1)

Q: What car company was originally known as Swallow

Sidecars (aka SS)?

A: Jaguar, which was an SS model first in 1935, and ultimately

the whole company by 1945.

Q: What car delivered the first production V12 engine?

A: The cylinder wars were kicked off in 1915 after Packard's chief

engineer, Col. Jesse Vincent, introduced its Twin-Sis.

Q: When were seat belts first fitted to a motor vehicle?

A: In 1902, in a Baker Electric streamliner racer which crashed at 100 mph. on Staten Island!

 Q: In January 1930, Cadillac debuted it's V16 in a car named

for a theatrical version of a 1920's film seen by Harley Earl

while designing the body, What's that name?

A: The "Madam X", a custom coach designed by Earl

and built by Fleetwood. The sedan featured a

retractable landau top above the rear seat.

 Q: Which car company started out German, yet became

French after WWI?

A: Bugati, founded in Molsheim in 1909, became French

when Alsace returned to French rule.

Q: In what model year did Cadillac introduce the first

electric sunroof?

A: 1969

Q:What U.S. production car had the largest 4 cylinder engine?

A: The 1907 Thomas sported a 571 cu. in. (9.2liter) engine.

 Q: What car was reportedly designed on the back of a Northwest Airlines airsickness bag and released on April Fool's Day, 1970?

A: 1970 Gremlin, (AMC)

Q: What is the Spirit of Ecstasy?

A: The official name of the mascot of Rolls Royce, she is the lady on top of their radiators.

Q: What was the inspiration for MG's famed octagon-shaped badge?

A: The shape of founder Cecil Kimber's dining table. MG stands for Morris Garages.

Q: In what year did the "double-R" Rolls Royce badge change from red to black?

A: 1933

Cars at the Beach

Steam Cars of the late 1960s and early 1970s

A good bit of this material is taken from American Heritage Invention and Technology article from 1998. Other information  taken from my notes.

In 1968, a renaissance in steam-car technology suddenly began, amid new found concern about the pollution caused by internal-combustion engines.

The U.S. government had recently imposed strict emissions limits on automobiles, and in May 1968 several federal agencies held hearings on alternative power plants. Among the first to speak out in favor of steam were Calvin E. and Charles J. Williams, twins from Ambler, Pennsylvania, who for years had been using profits from their family’s construction business to experiment with steam. They drove their steam-powered convertible, on which they dubiously claimed to have spent $2 million, to Washington and invited Sen. Edwin Muskie, Sen. Warren Magnuson, and others to go for spins. Bureaucrats were impressed by the vehicle’s silence, acceleration, and supposed 30-mpg fuel efficiency (on kerosene). The Williams brothers maintained in committee hearings that steamers burn fuel more slowly and steadily, and thus more completely, than internal combustion engines. Steam power, they said, is also more mechanically efficient.

That same year, Don E. Johnson, the 36-year-old president of Steam Dynamics, in Mesa, Arizona, argued that his 150-pound, 150-horsepower steam engine was much lighter than an equally powerful conventional one. He could make this assertion by ignoring all the ancillary parts of the engine, such as the boiler, burner, and tanks. Johnson had originally developed his engine for helicopters but believed it would work just as well in automobiles.

Ford and General Motors had already gotten into the act, albeit in lukewarm fashion. In March 1968 Ford had announced a joint steam development program with the Thermo Electron Corporation, of Waltham, Massachusetts. GM, meanwhile, worked with another start-up steam company, Energy Systems, Inc., and offered to supply several steam-powered sedans to the California Highway Patrol for in-service testing.

Thermo Electron Corp of Waltham, Mass. designed an engine that would use instead of water a non-aqueous organic fluid to drive it. The fluid did not corrode the metal, worked at much lower temperatures and pressures, and therefore should have cut cost of the engine considerably.

In addition to Ford's $4 million, Thermo-Electron put as much as $2 million in the project, and kept the rights to any technology developed. Ford would have to pay royalties to sue the engine, but in 1970 held 10,000 shares of Thermo Electron, and thus had options on stock that eventually could give it at least a 25% holding.

The organic vapor in Thermo Electron's design drove a piston engine. It is condensed and returned to the boiler in a hermetically sealed closed cycle. As in other steam engines, the fuel heating the boiler is burned continuously with lots of air. This virtually eliminated pollution by unburned hydrocarbons. The low burning temperature also cut down on nitrogen oxides.

Cost, weight, size and slow startup proved problematic problems. The organic vapor posed problems. Thermo Electron used thiophene. William Moore, director of industrial design for Lear Motor Corp., which has put its own steam car on a back burner, said Lear rejected thiophene because of its high volatility and toxicity.

