A look at the beauty and art of the last Hupmobile, 1939 Hupmobile Skylark Corsair

In 1938, Huppmobile’s general manager Norman DeVaux bought what remained of the Cord 810/812’s body dies and sheet-metal stampings and repackaged it as the Hupmobile Skylark using a Hupmobile Senior Six chassis. Four prototypes were built to show off at the upcoming fall automobile shows. In early 1939, the old Cord dies were brought to Hayes’ Grand Rapids plant where they stamped out a trial run of thirty Skylark sedans, at Hupmobile’s Detroit factory as was a single Skylark Corsair Convertible.

Due to their precarious financial situation, Hupmobile was unable to build any more Skylarks, however DeVaux made a deal with Graham-Paige offering them the dies. Once again, the sheet-metal was produced at Hayes’ Grand Rapids plant using the original Cord stampings which by the end of the run were no longer usable. Unfortunately, neither firm made any money out of their short-term partnership and were both out of the automobile business within the year.

After Hupmobile left the automotive manufacturing business, the car was given to one of the models that appeared with the Skylarks in publicity photographs during the 1939-1940 period. This woman and her family relocated to New Hampshire, where the car had fallen into a bit of disrepair, and was found by a collector from the Boston area who purhased and stored the car, for years, sold it to a Connecticut Skylark/Hollywood fancier named Norm Weid, who kept the car in dry storage for about 20 years, intending to restore it. (this never happens in my experience) However, health issues (and no interest in restoring the car obviously ) had him sell the car in 1999 to Tom Hincz, who gave it a complete restoration.

http://www.hupmobileskylark.com/ConvertibleFullSize.html and http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/h/hayes/hayes.htm

A look at the beauty and art of Pebble Beach Concours winner, 1938 Hispano-Suiza H6C Dubonnet Xenia Coupe with Saoutchik body

1938 Hispano-Suiza H6C Saoutchik Xenia Coupe

Winner of the Most Elegant Closed Car award at the 2000 Pebble Beach Concours, this is a streamlined design of a car company known also for its aircraft manufacturing, and due to it's conceptualization from a ww1 fighter pilot, (they may have gotten the nod becuase of the aircraft connection) Andre Dubonnet, heir to the Dubonnet aperitif business and race car driver. All windows are curved glass, the panoramic windshield, gullwing windows, and suicide doors.

Engine design was shared between the aircraft and cars... one crankshaft was carved from a 700 lb billet steel block. Consider that the types of engines in the 30's were huge displacement and fewer cylinders, like a 487 cu in straight 6 cyl... and that Hispano Suiza had aluminum cylinder block and overhead camshafts at a time when Rolls-Royce's venerable Silver Ghost was still using side valves, and an iron block cast in several pieces.

It was also ahead of Rolls-Royce in the braking department. While the Rolls had brakes on the rear wheels only, the Hispano had four-wheel brakes, servo assisted by a shaft driven off the rear of the transmission. Rolls-Royce later adopted this system under licence from Hispano and used it for many years.
http://www.thoroughbred-cars.com/cars/france/hispano%20suiza/Hispano%20Suiza%20H6C.htm

A look at the beauty and art of LeMans competitors, 1937 Adler Rennlimousine Competition Coupe

1937 Adler Rennlimousine Competition Coupe
Winning its class at LeMans in 1938, and 7th overall, this 1937 front wheel drive German car is from the Adler company that made cars from 1900 to 1957. They later became part of Auto Union.

In 1996 it was an award winner at the Pebble Beach Concours D'Elegance. Temporarily owned by the Blackhawk Collection and shown at the 2001 Meadow Brook Hall Concours d'Elegance http://www.mbhconcours.org/ , it has now found a home in Jay Leno's Big Dog Garage. http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/your_garage/cars/7363.shtml

Jim, who discovered the car in Southfield, Michigan wrote this on the H.A.M.B.

"I've got one for all of you guys that might qualify as the rarest. It's a 1937 Adler Streamliner that raced at Lemans in 1937 and 1938.

It was also used to "inspire" the 1963 split window Corvette. When I first saw it in a shed in Southfield Michigan I thought it WAS a 63 Vette. GM stole the design for the 63 vette.

The owner went to the 60 or 61 Michigan state fair in this car and a exec for GM was there and gave him his card and asked him to bring it to the GM Vandyke design center. He thought they were going to buy it so he had someone follow him over there. When he got there they had him pull it on the cobblestoned turntable. There were three camera's on tri-pods around it and they spun the car around a few times and told him thank you for coming by. He was PISSED that they led him on and did not buy it.

It sounded pluasible since the design was SOOO close. A few years later I had met David Holls at a car show and asked him about the 63 Vette story. He invited me to his home, when I went there he had an extensive library and a binder on the Adler (and several on the Vettes) which included some of the pictures from the cobblstone turntable that Rubin had told me about!

