Twin 1937 Boattail Rolls Royces with a story were at the Grand National Roadster Show.. you can never predict what cool stuff you'll see!

 Both built in 1937, one was donated to the war effort and was rebodied to be a Ambulance, the other found it's way to Puerto Rico and became termite food

these won the people's choice award at the Art Center car show

P51 Mustang story from a 12 yr old kids perspective... happened in 1967

The pilot arrived by cab, paid the driver, and then stepped into the pilot's lounge. He was an older man; his wavy hair was gray and tossed. It looked like it might have been combed, say, around the turn of the century. His flight jacket was checked, creased and worn - it smelled old and genuine. Old Glory was prominently sewn to its shoulders. He projected a quiet air of proficiency and pride devoid of arrogance. He filed a quick flight plan to Montreal (Expo-67, Air Show) then walked across the tarmac.

After taking several minutes to perform his walk-around check the pilot returned to the flight lounge to ask if anyone would be available to stand by with fire extinguishers while he "flashed the old bird up, just to be safe."

Though only 12 at the time I was allowed to stand by with an extinguisher after brief instruction on its use -- "If you see a fire, point, then pull this lever!" I later became a firefighter, but that's another story. The air around the exhaust manifolds shimmered like a mirror from fuel fumes as the huge prop started to rotate. One manifold, then another, and yet another barked -- I stepped back with the others. In moments the Packard-built Merlin engine came to life with a thunderous roar, blue flames knifed from her manifolds. I looked at the others' faces, there was no concern. I lowered the bell of my extinguisher. One of the guys signaled to walk back to the lounge. We did.

Several minutes later we could hear the pilot doing his pre flight run-up. He'd taxied to the end of runway 19, out of sight. All went quiet for several seconds; we raced from the lounge to the second story deck to see if we could catch a glimpse of the P-51 as she started down the runway. We could not. There we stood, eyes fixed to a spot half way down 19. Then a roar ripped across the field, much louder than before, like a furious hell spawn set loose---something mighty this way was coming. "Listen to that thing!" said the controller.

In seconds the Mustang burst into our line of sight. Its tail was already off and it was moving faster than anything I'd ever seen by that point on 19. Two-thirds the way down 19 the Mustang was airborne with her gear going up. The prop tips were supersonic; we clasped our ears as the Mustang climbed hellish fast into the circuit to be eaten up by the dog-day haze.

We stood for a few moments in stunned silence trying to digest what we'd just seen. The radio controller rushed by me to the radio. Kingston tower calling Mustang?" He looked back to us as he waited for an acknowledgment.

The radio crackled, "Go ahead Kingston."

"Roger Mustang. Kingston tower would like to advise the circuit is clear for a low level pass." I stood in shock because the controller had, more or less, just asked the pilot to return for an impromptu air show!
The controller looked at us. "What?" He asked. "I can't let that guy go without asking. I couldn't forgive myself!"

The radio crackled once again, Kingston, do I have permission for a low level pass, east to west, across the field?"
"Roger Mustang, the circuit is clear for an east to west pass."

"Roger, Kingston, I'm coming out of 3000 feet, stand by."
We rushed back onto the second-story deck, eyes fixed toward the eastern haze. The sound was subtle at first, a high-pitched whine, a muffled screech, a distant scream.

Moments later the P-51 burst through the haze. Her airframe straining against positive Gs and gravity, wing tips spilling contrails of condensed air, prop-tips again supersonic as the burnished bird blasted across the eastern margin of the field shredding and tearing the air.

At about 500 mph and 150 yards from where we stood she passed with the old American pilot saluting. Imagine. A salute! I felt like laughing, I felt like crying, she glistened, she screamed, the building shook, my heart pounded.