The man who made the most noise about steam, though, was the brash and overconfident William P. Lear of Learjet fame. At a decommissioned military base outside Reno, Nevada, Lear developed several types of steam and steamlike engines. One was what he called an “involute expander,” which used intermeshing helical screws. Another was a 12 cylinder opposed-piston engine based on the British Napier Deltic diesel; the cylinders formed side-by-side triangles. A third was the Lear Vapor Turbine System, which involved a sealed turbine that used not steam but a revolutionary new fluid called Learium. Unfortunately, Learium was never developed.

In the end Lear did build a steam-powered Chevrolet Monte Carlo and a steam-turbine bus. With his usual hyperbole, he announced plans for a steam-powered Indianapolis race car, and he even scraped out an oval track behind his warehouse, supposedly to test it. But because he had so many different projects going—plus horrific problems with his engineering staff—nothing ever came of any of his steam-powered visions.

In October 1973 the Arab oil embargo hit, forcing automakers to turn their attention away from steam to the more immediate challenges of downsizing and making the internal-combustion engine cleaner and more fuel-efficient. They succeeded well enough to put steam out of contention. Despite the progress some engineers believed they were making between 1968 and 1973, steam cars continue to pose seemingly insuperable challenges, principal among them being fuel economy. There’s no promise of future improvement, as there is with electric cars, in which batteries are being made smaller and smaller.

The American Automobile at the beginning of the 1970s I : Ford

Hi folks -- I am starting a new study on the late 1960s and early 1970s. This period was pivotal to the future of the American automobile industry.  That year I graduated from Davidson College, largely in a mental fog concerning the world around me, obsessed with fears of the draft and oblivious to much of what was really important. Just as 1970 would prove decisive to the future of America, it was also decisive in a negative way in terms of my own life. I have spent much energy since then in dealing with the ramifications of the decisions I made back then, just as the American automobile industry continues to do.  Here is how Forbes began 1970 with its analysis of the auto industry:

"Automotive Products," Forbes,  January 1, 1970, p.191.

It was supposed to be the year of the intermediates -- the slightly smaller than standard sized Chevrolet Chevelle, Dodge Coronet, and Ford Fairlane, for example.

These models had been selling well for a couple of years, and the marketing experts decided that it was where they should put their styling emphasis and peppiest promotion. The production men geared up for a heavy output of the intermediate models.

So what happened? The public suddenly lost enthusiasm for intermediates and began buying more high-priced and low priced models. As a result the auto companies spent 1969 scrambling to change over production lines to meet demand.

In sales terms, 1969 was a year of sideways motion until the third quarter, when Chrysler sales edged off. That, combined with heavy retooling costs, caused a 48% earnings decline at Chrysler for the first nine months. By the 4th quarter, the entire industry's sales were running about7% below 1968's 8.8 million car volume, year to year. Although market shares held fairly steady for all but American Motors (victim of a five-week strike), profit margins narrowed considerably. By contrast foreign car importers had sales running about 10% ahead of 1968 toward year end.

The problem, of course is that the auto companies deal with a fickle auto-buying public whose frequent shifts in taste are encouraged by annual model changes and ever-widening product lines.  Back in the days when fewer models were offered in fewer price ranges, the auto companies had better control of their markets, and forecasting was much easier.  But now they are engaged in a billion-dollar game of trying to outguess the public.


The Ford product line reflected the dilemma of markets and complex consumer preferences. The LTD was placed at the top of the Ford line, a long wheelbase (121 inches) vehicle with hidden headlamps and five possible engines, ranging from a 302 cubic inch V-8 to a 460 big block. With hard top sedan, coupe, convertible and station wagon variants, the LTD was just one example of the fruits of flexible mass production, if one sees these large number of consumer choices a direct benefit to the firm. Immediately below the LTD was the Galaxie, also a 121 inch wheelbase car, and also available with numerous options, including a 6 cylinder 240 cubic inch engine. The intermediate model in the Ford line was the Torino, the Motor Trend car of the year for 1970. Influenced by designer Bill Shenk, the Torino had a "Coke bottle" shape with a narrow waist and bulging front and rear fuselages, mimicking a supersonic aircraft of the day. The Torino consisted of 13 models on a 114 inch wheelbase, and engines ranging from a 250 cubic inch 6 to a 429 that was featured in the Cobra Jet model. As Motor Trend commented, the Tornio was "Not really a car line in the old sense, but a system of specialty cars, each for different use…from luxury to performance."

The Ford Falcon, one of the original import fighters of 1960, only lasted though mid-year before it was discontinued.

A Galaxie 500 in stripped down trim.

 The LTD, this one obviously marketed to African-Americans.

 The Muscle Car -- a Torino intermediate -- not dead yet.

A base Mustang

The Maverick comes on board by the end of the year. See my The Automobile and American Life on the Maverick as depicted in Harry Crews' Car.

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