Innehållsförteckning för July 1953 från MotorTrend

A newly designed V-8 power-plant ups the performance of America’s fourth favorite car A SURPRISE PARTY was in store for Buick fans when the company unveiled its Golden Anniversary models this year. A completely revamped power program was introduced (the only real surprise), with the biggest news centering around the new overhead-valve V-8 engines. The tested, tried, and true straight-eight was fast becoming obsolete, in terms of publicity given the new V-8s on the market, and something had to be done. The finishing touches were put on a 90-degree mill Buick engineers had under wraps, and the result was an advanced and fresh example of mass-produced V-8 design. While testing one of Buick’s best-sellers, the Model 52 Super four-door Riviera sedan, we found things that, will please many lifelong Buick…

IF EVERY OTHER ROAD in this county falls apart, gentlemen—and I speak this way simply because of the accidents on Foothill Road—we have got to repair the 10-mile stretch north of Green Point. Not only tourists, but your own neighbors crack up there every week!” The county road commissioners sank into a glum silence. All agreed with what their chairman had said. Likewise, all agreed with the next speaker. “You say we have to fix that stretch, Bob. My own Linda was hurt when the school bus flew off that cursed road. But we can’t fix it. At the most, we can spend $200,000 on Lake County’s roads this year. That won’t buy a new highway for more than half of that stretch. And then think of the wrecks we’d…

THE NAME’S the same, but the Manta Ray custom replaces sting with style. The dictionary describes the ray as having a flattened body with one or more dorsal spines. According to that description, the Manta Ray Custom was well named by its builders, Glen Hire and Vernon Antoine, both of Whittier, Calif. The Fiberglas-reinforced plastic body, built on a modified Studebaker chassis, is powered by a stock ’51 Stude V-8 engine. Although the rear springs have been slightly altered, the chassis is otherwise stock Studebaker. The 1800-pound custom, which in some ways resembles GM’s experimental cars, stands 40 inches high and has a 112-inch wheelbase. Its body is molded in 14 sections. Stewart-Warner instruments and a Plymouth speedometer, grouped around a cone-shaped steering wheel housing, are mounted on the dashboard…

IT MUST BE HARD for Elmer G. Ulrich, a dignified Santa Monica, I Calif., business man, to keep from donning his blazer and crying “It’s the cat’s pajamas!” every time he climbs into the compact cockpit of his Mercer Raceabout. But he’s content just to enjoy the envious gazes of young and old as he drives around Southern California. Once a showpiece of the D. Cameron Peck collection, the Series V roadster gives a good picture of what was “the greatest” at the start of the Roaring Twenties. The cream-colored Mercer with the sporty red leather bucket-type seats could have been yours for $4675, F.O.B. Trenton, N. J., in 1920. Although it has only a 115-inch wheelbase and perches high on over-sized 32 by 4.5 tires, the car seems long…

STEP 7. (a) Be sure to grind your own valves, and do it just as the manufacturer says. If he says the engine must be hot or must be cold, don’t ignore it! Valve guides should be carefully reamed and valve springs checked for tension and size. All parts must be thoroughly cleaned prior to assembly, so that bits of carbon do not remain in the valve guides or on the valve seats. Be sure that you remove all traces of the grinding compound. Defective camshafts should be replaced or reground by competent agencies, but minor defects in lobes may be hand lapped. Factory specifications must be noted and timing marks observed during reinstallation. One of the most important jobs in the overhaul of an engine is the one most…

THOSE CAR RATINGS Gentlemen: I have been a subscriber to your magazine for three years and am not much taken with writing to the editor about every item with which I might or might not agree. Some of the criticism you received on your ratings of the 1952 cars was of the most destructive and unwarranted type. I say this not because I agree with the ratings (I am in 100 per cent agreement with your first choice, the second I violently oppose, and so on down the list), but because I recognize your ratings to be a sincere, unbiased attempt to rate all cars on a common ground. Because the choice of so complex an article as an automobile is based on personal test, special requirements, and, unfortunately, financial…

MAC BRAINARD, often called the “Wizard of Oz,” pours his heart and soul into various elaborate burglar alarm systems, lingering lovingly over each tiny detail of a booby trap. Perhaps the most fiendishly contrived device that Brainard ever invented is his “Multiple Whammy Special”—an elec-tronic watchdog designed to guard a car against theft. If anyone but the owner manages to start a car equipped with a Multiple Whammy Special, a hidden relay clicks softly, allowing the car to be driven smoothly, but only for a distance arranged in advance. The mechanism is set so the car will travel just far enough to place itself in a conspicuous position. Then everything happens at once. The brakes lock, the ignition shorts out, the horn starts blowing and the lights begin to blink…

(NOTE: “Dude” James is something of a surprise to us, too. We are told that he recently retired from the automobile business, can generally be found somewhere near Hollywood and Vine, and that he seems to shoot a straight pitch on the subject of cars. In his own words: “I worked as a ‘talker’ in carny for enough years to learn that Barnum was right. But he wouldn’t have had to work so hard to prove his point if he’d transferred over to the car business like I did….” Who is “Dude”? We don’t know. He disappeared after dropping this in our laps. —Editor) NOW LOOK. FRIEND, are you sure you want a convertible? We all know they’re classy cars: every one a super-deluxe model. Even if you don’t like…

ONE OF OUR cover cars this month, the Maki Custom Henry J, was built with a purpose—to win prizes. Bruno and Reino Maki, owners of Custom Auto Body and Sales in Fitchburg, Mass., completed the car for a Boston auto show, and after much dropping, chopping, adding, padding, and 500 man-hours, they came up with a pure thoroughbred. Their far-from-stock Henry J brought home first, second, and third place wins from three major Eastern auto shows. The chassis was beefed up with reinforced rails and the body dropped three inches with lowering blocks and reworked springs. Columbia shocks were added to improve suspension. The hood was lowered, doors angled, and window slots leaded in. A ’49 Ford contributed to the rear deck, and Ford bumpers and bumper guards were added.…