Then the old pilot pulled her up and rolled, and rolled, and rolled out of sight into the broken clouds and indelibly into my memory. I've never wanted to be an American more than on that day. It was a time when many nations in the world looked to America as their big brother, a steady and even-handed beacon of security who navigated difficult political water with grace and style; not unlike the pilot who'd just flown into my memory. He was proud, not arrogant, humble, not a braggart, old and honest, projecting an aura of America at its best. That America will return one day, I know it will. Until that time, I'll just send off this story; call it a reciprocal salute, to the old American pilot who wove a memory for a young Canadian that's lasted a lifetime.

The story I thought of when I read this, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/uncle-bob-corsair-pilot-heroes-dont.html

Jeep cemetaries in Okinawa and Pusan

all found on http://www.ewillys.com/?cat=195 but originally from Life Magazine

Real WW2 American Bomber crew jackets (the art on the back is cool and is the same as the nose art of the airplane) Flikr page I just found

these are only 4 of about 40 at http://www.flickr.com/photos/18532986@N07/sets/72157626140462192/with/6661619935/

We count our victories by the bombers we get to their targets, by the husbands we return to their wives, by the fathers we get back to their children.

Terrence Howard and Cuba Gooding, both are oscar winners, and this looks like the best aerial combat movie since Pearl Harbor, or Flyboys

Great stuff from Volksrat.tumblr.com

 this Pontiac Safari wagon was lost to soft sands and incoming tide in 1973, but was washed clear recently by winter storm seas... that is so damn cool. Anyone having photos like this, email them to me so I can share them! jbohjkl@yahoo.com

 1923 Norton chopper, well, let me say that correctly, a chopper in 1923 that was made into a chopper

found on http://volksrat.tumblr.com/ who found lots of thes cool images on http://onthelosthighway.tumblr.com/ and http://5window.tumblr.com/ and other cool sites

new info about 1937 Chevrolet dealerships installing truck beds in business coupes... I thought that was a thing people had to make for themselves

I've posted about this gas rationing ingenuity before, that a truck was issued more gas rations, and a car less, so some people converted their cars into trucks by just adding a pickup bed where the rumble seat or trunk had been... this is the first I've read about it being done by a dealership... But the owner of this 1937 Chevy business coupe is the 2nd owner and bought this car 40 years ago, so I'll just work with that.

found on http://crosleykook.blogspot.com/2011/12/six-engines-one-wagon-37-chevy-two.html

In a New York City post office, a WW2 monument and tribute.. and a postal delivery bike

strange that it's front tire was a smaller size than the back, but had to be in order to accomodate the big basket
Found on http://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/05/dirk-skrebers-car-crash-sculptures.html where the painting behind the WW2 monument is discussed, it's an art deco piece titled Manhattan Skyline, painted by artist Louis Lozowick at the height of the art deco movement as a Works Project Administration commission. It's 18 feet tall, and in the Farley post office on 8th Ave.

the mad world of crazy aircraft found in Major Howdy Bixby’s Album of Forgotten Warbirds on Dean's Garage.com

from Bruce McCall’s 1982 book, Zany Afternoons, presents a collection of brief articles about an imaginary society from the 1920s to the 1950s, often populated by uber-wealthy and spoiled sophisticates who enjoyed such diversions as autogiro jousts, wing dining, zeppelin shoots, and tank polo

found on http://deansgarage.com/2011/bixbys-warbirds/

to buy yourself a copy http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0394735048/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used

B-17 bomber aircraft had a unique collision in air, and were stuck in a piggyback arrangement while forced to decend due to engine fire in the bottom bomber, here is the story

Originally published August 12, 2003

by Ralph Kenney Bennett

Found on http://skylighters.blogspot.com/ feb 2009 post

Captain Glenn Rojohn of the 8th Air Force's 100th Bomb Group was flying his B-17G Flying Fortress bomber on a raid over Hamburg. His formation had braved heavy flak to drop their bombs, then turned 180 degrees to head out over the North Sea.

They had finally turned northwest, headed back to England, when they were jumped by German fighters at 22,000 feet. The Messerschmitt Me-109s pressed their attack so closely that Capt. Rojohn could see the faces of the German pilots.

