"Biscuits Are In The Bin"

One more video from last October for my Dragoneering buddies.

The buttered biscuits (wrapped in napkins) were in the bin because they had been sliding around on the passenger seat on the northbound pass.  Breakfast biscuits from the DGMR are an excellent mid-morning snack.  Note To Self: bungee everything in the trunk before leaving home next time.

Nothing new in this vid, but this pass is a bit more aggressive than the other southbound one previously posted.  Again, Vimeo limits the time--but I got blocked by a van just about when this one stops at Parsons Branch.  (The van was considerate and used the first available pulloff, at Catchall.)

If there is a more fun way to spend a day than making Dragon passes, I don't know what it is.  And thanks for another fine pic, Jason of Killboy.com!

https://vimeo.com/82472347

Singer 911

I understand precisely Rob Dickinson's explanation of what Singer was going for.  And, having driven some early 911's, it's clear to me that Jay Leno "gets" the car.  Contrasting the Singer with a Bugatti Veyron is apt.  Another way to put it is that if you'd just as soon have a 930 Turbo or a 959, you're not on the Singer wavelength.  Here's Leno's video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PemPidqObJ4

The Singer has had a lot of internet coverage lately, often as "the ultimate 911."  A better way of understanding it is Dickinson's explanation: "We wanted to optimize everything [all components of the air-cooled car]."  One could make a case that it's ridiculous to spend 4000 hours remanufacturing a 20-year-old 964/911.  The Singer folks seem to have a case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Regular readers know that Pilote takes a rear jump seat to no one in his affection for the air-cooled 911. When Dickinson waxes poetic about surface development of the body (for example, the original Butzi Porsche long-nosed trunk and the careful blending of the rear fender flares with the early cars' narrow tail), he has my full attention.

I'm of two minds about this.  The Singer is a tour de force, a carefully cut and polished jewel.  Is it worth $100,000 more than a Ferrari 458 Italia?  Yeah, if you have the money and must have one.
It's probably the ultimate 911.  ;-)

TR-6 Restoration (#13)

Well, the TR didn't get done in time for a hoped-for seacoast tour late last fall, and it didn't make it for Mrs. Cuz's Christmas stocking either.  But it's getting close.

The final (pre-color) coat of grey primer is on the body.  Color coats and final assembly yet to go.

Cuz chose Michelin Defenders, 205/65/15 for the new wire wheels.  Tall and skinny, just like we used to be.

Nostalgia (Again)

I've posted pix of the '62 Chevy bubble top before, but this one gives me a major case of nostalgia:  My favorite Chev, after the '55.  Ugly, round-edged, painted, gas pumps with no canopy.  Soft drinks in returnable glass bottles (2 cent deposit).  Where was the closest pay phone if you needed one?  Usually at the corner gas station.

I watched cars like this compete at the local drag strip for a couple of summers before making my first trip to Mid-Ohio for the sporty car races.  Fond memories of the fine 409, the Pontiac 421, the Ford 406, and the Dodge "max wedge" 413.  At first glance, I thought this car was Bill Jenkins's Super Stock, but closer inspection shows that it's an A/Stock driven by Dave Strickler and tuned by Jenkins.  This must have been just before Jenkins got a national reputation as a driver (and his "Grumpy" nickname), and the NHRA had to come up with a class higher than A/S.

And this era--the early '60's--was just before drag racing (and sports car racing) turned pro.  It was still possible for a good mechanic/driver to win, even a national championship, in a truly stock car.  Quarter mile passes in the 13-second range were fast.  Not long after this picture was taken, you needed factory support (selectively supplied--Grumpy got it) to mount a national championship effort in Super Stock. And not long after that, Super Stock morphed into Factory Experimental, which morphed into Funny Cars.

Sigh...

Watchtower: before you ask, the blue one is a '58 Ford and the red one is a '58 Buick.  ;-)

The Blue Train Bentley

Woolf Barnato's Blue Train Bentley--but not his the Blue Train Bentley.

In my previous post I decided not to include a paragraph on high speed trains.  But if I had to make an inter-city trip of 500 miles or less, I'd take a high speed train before I'd fly.  If there was one...  A train cruising at 120 m.p.h. could do 500 miles in under 5 hours.