I asked about Rubins claim that the 63 vette was taken from this car and he said that my answer was in the clay model prototype pics. He said to check the dates on all of the "older" style clay model pics, then look at the clay model pics of the clay Vettes the next few weeks AFTER the day the Adler was on the turntable. After comparing it became obvious that the designs changed radically right after Rubin's visit with the Adler. So I asked David directly WAS the split window Vette design taken from this car. He looked at me with a smile and shook his head yes, but at the same time said "absolutely not"!!

The car did also turn out to be a Lemans Race car just as Rubin had said it was. It raced in 1937 and 1938 and won it's class and came in 7th overall in 1938. Adler was the only Jewish owned car manufacturer in pre-war Germany and were some of the first cars to go down the autobahn in a big ceremony with Hitler present, so who knows. .. First closed car, and first streamliner, and first wind tunnel designed car to race at Lemans (designed by the same man who designed the Chrysler Airflow) and the first woman to drive at Lemans.

the Blackhawk Collection had it restored at the prison resto shop in Arizona.They tell me that the car is now in a private collection in Europe. I still have a letter from Baron Fristz Hueske Von Hanstein who raced it with Madamme Annie Iteire in 1937. He tells me about them being blackflagged for improper fueling and him then having to "console" Annie in her tent for hours and hours."
_______West Peterson, EditorAntique Automobile (AACA) http://forums.aaca.org/f169/1937-adler-rennlimousine-competition-272656.html

Variety of cool car photos from different sources I wasn't good at noting

1922 Oldsmobile display window... via Shorpy
Think about starting and stopping in this tube!

the Darth Vader Citreon by Nick Bötticher

I think this was from http://oleragtop.blogspot.com/ and is an Arkansas city in the Ozarks, with a Flippin Mayor, a Flippin City Council, and here is their Flippin website http://www.flippinweb.com/city.htm

A look at the beauty and art of the best designed autos, 1935 Delahaye

1936 Delahaye 135 Competition Court Figoni et Falaschi Coupe

Besides the aerodynamic shape, the distinct features such as all-enclosed fenders, the accent dash that runs from the grille, over the hood and hugs the rear fender, four fully hidden front lights. To break up the side skirts, a belt line runs along the fenders that makes the car look bulbous but doesn't subtract from the overall elegance.

Unique features of the interior include a plush ostrich skin uphostery, a sliding metal sunroof and a front windshield that can wind open for ventilation. I particularly love the door handle design, and the repetitive curve design that is the overall shape, the fender leading edges, the chrome accents on the fender skirts, the chrome accents on the side grills down the sides of the hood.

Inspired by http://info.detnews.com/joyrides/story/index.cfm?id=261 images and info from http://www.supercars.net/cars/1939.html

Assorted amusing or interesting vehicle photos, from Dark Roasted Blend

car body fitted onto a big truck, inspired by the big troop transporters of WW2?

read the back and white sign!

Interesting adaptation of a tractor to make a paving roller.

Jet fighter fuel drop tank, not a bomb casing, wrapped around a motorbike
Most effective steering wheel lock!
This isn't a real GPS... c'mon, spring for the Garmin!

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/04/never-give-up-crazy-logistics-issue-8.html

http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2008/08/never-give-up-funny-pics-part-9.html

The Supercars photo of the day, this is what my Superbee looked like.... often

http://www.supercars.net/PD?displayPotd=y

Too many great cars for sale, rich people are fortunate to have such an enormous selection

I'm referring to the many car collectors with their entire inventory for sale, as they play with them while waiting for them to sell. I don't for a moment believe anyone with great antique cars in perfect condition isn't using them, renting them, or leasing them between purchasing and reselling for profit. I would too! Wouldn't you?!

Here's 58 cool cars, Rolls, Porsche, Stutz, Maybach, Isotta, Duesenburg, Bently, Bugatti, and more... mostly impossible for us regular people to consider ever buying.

http://blackhawkcollection.com/index.cfm?action=inventory&tab=inventory

My favorites from Tere's photos at his weekend car show

Automobile magazine Sept '08 issue, excerpt from page 101

referring to the F1 McLarens that are demolished, wrecked, and so on.... "untold numbers have been destroyed at the hands of overexhuberant owners or their spoiled-rotten children, ungrateful oddspring who should be damned to spend all eternity sitting in traffic at the 101/405 interchange in Los Angeles, wedged into the third-row seat of a clapped-out Plymouth Grand Voyager between Bill O'Reilly and a wet dog. With a full bladder. The F1 was that good." http://www.automobilemag.com/index.html

Rolls Royce trivia

Not all RR were built in England, the company had a facility in Springfield Massachusetts. In 1919, after the First World War, Rolls-Royce recognised that the USA was the most important car market in the world. Americans bought more cars each year than the rest of the world combined.

From Automobile magazine and http://www.darkforce.com/royce/springfield.htm this website claims to be the unofficial and most comprehensive RR and Bentley website

Tere's photos of the Embarcadero show

For more of Tere's photography and her blog see: http://justacargal.blogspot.com/