He and other pilots fought to remain in formation so they could use each other's guns to defend the group. Rojohn saw a B-17 ahead of him burst into flames and slide sickeningly toward the earth. He gunned his ship forward to fill in the gap.

He felt a huge impact. The big bomber shuddered, felt suddenly very heavy and began losing altitude. Rojohn grasped almost immediately that he had collided with another plane. A B-17 below him, piloted by Lt. William G. McNab, had slammed the top of its fuselage into the bottom of Rojohn's. The top turret gun of McNab's plane was now locked in the belly of Rojohn's plane and the ball turret in the belly of Rojohn's had smashed through the top of McNab's. The two bombers were almost perfectly aligned — the tail of the lower plane was slightly to the left of Rojohn's tailpiece. They were stuck together, as a crewman later recalled, "like mating dragonflies."

Three of the engines on the bottom plane were still running, as were all four of Rojohn's. The fourth engine on the lower bomber was on fire and the flames were spreading to the rest of the aircraft. The two were losing altitude quickly. Rojohn tried several times to gun his engines and break free of the other plane. The two were inextricably locked together. Fearing a fire, Rojohn cut his engines and rang the bailout bell. For his crew to have any chance of parachuting, he had to keep the plane under control somehow.

The ball turret, hanging below the belly of the B-17, was considered by many to be a death-trap — the worst station on the bomber. In this case, both ball turrets figured in a swift and terrible drama of life and death. Staff Sgt. Edward L. Woodall, Jr., in the ball turret of the lower bomber had felt the impact of the collision above him and saw shards of metal drop past him. Worse, he realized both electrical and hydraulic power was gone.

Remembering escape drills, he grabbed the hand-crank, released the clutch, and cranked the turret and its guns until they were straight down, then turned and climbed out the back of the turret up into the fuselage.

Once inside the plane's belly Woodall saw a chilling sight — the ball turret of the other bomber protruding through the top of the fuselage. In that turret, hopelessly trapped, was Staff Sgt. Joseph Russo. Several crew-members of Rojohn's plane tried frantically to crank Russo's turret around so he could escape, but, jammed into the fuselage of the lower plane, it would not budge. Perhaps unaware that his voice was going out over the intercom of his plane, Sgt. Russo began reciting his Hail Marys.

Up in the cockpit, Capt. Rojohn and his co-pilot, 2nd Lt. William G. Leek, Jr., had propped their feet against the instrument panel so they could pull back on their controls with all their strength, trying to prevent their plane from going into a spinning dive that would prevent the crew from jumping out.

Capt. Rojohn motion left and the two managed to wheel the huge, collision-born hybrid of a plane back toward the German coast. Leek felt like he was intruding on Sgt. Russo as his prayers crackled over the radio, so he pulled off his flying helmet with its earphones.

Rojohn, immediately grasping that crew could not exit from the bottom of his plane, ordered his top turret gunner and his radio operator, Tech Sgts. Orville Elkin and Edward G. Neuhaus, to make their way to the back of the fuselage and out the waist door on the left behind the wing.

Then he got his navigator, 2nd Lt. Robert Washington, and his bombardier, Sgt. James Shirley, to follow them. As Rojohn and Leek somehow held the plane steady, these four men, as well as waist gunner, Sgt. Roy Little, and tail gunner, Staff Sgt. Francis Chase, were able to bail out.

Now the plane locked below them was aflame. Fire poured over Rojohn's left wing. He could feel the heat from the plane below and hear the sound of .50-caliber machine gun ammunition "cooking off" in the flames.

Capt. Rojohn ordered Lt. Leek to bail out. Leek knew that without him helping keep the controls back, the plane would drop in a flaming spiral and the centrifugal force would prevent Rojohn from bailing out. He refused the order.

