If you are around Fletcher Parkway (El Cajon) on the 2nd or 3rd Thursday of the month

Beef & Bun, 6pm until 9 or 10
South side of Fletcher Parkway,

Just west of the top of the long hill it's on.

If you are driving East bound on Fletcher, it's just 2 blocks past a long right hand curve.

If you are driving West bound on Fletcher, you better be in the left lane, and ready to turn as soon as you make it through the intersection at Garfield, 'cause after this left turn lane you see here in the picture, it's a long, long way before you can make a u turn.

2477 Fletcher Pkwy. A block West of Garfield.
(619) 465-0767
http://www.carsnet.com/events.html

"Beef N Bun is this little place in El Cajon on Fletcher Parkway that has the best shakes ever. The chocolate-banana being particularly tasty. Every December they have eggnog shakes"
http://makeme.typepad.com/make_me/2007/01/wolves_and_shee.html

http://motorheadmisfits.com/Events/Beef%20%27n%20Bun/beefnbun.html

any questions give Matt a call at 619-517-2522

I'm at a loss for words...

I'm the #10 favorite blog for http://www.techandtonic.com/ that says it all.

A little bit about Aston Martins

Named for a famous (at the time) hill climb race (think Pike's Peak) the Aston Hill Climb.
Keep in mind that this was around 1913. Vehicles were still so fundamental and unproven that sales were largely due to winning endurance races, races set up by the rich, for other rich people to participate in and have fun with, and the cars were just a tool to gain bragging rights among the elite circles.. .. in America it was Vanderbilts and so on... as only the fabulously wealthy could afford such toys.

So named partly for the hill climbing race, and partly for one of the two founding fathers Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford. The two had partnered up to sell and service cars by Singer, GMK, and Calthorpe. Their first Aston Martin was made in 1915, but never got into production due to WW1. Incidentally stopping the car making before it got off the ground, and ironically, then all the manufacturing machinery was sold to Sopwith Aviation Company (who are well known for Snoopy's famous Sopwith Camel), and a fine airplane it was.

After the close of WW1, the company went back in business, setting speed and endurance records, but with very limited production, and rich enough buyers in post WW1 England, it went bankrupt in 1924, and 1925.

Bamford left in 1920, Martin in 1926.

In 1947 David Brown bought the company, and there-after the models were named DB this and DB that. Yeah, I didn't know that either. Huh. Trivia, cool stuff. In 1972 it was again in financial woes, and sold of to financiers who intended to profit... yeah, right.

It was sold time and again, 1972, 1975, 1980, 1983, 1984, and in 1987 a coincidental meeting between a financier owner and a friend of his at Ford England, brought up the brilliant idea of Ford buying 75% of the eternally struggling company, and so it passed to Ford's majority ownership , which became total when the last 25% was acquired from Victor Gauntlett, the chairman at the 1987 to 1993 era.

Now at 100% ownership, Ford ramped up investment, manufacturing, and production. Keep in mind that Ford owned Jaguar as well, and the experience of all the techs, engineers, and management came into fruition to make both Aston Martin and Jaguar and Ford do very well in the competitive world of high tech, high speed, high value, high profitability luxury cars.

Ford found that losing all the automobile business to rivals GM and Toyota was putting it in the red, and sold a majority share of Aston Martin in March 2007, to a financial consortium of 2 Kuwaiti investment companies and a Aston Martin collector, and the chairman of Prodrive... a racing orientated company that in heavily involved in the World Rally Championship, other rally races, and touring car races.

So why all my sudden interest? A very awesome new magazine called Octane had a marvelous feature on Aston Martins. http://www.octane-magazine.com/features.php

Other info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aston_Martin

Answer to the previous posting "What is it?" 1972 Aston Martin DBS

Volvo trivia... huh!

1971 Volvo P1800 ES

In an interesting historical note, this car competes in British car events - the reason being that though Volvo is a Swedish company, these cars were built in Scotland.

International Automotive Media Awards winners for 2006

http://www.aztexcorp.com/expressionengine/index.php?/weblog/comments/424/

16th International Automotive Media Competition announces 2006 International Automotive Media Awards (IAMAs)
Jim Dunne and Jean Jennings take top honors

Veteran auto writer/spy photographer Jim Dunne is the 2006 recipient of the International Automotive Media Award for Lifetime Achievement. ( Brock Yates, Car and Driver, won in 2002 )
Dunne has been Detroit Editor of Popular Mechanics for the past 21 years. His career began with a column for national magazines in the mid-1960s, which continues today.
Jim’s reputation nowadays is equally based on being one of the pioneers in so-called spy photography. As photographer or writer, he travels extensively.
In addition to all the above--auto writing, photography and travel, together with an active sports life--Jim Dunne is a safety device inventor/patent holder, and fit in a stint as technical writer for Redstone Missile.
A native Detroiter, Dunne is a graduate of the University of Detroit and a U.S. Army veteran. He has seven grown children, and lives now in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.


