Hooray-hooray

My two Motorbooks calendars arrived yesterday (Saturday, December 15, 2007), that replace my two Oxman car calendars, which to my humble mind aren’t worth hanging.
Thankfully I never paid for those Oxman calendars (which are going in the recycling); or more precisely, they never charged me for them.
The Oxman site still displayed the 2007 calendars (no doubt our ISP), so I ended up phoning my order.
The two Oxman calendars came, but they never charged me for them.
The sportscar calendar is especially dreadful — only two cars are worth looking at: a Ford GT40 and a rather questionable 1951 Ferrari that looks like one of my wife’s loaves of whole-wheat raisin-bread, although red.
The rest are all prewar, including a gauche Hitler Mercedes — except for a gull-wing Mercedes.
The Duesenberg Model J? Admittedly one of the greatest cars of all time (“it’s a Doozey” comes from it), but I’ll take the XK-E Jag.
My Oxman hot-rod calendar is also dreadful; all dreamcars by Chuck Foose.
Excuse me, they look like trailer-queens. How does one get such a thing in the driveway without scraping the radiator-shell?
And everything looks like a ‘34 Ford. Foose is obviously drawn to the siren-song of the ‘34 Ford; to him apparently the ultimate in hot-rod expression.
Excuse me again; I’ll take the ‘32 — so my Motorbooks hot-rod calendar is all 1932 Fords.
2008 follows the 75th anniversary of the ‘32 Ford; although many of the cars in the calendar are Bonneville lakesters.
Some are sedans and Phaetons; not the delicious coupes and roadsters.
A friend at Houghton had one: a gray five-window coupe.
But it was stock, and had the four-cylinder engine. (We rode in the trunk once to Letchworth — crippled, fuel-evaporation in the fuelline.)
My Motorbooks sportscar calendar is all Corvettes, although it lacks the most collectible Corvette of all time: the 1957 fuel-injection.
One of my unforgettable epiphanies involves Corvettes.
I was peddling my ancient Rollfast bicycle through Fairfax Shopping Center, and three Corvettes were parked in front of the bowling-alley: a black ‘57 Fuelly, a ‘57 two-pot, and a ‘56 two-pot. (All were four-on-the-floor.)
Suddenly four young dudes burst from the bowling-alley and strode toward the Corvettes.
I immediately peddled my Rollfast up to the traffic-light where the Fairfax Shopping Center parking-lot empties onto Route 202, because I knew I was about to witness an EVENT.
Sure enough, the ‘Vettes angled out onto 202, laid down huge smoking stripes of rubber, and wound out to about 7,000 rpm.
It’s something I’ll never forget as long as I live; right up there with Don Garlits, the Corsair at Willow Grove, and 765 in New River Gorge.
That incident initiated my lust for the Small-Block that lasted at least 20 years!

I have seven calendars: four trains (I’m a railfan), two cars, and one WWII warbirds. —All for wall-art; better than paintings, which don’t change every month.

RE: “No doubt our ISP!” —ISP equals Internet-Service-Provider; in our case RoadRunner via the cable. Last July my macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston visited, and set up a wireless Internet connection to my wireless router. His Internet reception was spotty, so he loudly blamed our Internet-Service-Provider (ISP). Now anything untoward is due to my ISP.

RE: “Trailer-queens......” —A trailer-queen is a showcar that never gets used on the road.

RE: “Bonneville lakesters.......” —Are racing-cars for the speed-trails at Bonneville salt flats (dry lake) near Salt Lake City. The Salt Flats are big and flat enough for wide-open top-speed runs. “Lakester” is the slang term for cars racing top-speed runs. At first many hot-rods were the old Fords hopped up for speed. They were run (before Bonneville) on the big dry-lakes near Los Angeles.

“Houghton” is Houghton College, from where I graduated with a BA in 1966. I’ve never regretted it. Houghton is a religious college.

“Letchworth” is a large park near Houghton College.

“Fairfax Shopping Center” is near where we lived in Wilmington, DE.

“Two-pot” is two four-barrel carburetors; a very strong fuel-supply. (Single four-barrel carbs were later built with even more capacity than two four-barrels.)

-1) “Don Garlits” raced his fuel dragster at Cecil County Drag-o-way (in northeastern Maryland) in the summer of ‘65, and laid rubber the whole length of the quarter-mile. It was so loud, you had to cover your ears. White flames at least 15 feet long were roaring out of the header-pipes. -2) A Navy Corsair fighter-plane was at Willow Grove Naval Air Station near Philadelphia back in 1951 when I visited with the Cub-Scouts. A pilot strode out and fired up the Corsair sending huge gouts of yellow flame down the fuselage. -3) “765” is a restored Nickel Plate Railroad Berkshire SuperPower steam-locomotive (2-8-4). I rode behind it in 1991 on the Chesapeake & Ohio mainline through New River Gorge in West Virginny, and it was doing 70-75 mph.

The Chevrolet “Small-Block” V8 was introduced at 265 cubic-inches in the 1955 model-year. It was phenomenally successful, and is still in production; now up to 350 cubic-inches — even larger.