Meanwhile, German soldiers and civilians on the ground that afternoon looked up in wonder. Some of them thought they were seeing a new Allied secret weapon — a strange eight-engined double bomber. But anti-aircraft gunners on the North Sea coastal island of Wangerooge had seen the collision. A German battery captain wrote in his logbook at 12:47 p.m.:

"Two fortresses collided in a formation in the NE. The planes flew hooked together and flew 20 miles south. The two planes were unable to fight anymore. The crash could be awaited, so I stopped the firing at these two planes."

Suspended in his parachute in the cold December sky, Bob Washington watched with deadly fascination as the mated bombers, trailing black smoke, fell to earth about three miles away, their downward trip ending in an ugly boiling blossom of fire.

In the cockpit Rojohn and Leek held grimly to the controls trying to ride a falling rock. Leek tersely recalled, "The ground came up faster and faster. Praying was allowed. We gave it one last effort and slammed into the ground."

The McNab plane on the bottom exploded, vaulting the other B-17 upward and forward. It slammed back to the ground, sliding along until its left wing slammed through a wooden building and the smoldering mess of metal came to a stop.

Rojohn and Leek were still seated in their cockpit. The nose of the plane was relatively intact, but everything from the B-17 massive wings back was destroyed. They looked at each other incredulously. Neither was badly injured.

Movies have nothing on reality. Still perhaps in shock, Leek crawled out through a huge hole behind the cockpit, felt for the familiar pack in his uniform pocket, and pulled out a cigarette. He placed it in his mouth and was about to light it. Then he noticed a young German soldier pointing a rifle at him. The soldier looked scared and annoyed.

He grabbed the cigarette out of Leek's mouth and pointed down to the gasoline pouring out over the wing from a ruptured fuel tank.

Two of the six men who parachuted from Rojohn's plane did not survive the jump. But the other four and, amazingly, four men from the other bomber, including ball turret gunner Woodall, survived. All were taken prisoner. Several of them were interrogated at length by the Germans until they were satisfied that what had crashed was not a new American secret weapon.

Rojohn, typically, didn't talk much about the Distinguished Flying Cross he'd earned that day. Of Leek, he said, "In all fairness to my co-pilot, he's the reason I'm alive today."

Like so many veterans, Rojohn got unsentimentally back to life after the war, marrying and raising a son and daughter. For many years, though, he tried to link back up with Leek, going through government records to try to track him down. It took him 40 years, but in 1986, he found a phone number for Leeks' mother, in Washington State.

A year later, the two were reunited at a reunion of the 100th Bomb Group in Long Beach, California. Bill Leek died the following year.

Glenn Rojohn was the last survivor of the remarkable piggyback flight. He was like thousands upon thousands of men, soda jerks and lumberjacks, teachers and dentists, students and lawyers and service station attendants and store clerks and farm boys, who — in the prime of their lives — went to war.

Let us be thankful for such men. Stories like this go in my "Hero" label, and if you get fired up by these stories, read about uncle Bob, the Corsair pilot http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/uncle-bob-corsair-pilot-heroes-dont.html because heroes didn't always die in combat, some tragically died in training missions

Great look inside the Harley Davidson museum with photos, captions and information at galenfrysinger.com

 the oil was in glass bottles during the war due to metal shortages.

all these are just a brief glimpse of the gallery that is a through look at the museum, the full webpage is at http://www.galenfrysinger.com/milwaukee_harleydavidson_museum.htm

A visual identification field guide to enemy aircraft during world war 2, I wish I had noted where I found it

another wild variety of photos from Formicarius.tumblr.com, from Queens and Kaisers to carnival coaster cars and pirate women in Ostrich carts

1890's quadricycle with a Maxim machine gun mounted and beign tested for army contract consideration

Total car kid awesomeness! Want!

Proabably for a private little rail backyard fun... but the cutest damn thing I think I've seen all day

Pirate women ostrich racing... most bizarre thing we'll see all week?

Kaiser Wilhelm and blimps! Steampunk delux

incredible yes? http://formicarius.tumblr.com for hours of distraction from the mundane