Author: chuck goolsbee

Over on Autoblog today there is a photo gallery of GM hood ornaments. In my opinion, the hood ornaments from general motors don’t hold a candle to the wonderful ones from Packard, Dusenberg, Pierce-Arrow, etc. But the theme they were illustrating was “aviation”, which brought to mind this photo I took in 2004.

The car is in the collection of Dean & Wendy Edmonds, and I’ve only see just this one example of the marque. I love this hood ornament. It is a diminutive copy of the Schneider Trophy winning Supermarine seaplane, and yes the propeller works!

The radiator of this car had the name of the marque splashed across it in big letters, so I blotched it out in Photoshop (the first time I’ve done something like that for a “name that car” test I think!) If you want to have a go at guessing, feel free.

A recent editorial posting on The Truth About Cars used the term “cathedral” to describe the form of the Jaguar XK engine. So here I present for you the XK, it its namesake chassis. Note the Flying Buttresses of the exhaust. The row of fire-starting sparkplugs within the Nave. The rising Basilica Domes of the timing chains. The coil, perched upon the Choir of the intake manifold like a Gargoyle.

You are invited to Sunday Worship.

Yesterday I had a “name that car” post entitled “Hard, Easy, Easy”… which I ascribed the relative difficulty of identifying the machines. This one was the “hard”. Yeah sorry about the fuzzy photos, but hey, the only OTHER photo I have of it clearly has a badge on it that identifies the marque, so where’s the challenge in that? So here you go.

We know that it is British, and it is NOT an Aston-Martin or an MG.

What is it?

Name these cars.