Car Photo of the Day: Still Life with Exhaust Manifold and Polished Head.

Speaking of the ABFM at Van Duesen Gardens in BC and looking at engines… This one, an AC Ace, was one of the best seen that day. (No guessing games today as the placard identifies the car!) Gorgeous.

Perhaps the car spotters here can get some exercise naming the car in the background.

Car Photo of the Day: Back to basics.

Austin Seven.

This old Austin Seven was seen at the All British Field Meet in Vancouver BC several years back. Nick & I went up for the day in the 65E, toweled off the car, and pretty much abandoned it as we wandered all over the grounds of Van Duesen gardens admiring the cars. I love to look at pre-war cars, and someday would love to be the caretaker of one. These little Austins are not really my style but this car came with a bonus, which you can see behind it…

Cutaway drivetrain display.

Near the little Seven was shown this cutaway… I love looking at engines. What gearhead doesn’t?

Nick relished this display for the cogent illustration of the basic functions of the drivetrain components of a car. Cutaway engines are fairly common but this one also included the clutch and gearbox so it really does a far better job of showing the process. Nicholas learned about timing, fuel-air mixture, bore & stroke, lubrication, intake and exhaust cycles, the transformation of reciprocal into rotational motion, the purpose of the flywheel and clutch, and how gearing works. Seeing this in the flesh, and turning the engine by hand does so much more for illustrating the process than my standard “go to” Animated Engines. This old side-valve engine of course is primitive, but the concepts remain the same to this day. From this basis I was able to show Nick the engines in other cars on the field and explain the subtle differences, such as overhead valves, various cam-driving solutions, and of course cylinder configurations.

What a neat thing to bring along to a show.

Car Photo of the Day: Outstanding in its field.

This car looks so sad… shivering out in the (admittedly sparse) weeds. I almost tagged this under the “Still life with…” category, but that would be mean. The car is quite rare, and I can honestly say it is the only one I’ve ever seen.

I shot the photo many years back, and I know at least one commentator here knows exactly what it is, so he’s ineligible for guessing, though he can referee for those that do guess, as he knows more about this type of car than I do. Do you know what it is? Take a guess in the comments.

(Note, as I’m behind of CPotD posts, there may be more than one today, stay tuned)

Car Photo of the Day: Exhaust

After an exhaustive search through my catalog of car photos I settled upon this contemplative view of an exhaust pipe.

“Exhaust” is one of those odd words when you look at it. It has Latin roots, yet has a Germanic look to it. Perhaps it is just the “haust” part that makes me want to hoist a lager and down a bratwurst. How the explosive release of combustion vapors relates to the draining of physical and mental resources I don’t know. These big pipes never look tired. Sure, cars run out of energy when their tanks run dry, but I rarely equate that with the wonderful noises that often come from exhaust systems. Exhaust notes make their cars seem positively energetic in fact. Only when a car sits idle, with that creaking and popping moans coming from its metal as heat is lost to the air around it does it seem at all “exhausted”. Yet we know that is an illusion. The turn of the starter, is all it will take to spark the machine alert and alive once again. Like the sound of food hitting the dish that brings the sleeping dog to full sprint, the car is never as exhausted as it appears. Until of course, it ceases to function entirely, at which point the exhaust system is just a series of inert metal pipes, rusting at a slightly higher rate than the rusting parts around it. It is then that we can truly say that car is exhausted.