In the 1920's and 1930's, racing cars against express trains was an occasional publicity stunt.  When Rover claimed that its Light Six matched the speed of le train bleu from Cannes to Calais, Woolf Barnato was unimpressed.  Barnato was a wealthy sportsman who had rescued Bentley financially in the mid 1920's and would, with the help of his pals "the Bentley Boys," win LeMans three times.  Over dinner on the Riviera in March of 1930, he said "You'd have to make it from Cannes to London by the time the train pulled into Calais to make your point, and I could do it." He bet 100 British Pounds: $6900 in 2013 money.

He made the run in 15 hours, 40 minutes, arriving in London 4 minutes before le train bleu pulled into Calais.  He'd reached Calais in 10 hours, 30 minutes.  MapQuest says that today, on Autoroutes, the Cannes-to-Calais run is 789 miles, requiring 18 hours: a very conservative 44 m.p.h. average.  Barnato averaged about 75 m.p.h. across France on worse roads.  (Le train bleu averaged 60 m.p.h.)

His feat quickly became public when his times were vouched for in the press by friends who had noted his arrival at checkpoints.  He was fined by the French government after the fact for "racing on public roads."  The fine was bigger than his winnings.

Barnato had turned the Bentley Speed Six into a GT before the idea of a Grand Touring car was invented.  The car in these pictures certainly has GT style to go with its pace.  Or, with its 6.5 liter engine, you could say it was an early muscle car for the wealthy.  This was Ettore Bugatti's passive-aggressive take when asked about Bentley's LeMans wins: "Monsieur Bentley makes excellent lorries." GT, muscle car, or truck, Barnato's Bentley was a fast road car.

The Blue Train Bentley has floated in and out of my consciousness for 50 years without making much of an impression.  (I come down on Bugatti's side: given a choice between a drive in one of his Type 35's or a Bentley Speed Six, I'd take the Bugatti.)  That is, until I saw the Autocar video linked to below.  And it turns out that the car pictured here, a Speed Six with a one-off lightweight body by Gurney-Nutting, isn't the real Blue Train Bentley.  Barnato took delivery of it after his run and nicknamed it to commemorate his feat in his "standard" Speed Six sedan.  Both cars still exist, so there are two Blue Train Bentleys, both owned and driven by Barnato: the "real" one and the "GT."

Here are links to the Wikipedia page where most of the above information came from, and the Autocar video:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Train_Bentley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV89GIEffuo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUIMzhx509wEXMuGkTK-kD9Q

Another view of Barnato's Bentley Speed Six Sportsman Coupe.  If it's a truck, it's a very fast and stylish truck.

Fly Or Drive?

Gear down, final approach.  Normally, peering out of one of those tiny windows, this would be a time of relief.  Except
that you know you have another half hour of waiting and aggravation to go--more, if you're not being met by friends
to provide ground transportation.

A cable news channel did a segment on air travel.  The point of departure for the discussion was a column by an industry observer which said "It's incredibly safe, cheap, dependable, and on-time--get over your complaints, even if the FAA soon allows passenger cell phone calls.  Show me the complainer who meets his deadlines 90% of the time."

He also defended the airline practice of segmenting passengers by how much they pay ("unbundling" the levels of service).  But he admitted that other service providers (restaurants, for example) don't tell their customers "Oh, you're not a big-tipping regular here, so we'll give you the crappy menu and service."

No sale to the other panelists and the host.  One panelist was amused at how boarding attendants "call every mineral known to man: platinum, gold, silver, copper, brass; and then finally say 'OK, the rest of you cattle can board.'"  She was angry about how many times she'd heard cabin crew say "no" when she knew for a fact that regulations allowed a "yes."  She vouched for her own expertise as a passenger: "I fly 7 times a month on average--because I must."

The host wanted to know how airlines can operate at a loss, year after year, and continue to fly.  I shouted at the TV: "I know, I know--call on me!  They offloaded their losses over the past 30 years onto their employees through bankruptcy by downsizing, merging, outsourcing maintenance, and dumping their pension plans."

