A dive bomber that had ditched in Lake Michigan on a training run in 1944 was brought to land Friday for restoration in Florida for the National World War II Museum in New Orleans. The Douglas SBD Dauntless lifted from the water Friday to a pier in Waukegan, Ill., is among 130 to 300 or more planes estimated to have sunk in the lake during training late in World War II.
The Dauntless is the 35th airplane plucked from the waters since the National Naval Aviation Museum began a recovery and restoration program in 1990, Ellis said.
Even the wooden antenna mast was intact, and the rest of the plane was in good shape despite decades in the water, Lyssenko said.
"Finding World War II aircraft that actually have a combat record is a rarity," Ellis said. "We have a number here. The one that we loaned the World War II Museum has a combat record, so we wanted it back. We said, `We'll loan this one to you and we'll recover and restore another one which we'll then swap out when the restoration is finished.'"
An anonymous donor paid for the work.
"It costs about a quarter-million dollars to pull one off the bottom," Ellis said.
He said the Naval Aviation Museum has 102 aircraft displayed indoors, about 60 outdoors _ generally awaiting or in restoration _ and more than 800 lent to about 600 museums, schools and other institutions nationwide.
He said many planes training in that era had flown from a pair of old paddlewheel steamers decked out as practice aircraft carriers.
Ellis said more than 17,000 pilots trained from the paddlewheelers out of the Naval Air Station in Glenview, Ill. Each needed to make about eight takeoffs and landings on the USS Wolverine or USS Sable to qualify for carrier duty.
http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/182/2009/april/24/wwii-era-dive-bomber-lifted-from-lake-michigan.html
Sunday, May 31, 2009
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Ms Hurst Golden Shifter... Linda Vaughn and the Chrysler 300 H parade car with the really big shifter
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For more about the 300H http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/04/300-h-was-for-sale-at-spring-fling-and.html
For all about Linda: http://www.legendsofnascar.com/Linda_Vaughn.htm
Via: http://farbror-sid.blogspot.com/ , http://hotwheels.tumblr.com/ , http://larsson-larssons.blogspot.com/ , and http://svammelsurium.blogg.se/
A variety of unusual vehicles, enjoy!
Jean Bugatti designed this, called the Armand Esders Royale
I recall seeing one before, I think it's French. Can't remember what manufacturer or era ... Danny says it's probably the 203 Puegot
Fiat Multipa
Fiat Multipa Marina 
The "Cityrama" from the 1960 movie; "Zazie dans le métro" .. the Citreon U55 Currus
Skip right to the 3 minute 49 second mark to see it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00d_XAvG190
More photos of Burt Munro's record setting and record holding "World's Fastest Indian"
Of course this is the replica they made for the movie, the original is in a hardware store in New Zealand, in Burt's hometown of Invercargill: http://zelastchancegaragedu78.blogspot.com/2009/01/burts-hardware.html
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=309314
For magazine coverage of Burt from 1962 and 63 see: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/burt-munro-coverage-in-car-craft-1963.html
http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=309314
For magazine coverage of Burt from 1962 and 63 see: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/06/burt-munro-coverage-in-car-craft-1963.html
Steve and some of his cars
He collected so many speeding tickets in it that he had his drivers license suspended twice.On one occasion, when with his 6 months pregnant wife Neile in the passenger seat, he was pulled over for speeding, he came up with the false excuse that she was in labour. The police dutifully raced them to the hospital, where a nurse rushed out to help Neile.
After the police had departed Steve informed the nurse that it was a 'False Alarm', and led Neile back to the Jag. Writer William Nolan quotes Steve on the incident: Neile was pissed. She didn't speak to me for the rest of the day. But, by God, it worked. I didn't get the ticket!
Information source (but not the photos) http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=397594&page=156
The above and below shots can be found in several places, the Getty collection, and the LIFE archives, LIFE had bigger photos
That's Carroll and Steve at the Cobra shop, notice that the Ford van has the letters Cobra on the back door
Above, this is the same Cobra as the second photo
for a recent shot of the XK SS :http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2006/11/steve-mcqueen.htmlVia: http://farbror-sid.blogspot.com/ and http://hotwheels.tumblr.com/ and http://zelastchancegaragedu78.blogspot.com/ and http://42ndblackwatch1881.wordpress.com/
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