Some things that stood out in a couple catagories

A-6, History: General
“Hot Rod & Custom Chronicle,” by Thom Taylor, Gold to Publications International, Ltd.
“Muscle Car,” publishing by KP Books, Gold to John Gunnell
“Muscle: America’s Legendary Performance Cars,” published by MBI, Gold to Randy Leffingwell and Darwin Holmstrom

A-7, History: Single Marque or Manufacturer
“Cobra: The First Forty Years,” published by MBI, Gold to Trevor Legate

A-18, Collector Vehicles
“The Cobra in the Barn,” published by MBI, Bronze to Tom Cotter

E-5, History: Motorsport
“When Giants Raced, parts 1-3,” Bronze to Hal Crocker/Vintage Motorsport Inc.

F-40, Design: Total Publication
Motor Trend Classic, March/April 2006, Gold to Motor Trend Classic (which was killed by Motor Trend) (bastards)

M-28, Intro of New Models
“Design Perspectives—Bring Back the Challenger,” on Motor Trend Radio, Gold to Bob Long

1977 factory stock Dodge Aspen was faster than the Corvette, the Trans Am, the Camaro

The Aspen/Volare twins were light enough that with certain engines, they were rather potent--tests from car magazines of the day revealed that the 1977 360-engined Aspen, with a two barrel carb, was about on a par from zero to sixty miles per hour as the 1977 Camaro Z28 and Corvette L82, both with four barrel 350s.

All three of these cars were faster than the 1977 Trans Am 400-4.

The Aspen was a bit slower by the clock but faster through the traps in the quarter mile than all of the other three from GM.

The 318 offered more sedate, everyday performance. It was obviously less powerful, but it performed about the same as its competing models with similar-sized engines of the day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Aspen

Words of wisdom from Don

"Life is a shit sandwich, but the more bread you make, the less shit you eat."
Don Eisenhour

Thanks Don... truer words were never spoken

The car quiz, 50 pictures, guess the make and model

http://stevelyon.com/quiz.html 1950's through 1970's cars... American heavy steel (with a bit 'o fiberglass for the 'Vette's )

Found by looking through http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2006/08/ Its a really good blog!

For another game try the 50 celeb Harley owners quiz:http://elite-bike.blogspot.com/2009/04/ken-blows-my-mind-second-time-terrific.html

Speed cameras causing fatalities in the UK

http://www.pistonheads.com/speed/default.asp?storyId=16025

(Keeping in mind this is United Kingdom business, not American, but the truth I'm sure, doesn't just exist on their side of the pond.)

The government decided that the side effects of blanket speed camera usage warranted investigation, the transport department discovered that neglect of a statistical bias had exaggerated the main benefit of speed cameras by 400 per cent.

In September 2006, the proportion of injury crashes involving any speeding vehicle nationally was found to be only five per cent -- not one-third as previously claimed.

And now Safe Speed has learned via a Freedom of Information request that the speed camera side effects research, announced in May 2005, had been axed. (bad information research... ain't going to continue)

According to the Safe Speed campaign: " speed cameras are making road safety worse. But the Department for Transport doesn't want to hear this, which is the only possible reason for axing the most important research."

Safe Speed campaign founder Paul Smith said: "Speed camera policy has failed catastrophically. Department for Transport knows that it has failed but won't admit its deadly mistake and pull the plug. Officials seem to be hoping that speed cameras will fade away over the next five years, yet they know that the policy isn't working and is costing lives.

http://www.safespeed.org.uk/

Who made who, who own's what

http://ziza.ru/other/032007/12/other/images/auto.jpg

My consolations to the family, friends, and teammates of Eric Medlen

In the NHRA, safety is paramount, then racing for new records, and big rewards.

Eric was a team member of the John Force Racing team (JFR) from 1998 when he began as a mechanic, and spent time on the superchargers, clutches, and other mechanic duties.

In 2003 he was rewarded with a funny car seat, and won Rookie of the Year! He stayed in the top 5 points standings for 2005 and 2006 and won 6 times in his 1st 3 years. The tv show "Driving Force" chronicling the business of John Force and family ended season one with Eric Medlen winning at Sonoma. http://www.nhra.com/2006/forceblogs.asp

"He was the leader of my next generation of drivers." John Force. http://www.johnforceracing.com/

JFR will not participate in the O'Reilly Nats, the next after the catastrophic race, in order to recoup from the tire explosion (and study causes of in order to increase future safety improvements) that is a result of "tire blow-out and an extreme vibration beyond anything previously recorded in the sport" , and the first fatality in NHRA funny cars since 1969.

