Category: Car Photo Of The Day

Just another place to look at car stuff.

Car Photo(s) of the Day: a two-fer.

Gary Herzberg's E-type FHC

Mystery Car with funny sticker

I’ll be “on the road” today, heading over to Port Townsend for a memorial service. Meanwhile here’s a couple of photos for you. The first one is a very nice shot of Gary Herzberg’s 1963 E-type fixed head coupe, taken above St. Mary’s Lake in Glacier National Park on last year’s Going To The Sun Rally. I had thought Gary’s car was black, as up until this point of the rally it had been raining and overall pretty gloomy. On this day the sun came out, and even through the dirt I could see that in fact his car was “Opalescent Dark Blue” as Jaguar called it; that is the Yang to my Opalescent Silver Blue’s Yin.

This photo was chosen to adorn the month of July in this year’s XKEdata calendar.

The second photo was taken on the Classic Motorcar Rally (aka The Annie & Steve Norman/ College Planning Network Classic Motorcar Rally) at the very place I’m heading to today. The rally organizers have always been Doug & Vicki Breithaupt of Port Townsend. Vicki lost her battle with cancer last week and her memorial is today. Last year their plan was to have the rally in eastern Washington, but Vicki’s illness prevent her from traveling a lot, so they held it in Port Townsend. One of the rest/lunch stops was at their home which is an old schoolhouse on the edge of town. I wandered about taking photos of the cars as they gathered and noted this funny sticker on the windscreen of one of the cars. You’ll note the dashboard is quite unusual, so perhaps it will reveal to you what lies outside the frame of the photograph. Have a guess in the comments below.

I’m off to catch a ferry, more on Vicki Breithaupt, Doug, and their children later.

Car Photo of the Day: Another priceless classic, undergoing restoration.

I shot this photo at another rally rest stop, which happened to be a notable restoration shop. This car’s body was off the superleggera frame, and on a jig, undergoing extensive work to be put back to proper shape. As you can see the body is a lightweight alloy and rather delicate at that.

Do you know the car?

Car Photo of the Day: Mystery Car.

Even I don’t recall exactly what car this is. I know the marque, but not the model, though perusing the wikipedia page for the marque leads to a mildly snoozing memory cell in my head. I’ve photoshopped out the logo that was displayed prominently on the nose of this car to make it a bit harder. Do you know it?

(If I told the story of taking this photo it would give away too much, so I’ll save that for later.)

Car Photo of the Day: Big bore, but not boring.

This is the business end of an exhaust fitted to a car in a most unusual fashion. The car should be pretty easy to guess for those that are studied sports-car spotters. The exhaust fitment is decidedly NON-stock, so disregard that when you’re making your guesses.

This car was seen on the Monte Shelton last year. It was navigated by one of those women with a very loud voice, whose laugh and conversation could be heard over the din of any crowd… perhaps it was because she was deafened from riding in this car all day? 😉

Car Photo of the Day: Your weekend puzzler.

I saw this car in a museum, at a rest stop at a Vintage Rally last year, the New England 1000. If you attended that rally, (you know who you are, and so do I!) you’re ineligible for guessing. One of my favorite domestic brands here, and one of their early models. Do you know what car it is?

Be patient with me getting back to you on your answers though, as Nicholas & I will be running the Tulip Rallye all day up in Skagit County. Wish us luck!

Car Photo(s) of the Day: Badges? Here’s your steenkin’ badges!

While we’re waiting for the carspotters to finally get yesterday’s CPotD nailed down to a specific model, here are a few images, some old, some new, that can’t be used for carspotting fun since they are all plainly labelled with badges. The above shot is from a monstrous Oldsmobile Four-Four-Two that participated in the GTTSR a few years ago, driven by a nice newlywed couple from Arizona. I’m not a connoisseur of Muscle Cars, so perhaps my readers can wax poetic about the virtues and history of this whale of a machine in the comments.

Here are a couple more “400-series” (I just made that up… I think) badges from other American Cars:

Speaking of that model of car, here is what passes for a domestic “sports car” from that era:

This Corvette belongs to a very nice guy here in my hometown who has owned it since it was “almost new” and has recently completed a “rolling restoration.” Very nice paint. I always liked the looks of the C2 Corvette, but I’ve always found it curious that it has been labeled a sports car. In reality it is GT, but that seems to be a lost term here in the States.

Speaking of GTs:

I’ve run this photo before, but I’ll run it again as it is such a historically significant car. And “Mad Dog” loves it, so maybe this will bring him out of his fortress of solitude over there in Bellevue! It is a Lancia Aurelia B24 considered to be the very first GT car, emerging to a stunned post-war world. This particular car met a rather infamous and gruesome end at the Monte Shelton rally a few years ago. Its rear suspension broke (a welding flaw in the original late-40s construction, finally coming out!) and the car rolled into a blackberry filled ditch in rural Tillamook County, Oregon. Driver and Navigator were shaken, stirred, but unhurt. The car did not fare so well. The whole rally collectively mourned for the poor machine. Truly beautiful.

Speaking of Lancia’s here’s a pre-war Lancia small saloon car I saw at a local car show on Whidbey Island a few years ago. I’ve shown it before and it stumped the carspotters.

Speaking of pre-war Italian cars, here is an honest-to-god Grand Prix winning Alfa Romeo race car. I’ve posted it here before, so I won’t drone on about its history. Instead I’ll just look and admire: This thing was the ultra-high-tech of its day, truly akin to our F1 cars now. Look at those big drum brakes. Look at that gorgeous middle-mounted chain-driven twin-cam straight-eight! I love the number painted in the grille!

Speaking of grille’s this is what it looks like when you are being eaten by a hungry Jaguar:

Nom, nom, nom... chomp!

Speaking of Jaguars, here is Jerry Mouton’s famous ‘MIK 182″ S1 FHC E-type, photographed in VERY low light after I met up with a bunch of Jag-Lover’s folks at a beach-side restaurant in San Francisco many years ago when I was there on business. What a great night.

Hope you enjoyed the photos. I have a few hints to apply to yesterday’s “stumper” (and here I thought it was an easy one!) so check back.