Author: chuck goolsbee

A look back in time, 104 years.

This is a movie, taken in 1905, and I found it via a mention on the Jag-Lovers.org E-type mailing list. I’m not a huge follower of brass-era cars, but this movie is fascinating in so many ways. First of all, it is a moving record of pre-1906 Earthquake/Fire that destroyed much of San Francisco. Second it shows that boys will be boys, no matter what the era! Additionally it allows us a glimpse back 100+ years to see that:

  • Most cars, and the horse-drawn vehicles, are Right Hand Drive, despite the drive-on-right convention
  • The variety of vehicles, and motive power is amazing! Horse-drawn carts, wagons, buggies, trolleys, etc. Cable cars. Steam, electric, and petroleum powered cars.
  • There seems to be no effort at traffic control. Given that just about everything is moving at a walking pace though, I can see the reasons why. Other than mass, all objects are equal.
  • As a result of the above, this could be Dehli, or Sao Paulo today!
  • Market Street hasn’t changed that much. 😉

Found via Archive.org.

Car Photo of the Day: Gold Medal

Proudly worn on the nose of this product of Maranello is a prancing pony and a Gold Medal from the Monte Shelton NW Classic rally. To be honest the Gold Medal has the greater value of the two!

The Monte Shelton attracts 60-80 cars to somewhere in Oregon every August, where they vie against probability, reliability, time, speed, distance, and a genuinely evil rally master to somehow manage as few penalties as possible. My father and I two years ago managed to squeak into the “silver medal” standing (top 20 cars), and finally attained our own Gold (top 10) last summer. I really don’t have anywhere on the E-type (luggage rack maybe?) to proudly display my prize, so it sits in my office.

I attribute our consistent good showing at the Monte Shelton on our annual “warm up” earlier in the summer at the “Annie & Steve Norman – College Planning Network Classic Motorcar Rally” put on by Doug Breithaupt. I plan on writing more about this event later, as it is genuinely under-appreciated. It is a small, very friendly, yet technically demanding TSD rally. The best part about it is the social atmosphere. Really great people and Doug always arranges some very unique “rest stops” and special guests along the way, such as visits to car collections. For example: The very first rally I attended with Doug we stopped at the collection of Pebble Beach Concours organizer Glenn Mounger. He had some amazing pre-war classics from Packard, Duesenberg, etc. This year’s rally will be on Vancouver Island, home to probably the densest concentration of vintage British steel on the planet. It should be an excellent event.

Road Photo of the Day: A crappy photo, just for Paul

Commentator “Vroomie” (aka Paul Wigton) seems to think I can’t take a crappy photo. Honestly I take LOTS of crappy photos, I just don’t share them with the world. What you usually see is the needles from my vast fields filled with haystacks. 😉

I had a great idea, on the GTTSR last summer, which came upon me as we descended from the Lost Trail Pass & Chief Joseph Pass areas on Montana Highway 43 towards the Big Hole. I’d park the Jaguar on a wide spot, then capture the rally cars as they came by, with the static E-type framing the left side of the photo, and an in-motion slightly blurred other vintage car framing the right side. Mark & I were at the front of the pack, so if I was patient, I’d have a chance to shoot a couple dozen cars. If I was lucky, I’d get a good shot of maybe six of them. If I was really lucky, I’d get a hero shot of one or two.

I found a spot, with a semi-dramatic backdrop, but not too busy for the (hopefully) very dramatic foreground. The light was right, even the clouds were interesting. I set up my camera way down low to get a nice perspective, and tuned my ear for the sounds of internal combustion. Sure enough, car after car came roaring by and I dutifully held the (set on auto-drive!) shutter down at the moments I deemed appropriate.

What I got was mountains of crap. Either cars too far away, or examples like this one, with a slice of car in-frame as it passed. NOT ONE image with a car balanced in-frame with the E-type. I noted this in the long pauses between waves of cars and adjusted my position (thinking the camera was getting too much road in the foreground and screwing up the auto-focus. I turned off auto-focus (not really needed with my big wide angle lens anyway. I adjusted my auto-drive shutter intervals… no dice. Piles and piles of crappy photos.

Photography is an art form because it involves composition, light, and if you do it right, some forethought and planning. But as Field Marshall von Motlke so famously said “your plannink ist vucked” or something like that. Sometimes, hell… USUALLY… my camera does not bend to my creative will, and I get steaming piles of pixels such as you see above.

Besides, even if I had captured that red ‘vette perfectly, my shadow would have ruined it!

Road Photo of the Day: Vanishing Point (part 2)

My memory of this shot’s exact locale has escaped my brain, but with the “#20” GTTSR sticker on the wing I know it was taken last summer on my rally trip with Mark Collien. The landscape is sort of generic “Inland Northwest” so it could be Montana, Idaho, or Washington. I strongly suspect it is the latter, perhaps somewhere on SR 20… though it could be Montana Highway 200.

But… you know, it doesn’t really matter does it? The road ahead is empty. The wind is in your hair. The weather is mild and inviting. The engine growls contentedly beneath that shapely bonnet. All you really care about is approaching that vanishing point.

Put your foot into it and smile.