EVER SINCE THE DAY the Lincoln Continental was put into retirement, rumors have been coming from the Motor City concerning the return of this fascinating, semi-custom automobile. For five years, “Continentalists” have waited expectantly for the announcement that it was coming back. Tired of waiting, and tiring of bulbous, boat-like cars with bogus Continental features, Newton S. Leichter, an industrial designer of Hollywood, Calif, (and a Continental owner), has produced an idea that may make Detroit sit up and take notice. The car shown in his drawings may displease some purists, for rather than being a late-model car with a Continental appearance, it is a car of 1940-48 vintage, brought up to date with 1953 flavor. Although it could be done by backyard builders (at a cost of about $430…

CAR MANUFACTURERS in the United States produce “dream cars” and fanciful “sports cars” to keep a jump ahead of the imaginative car buyer. European stylists, while retaining Continental flavor in their cars, must pace American standards if they want to find a market here. In Mexico, this mad scramble to produce the apple of the car buyer’s eye is lost, for prohibitive prices eliminate the demand for constant style and construction changes. Imagination, however, has thrived there, mostly as a result of the cars seen at the Pan American Road Races. The Mexican people have seen what stock cars can do, and they have seen the beauty in foreign sports cars. Jorge Amigo, a Mexico City manufacturer, like many of his countrymen, has an intense interest in automobiles, and like…

Precision Machinist Finds Simple Answer to Problem that Baffled Experts for 42 Years! Odds are 100 to 1 against accurate wheel bearing adjustment in your car—regardless of how much it cost, or how new it is. A fundamental weakness in the design of conventional front wheel bearing nuts makes it nearly impossible to adjust wheel bearings accurately, or readjust them accurately as wear occurs. This play in front wheel bearings causes re-alignment and adjustment problems. Your tires, brakes and bearings wear out faster than they should; steering is harder and less accurate—all because of excessive front wheel wobble. Detroit engineers, with millions of dollars of equipment at their disposal, have never found the answer to this “unsolvable” problem of automotive design. Then a precision machinist named Polizzi—whose only connection with…

HARRY CUSHING - DETROIT EDITOR - REPORTS DETROIT, MICHIGAN—The battle of the gas turbine engine is well under way in the Motor City! It is an extremely secretive skirmish at the present time, but at least two major companies are understood to be developing experimental units for early announcement. Both General Motors and Ford are reputed to have such engines well beyond the blueprint stage. There is reason to believe each company will make public its version next year, and these GT units are expected to be installed in special one-of-a-kind Fi-berglas sports cars. In the new Ford Motor Company Research Laboratory, previewed by the press this spring as a highlight of the firm’s 50th anniversary celebration, there is a department carrying the legend on its door—“Gas Turbine Section.” Several…

An MT Research Road Test Report WOULD YOU DARE to drive the Willys cross-country? You certainly wouldn’t get a ride as comfortable as our car would give. You’d be worn out by the time you got to Los Angeles.” As you might suspect (if you’re a steady reader of MOTOR TREND) these comments were tossed at us after we came out with our annual Engineering Achievement Award (Feb. ’53 MT), in which Willys was second in overall standings. Although we said nothing about ride at that time, we had previously said (May ’52 MT) that the then-new Aero Willys “…rides like any good American car—softly, gently, never bottoming its springs. The passengers are cradled gently between the axles and enjoy top comfort as a result.” And we were prepared to…

IT’S DIFFERENT. Pages of flowery adjectives (including words like unique, stimulating, terrific, and unusual) have been used to describe the Pegaso, Spain’s answer to the Ferrari and the Mercedes-Benz; but different, a word covering nearly everyone’s taste, applies to the Pegaso in nearly every respect. This Spanish threat to sports car supremacy features a body design that would normally be found only on a manufacturer’s prototype, or on some designer’s own dream car. The only American counterpart to the Pegaso’s supercharged, quadruple-overhead camshaft V-8 would be found on cars running at Indianapolis. This 280-bhp showboat’s inflated fender line is matched only by the car’s price tag. The Pegaso can be brought across the waters and parked in your garage for $29,500, or the next nearest row of round numbers. If…

ENGLAND: STIRLING MOSS, the English racing driver, set new Belgian records for the flying mile on the Gand-Ostende highway in the new Sunbeam Alpine sports car now appearing in the U.S. He came through for a speed of 118.86 mph, and Sheila van Damm, who competed in the Monte Carlo Rally with a Sunbeam-Talbot, finished the mile in the Alpine at 119.87 mph. The two-seater sports roadster is a further development of the Sunbeam-Talbot 90. The powerplant is based on the 138 cubic inch Sunbeam ohv four-cylinder, which was stepped up from 6.45:1 to 7.42:1 and which, through a change in the timing and camshaft, now delivers 81 blip at 4200 rpm (as against the former 71 bhp at 4000). Special shock absorbers and a stronger frame are used. The…

PRODUCTION AUTOMOBILE styling came of age when Henry Ford relinquished his hold on the “any color, so long as it’s black” policy. This move, the first opportunity for the masses to achieve distinction and exercise taste, started the ball rolling toward individuality, an element of design that has become an important element in all phases of automobile styling. Americans have admired old-country crafts and skills ever since Plymouth Rock, so it is not unnatural that many of our trends have utilized concepts bred within the cultured Continent. Our zeal for exhibition and novelty keeps us from the ultimate in refinement. However, regardless of what is considered stylishness, everyone can picture what has been done and what may be done to automotive design. To understand styling, some basic system of analysis…