From http://www.johnforceracing.com/ team news ... The tire blowout started a event chain that caused Eric's car to crash into the guard rail, so violently that Eric had head concussions that couldn't be negated through surgery to reduce swelling and brain tissue hemmorrhaging.

http://www.speedzonemagazine.com/index.html

http://www.nhra.com/content/race_results.asp?articleid=19409&zoneid=93

http://www.castrol.com/castrol/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9008158&contentId=7015302

All the car links I can imagine, are already in one nice format

From the French / English http://laurent-auto-news.blogspot.com/ is the well done alphabetized http://lroy.club.fr/auto/liens.html

Infos sur cette page
Automanufacturer websites 89 of them
performance parts websites 64
Tire companies 12
Customizers
Tools
Fédérations, Clubs, Associations...
Media
Automobile designers

60 bucks a barrel for oil from OPEC, 2.75 a gallon... does the math work?

rounding off all numbers for brevity: 42 gallons of crude - 50% becomes gas =21 gallons gas.
60 bucks a barrel is 60 bucks for 21 gallons at 2.75 a gallon, well that means that the other 50% of that barrel isn't accounted for, or, 1/2 of every barrel becomes pure profit for the refinery company. That doesn't seem unreasonable... I think.

Shell and Dow busted for fixing prices on tire rubber

http://www.rubberworld.com/news.asp?action=showweek

EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes busted 5 companies for colluding to rig prices of rubber ingredients used in tires, Shell was fined €160.9 million and Dow €64.6 million.

Barney Oldfield, American icon, record setter

Barney Oldfield was the first man to drive a car at 60miles per hour (100 kmh).

On Memorial Day in 1903 in New York, Oldfield drove a mile in a minute flat in another match-race victory. Two months later, he powered the car to a mile run in 0:55.8 and that was enough for Winton to hire Oldfield, complete with salary, expenses and free cars.

His accomplishments led to the expression "Who do you think you are? Barney Oldfield?"

In 1910, Oldfield bought a Benz, in which he broke all existing speed records for the mile, two miles, and the kilometer in special runs at Ormond Beach, Fla. After that, he was able to charge a whopping $4,000 for personal appearances, something he didn't mind at all.

Once suspended by the American Automobile Association, the sanctioning body of the day, because of his "outlaw" racing activities, much of Oldfield's legitimate racing career was lost during his prime.

However, he competed at Indianapolis after being reinstated and his best finishes were fifth in 1914 and 1916. Additionally, he ran the first 100 miles per hour lap in Indianapolis history.

http://digitaldoorway.net/The_Barney_Timeline.html

He helped found the Fisher Automobile Company, was a developer for Firestone tires, beat Winton (the founder of the Winton Car Company) in a Ford (by Fords requesting him as the driver), and had been inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame, the International Motor Sports Hall of Fame, and the Motorsports hall of fame of America.

Legend, pioneer, innovator.

http://www.motorsportshalloffame.com/halloffame/1990/Barney_Oldfield_main.htm

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~class/am485_98/sarratt/barney.html

http://www.rumbledrome.com/barney.html

More on the John Deere tractor ball, UPS ball

http://thrillingwonder.blogspot.com/2007/02/vw-bus-ball-and-other-rolling-art.html found the John Deere tractor ball, and the UPS ball.

John Deere ball from Flikr (great photo website) the user on Flikr has quite a few photos of the spheres that Lars-Erik made here http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=390977926&size=o

The story behind the VW logo

It's pretty obvious what the Volkwagen logo is (a V over a W in a blue background, sorounded by a circle). It's origin is rather mundane though. The logo was the result of an office competition to see come up with a logo. The winner of the competition (who won 50 Marks for his troubles) was an engineer named Franz Reimspiess (the same man who perfected the engine for the Beetle in the 1930's).

From a nice design, concept, and logo orientated website http://cartype.com/page.cfm?id=2226&alph=ALL&dec=ALL

Power to weight is the reason a musclecar thrills us

Nuts and bolts 101, or, what is a grade 8?

Dodge Super Bee info, from Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodge_Super_Bee
Pictured is the 69 440 six pack, a12 option. As close to a factory race car as they got at the factory with factory parts, without dealership add ons, or special shop work like the Hurst cars.
Non Functional dress up rear brake scoops, and a fiberglass lift off hood. The hood is unusally interesting, since my superbee looked like this one I'll wax eloquent for a minute.

The lift off hood had about 4 important features that were beneficial to the racers,
1) it was as lightweight as they could be,
2) not in the way at all when you needed to work in or around the engine,
3) had the biggest freaking scoop for lots of cold air to increase the air fuel mixture with denser colder air than would be around the hot engine. Cold air = dense air = more oxygen molecules per square inch = more combustion = more power without adding a dime to the ocst of the engine parts. Ramming cold outside air was determined to be good for 10-15 horsepower.
4) flat black, not glossy, paint on the hood has 10 to 15% more heat transfer than any other color. Ever wear a black cotton shirt in the sun, and notice it was hot to the touch? The heat transfer was important to keep the engine running cooler = more powerful. Similar heat transfer desire is the reason the rear axle housing is black, why radiators are black, and ususally, all the engine bay hoses, components, and inner fender wells next to the exhaust manifolds. Conversely, the white coating on headers helps through a resistance of heat transfer to keep the heat inside the headers, and flowing out of the engine bay, in order to help keep the engine cool.


I didn't know that the 71 Bee could be ordered with a 340, or that any came with 440 four barrels. Learn some thing new every day.