Another panelist said he could understand how flying has become more disagreeable over the decades. "It's a commodity now, like anything else sold cheaply in bulk.  A lot more people fly, more often, than in the 1960's and 1970's.  So you're gonna have some disagreeable seatmates with bad manners from time to time."  Nobody stood for the proposition that flying is agreeable.

The airport experience itself was off the table.  As someone observed on a different show, "If your choice is between inconvenient packing, long lines, delays, and indignities--and falling to your death from 30,000 feet, you're gonna put up with stupid rules, lines, delays, and indignities."  Safety, or perceived safety, trumps all else.

I haven't flown (trans-Atlantic excepted) since I retired.  My problem is that I remember flying in the pre-hijacking, pre-terrorist, days.  Check your bag and walk onto a plane in Philadelphia, take off on-time, walk off the plane, claim your bag, and snag your ground transport in Pittsburgh.  Total flight time: 40 minutes.  Total travel time, including ground at both ends, 1.5 hours.  Zero lines and security.  As compared to 6.5 hours to drive it on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
 
Now, to fly the same distance, the total travel time approaches 4 hours while the driving time is unchanged.  If you drive, you can pack as you wish (and take a lot more, including bulky or awkward "stuff").  Depart when you like.  There's adequate leg and spread-out room, a choice of where and what to eat, and an enjoyable drive with scenery.  If you have a seatmate, he or she is a good friend or loved one.  If you drive aggressively, as a National Safety Council self-assessment test assures me that I do, handling the car and traffic engages your mind and skills.

For me, if the distance is 700 miles or less, the call isn't even close: drive.  A day in the car is far more agreeable than a half-day in airports and stuffed into an airliner's coach seat.  Flying is statistically safer than driving; there's that to be said for it...

Architecture / Touring: Unity Temple

The structure of Unity Temple is reinforced concrete, poured into forms on-site in 1906.  Revolutionary material and
technique for that time.  Among other things, Wright was interested in maximizing the efficiency of the long, narrow
lot and shielding the interior from street noise.

Not a twofer: driving to Unity Temple on Chicagoland's surface streets ain't fun touring.  It's bumpy tedium.  Any time, any season, but especially on a pre-Christmas Sunday.  Swimming like a shark among the fishes on the Interstates in light traffic has its moments--but that can be done anywhere, any time.  So this run was about the destination, not the journey.

My former Minister has been with Unity Temple in Oak Park for several years.  I try to get into town to hear her in the Pulpit, and reconnect with her and her family, once or twice a year.  Unity Temple, an icon among Frank Lloyd Wright's many icons, is always a treat.  Here's a link to the Unity Wikipedia page for fellow architecture enthusiasts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_Temple


Unity is one of the most peaceful spaces I know.  Besides designing the building, Wright "decorated" the interior.  He had the stucco walls painted in cream and pastels, and used warm-colored wood strip appliques liberally.  One of Unity's several unusual features is pews arranged in a  |_|  shape.  So you're always looking at fellow congregants as well as the speaker.  It's an intimate, social, people-oriented setting.

Looking "across" the pews on the main floor toward twins of the ones you're sitting in.  More pews, arranged similarly,
are out of this shot to the left.  Pulpit to the right.  This picture provides a sense of the light, airy feel of the space.  But
the ceiling is skylights, and it's even more bright and open than the picture suggests.

A "detail" shot of some of the decoration and lighting that Wright provided.  He did some
very innovative things on a tight budget.  Unfortunately, like all of Wright's buildings,
Unity Temple is "high maintenance" and expensively so.  Deterioration, especially
leaks which threaten even interior structural walls, is a constant battle.  Inexpensive
to build; not to own.

Above and below: The recently renovated Mens' Room at Unity Temple.  Besides the
considerable costs of renovating and maintaining the building, the Foundation which
owns it and the Congregation that uses it must negotiate problems Wright didn't have
to consider.  How do you conceal a modern P.A. system and upgraded electrical
capacity?  The layout and space allocation are not ideal for the activities of
modern congregations.  When the Foundation renovated the bathrooms,
pains were taken to finish them as Wright might have.