Innehållsförteckning för June 1951 från MotorTrend

NOTE: As far as press time is concerned, the Palm Springs Road Race could not have happened on a more inopportune date. We were able to condense this much information into this issue before ive went to press. Because of the many technically interesting cars that competed in this event we will devote, additional space in the next issue to photos and descriptions of these cars.—Editor. A SPECTACULAR Ferrari victory climaxed the second annual running of the Palm Springs Road Race, conducted by the California Sports Car Club on April 1. Proving the vaunted superiority of the Ferrari to be no mere dream, Marshall Lewis roared through the field to take the lead, holding on to it until the finish. The sleek red car owned by Jim Kimberly of Chicago…

CUSTOMS come and customs go, but for some reason Fords seem to be the most popular car for restyling. Custom fans are even becoming somewhat blase about restyled or customized Fords. So when you can get these fans to turn their heads to look at a Ford custom, then you have something. The someone who has this something is Don Britton. Hollywood. California. His car, seen in the accompanying photographs, is so different that he has actually had people ask him if the car is a new stock model. What makes it different is the fact that a four-in. piece has been taken out of the body, reducing the body depth and lowering it by that much. To accomplish this work. Chuck Calvin, of Encino, first carefully measured the amount…

NORMA TALMADGE bought a new Buick in 1936. The Hollywood dealer gave her $500 for the two Rolls-Royces she had owned and driven for 10 years. It is not recorded that tears of nostalgia shone on the cheeks of the lovely Norma when she parted with her roadster and town car, but it must have been impossible to snap such a strong link to the past days of glory without a whimper. The roadster had been with her on two trips through Europe; the town car had carried her in silent splendor to lavish parties and exciting premieres in the shimmering fairyland that once was Hollywood. In 1926 they had been a $40,000 index to her eminence but by 1936 they had become embarrassing symbols of Norma’s decline from favor.…

IN 1796 ALLESANDRO VOLTA, Italian physicist, invented the first storage battery. A refined version of Volta’s battery in the passenger car can roughly be termed the heart of the engine. Rare is the motorist who at sometime or other hasn’t been plagued by a dead or dying battery. Slow poisoning or starving are the usual diagnoses for the sickness or death. Yet for a dollar bill and 10 minutes a week attention, battery ailments can be avoided. The price of a new battery will range from $10 to $30 or more dependent upon the type and original quality, but aside from this relatively small financial outlay a weak or dead battery invariably seems to occur when you have an important engagement. So if you add the cost of a tow,…

PLANS MADE FOR 1952 MODELS… NEW PRODUCTION MARKS SET… INDUSTRY OPPOSES NEW TAXES… DETROIT, MICHIGAN—Millions of dollars worth of war contracts flowing into Detroit … millions of cars flowing out as new production marks are set…. These facts dominate Detroit’s business life today and contradict the dire predictions which have emanated from the auto capital since the first of the year. Now, barring an all-out national mobilization effort, it looks as though the industry will be able to meet its essential military and civilian production obligations with a minimum of dislocation…. The continued high level of vehicle output has virtually erased the once serious unemployment threat here. Workers still have plenty to do to keep up with demands for cars and trucks in the immediate future. Conversion to defense work,…

FLASH! LINCOLN wins 1951 Mobilgas Economy Run with ton-mpg figure of 66.484 and mpg figure of 25.448. Thirty-two stock cars average 23.9 mpg at speed of 40.6 mph on grueling 840-mile trek from Los Angeles through Death Valley and Las Vegas to south rim of Grand Canyon. What happens? How does Mr. Average Motorist accept this information? Let me take you to an imaginary discussion between Mr. Joe Doakes and myself. Joe is an average citizen—he drives one of the 32 makes that competed in the AAA-supervised General Petroleum-sponsored Mobilgas Economy Run. In a year he puts 10,000 miles on his car, mostly hard driving: fast starts and quick stops, with a long trip thrown in once in a while. Why should Joe ask these questions of me? He might…

AAA ZONE SUPERVISOR THIS YEAR’S ’500’ will be the fastest, the most exciting race in the history of America’s greatest speedway.” That’s the conviction of the men who build the cars—the men who are most in the know. Agreement is general that lowest qualifying speeds this year will be around 133 mph and that many cars will push 140. There are many good reasons for this quickening of pace, the greatest single factor being the new Firestone racing tire, which adds two to five mph to the top speed of the cars that can use them. Many cars have tried to use these new hoops and failed. The tires’ terrific traction on the driving wheels causes the front wheels (on rear-drive cars) to pull toward the infield, the only cure…

“HOW DOES MY CAR COMPARE WITH ALL THE REST?” “What’s the ’best car in the world’—or the best deal in the world?” “Are European cars really ’better’ than American cars?” As a reader of MOTOR TREND, you’ve probably asked yourself these questions many times. Here are the answers to a million such questions—look the data over and draw your own conclusions, be your own critic. As for the terms, let’s break them down. CYLINDERS: The more an engine has, the smoother it should run. COMPRESSION RATIO: The higher this figure is, the more energy is extracted from the fuel. DISPLACEMENT, CUBIC INS.: Mere size is not a measure of power; above all, not of efficiency. BHP AT RPM: This is the peak horsepower of a stripped engine (no fan, generator,…

NOTE: In the April issue of MOTOR TREND, we featured drawings of how a ’50 Oldsmobile would look if it were “Mercurized.” The idea was for TOO to submit ideas on how you think a certain car could be customized. These are some of the responses. We’d like to have more. This is TOOR page.— Editor…

I JOURNEYED home as a passenger in the rear seat with Colonel Harker. An almost inaudible whine, fainter than a mosquito, rose to my ears from the back axle. Only harsh critics would have heard it. “’Presumably that’s another detail for attention,’ I remarked as I lit my pipe. “’Yes,’ replied the colonel. ’It will not occur in the finished products.’“ That faint whine was emanating from the rear axle of a Rolls-Royce Phantom III pilot model. The harsh critic with the sensitive hearing was the Earl of Cottenham, gentleman motorist and journalist, and these deathless lines were lifted bodily from The Well-Behaved Great Grandson of a Ghost, published under the imprint of Rolls-Royce Limited. The Colonel’s prediction proved correct, as Dr. C. S. Shoup, owner of the Car of…

WHETHER THE EVENT IS A HILL CLIMB, speedway or road race, the combination of gear ratio and tire size is always an essential performance factor. To spare you the bother of becoming a slide rule artist, Ed Iskenderian (the camshaft man), has produced a circular or dial type computer that makes possible the almost instant conversion of rpm and mph to gear ratio and tire size, and vice versa. Thrown in for good measure are tables of gear ratios of the various Ford and Chevrolet transmissions. The Ratio Computer can be had for 50 cents from Iskenderian Racing Cams, 5000 West Jefferson Street, Los Angeles 16. A NEW CRANKCASE, GAS TANK, AND TOP OILER ADDITIVE has just been placed on the market and is said by its manufacturer to perform…

THREE YEARS ago L. J. Viersen. Jr., of Sun Valley, California had a desirable dream—that of building a custom car unlike any other ever built. With the help of his son, Leroy, perfectionist Viersen pitched into the job. Before he was completely satisfied with his product, 30 months had flown by and he had rebuilt the car six times. Attesting to the fact that Viersen poured sweat and toil into the fire-red Skylane Motors Special was the recent selection by Hollywood columnists of the car as “Convertible of the Year.” The seamless body, consisting of ’48 Buick front fenders, ’48 Lincoln Continental rear fenders, a ’49 Cadillac grille, and the necessary paneling to flow all these parts together into the desired contour are mounted on a ’32 Ford frame. The…

IF YOU’RE the kind of person who likes his cars fast, when you get behind the wheel of an “economy car” you resign yourself to a boring ride. The Studebaker line of cars has always been known as an economy line, but—if you haven’t taken a ride in the new Studebaker Commander V-8. you’re in for a big surprise. If we—Associate Editor Griffith Borgeson and I, of MOTOR TREND Research—hadn’t heard of some of the capabilities and prowess of the Studebaker V-8 prior to the three-day Motor Trial, we probably would have planned for an “economy ride,” too. As it was, we were mentally prepared for some outstanding performance from the car. And we weren’t disappointed! The Studebaker Commander four-door sedan delivered to us by the Los Angeles factory was…

WE STUCK out our necks a long way in the May, 1950 issue of MOTOR TREND, predicting that the gas turbine was nearing its coming of age in the automotive field. It was a daring position to take—our claims, after all, were direct contradictions of statements which had been made repeatedly by many of Detroit’s most awesome oracles. What has happened in the past year, plus, to lend weight to our optimism? As that May issue of MOTOR TREND went to press, word flashed from England announcing that the world’s first gas turbine-propelled automobile—the now-famous Rover—had been tested successfully by the Royal Automobile Club. America’s own Boeing Airplane Company followed this revelation with the news that it had been operating the world’s first GT-powered truck on Washington highways for better…

ONE - HUNDRED - FORTY - EIGHT HORSEPOWER from an MG TO! That’s what the Clayton dynamometer shows that John Edgar, west of the Mississippi IT supercharger distributor, is extracting from his own supercharged job. For the benefit of other MG owners, here’s the Edgar treatment. The standard Italmeccanica blower for MGs is mounted at the rear of the engine, adjacent to the firewall. It carries a single, side-draft Solex carburetor and a Thompson Products Vitameter by means of which water and a detergent are blended with the fuel mixture. Detergent serves the purpose of causing water to flow, rather than to form globules. Power is taken from the front of the crankshaft via single, steel cable belt to the blower driveshaft which incorporates two universal joints which compensate for…

GEORGE M. HART, Assistant Treasurer of George School, Pennsylvania, is a dedicated man. When it comes to automobile engine design, Hart holds an unwavering loyalty to the double sleeve-valve and let the poppets warp and tap as they will for the rest of the motoring public. As proof of this enthusiasm are the three Willys-Knights pictured here, only a part of Hart’s collection of “Silent Knights” of two or more decades ago. Throughout automotive history sleevevalve designs have held interest. In the United States poppet-valve designs are universally used today and numerous present-day motor enthusiasts are not even familiar with either of the two principal sleeve-valve types: Burt-McCullum’s single sleeve or Charles Y. Knight’s double sleeve. It is doubtful that engines of sleevevalve design will ever be used again in…