Autojumble

You've got to hand it to the Brits. They've come up with an elegant word to describe what we call an "old car, rusty metal and automobilia flea market." Coined by former National Motor Museum director Michael Ware, "autojumble," derived from "jumble sale," the British equivalent of rummage sale, rolls all those meanings into a single word.

Held each year the second weekend in September, Autojumble takes place on the grounds of the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu (say Byoo-lee), Hampshire. Combining elements of Hershey, Carlisle and Chickasha, Autojumble brings together some 1,000 vendors and 40,000 visitors, all on a compact 17-acre site that one can cover in a weekend.

Autojumble is, naturally, strong on British cars and parts, but not exclusively, so whether you need an engine for your Austin 7 or Lagonda or Horstman or Fiat, you can find it at Beaulieu. If you long for the more exotic, how about a V8 Curtiss aero engine? A transmission for your MG or parts for your De Dion are all within reach. There are Bentleys large and small, and even a Lancia Augusta that might have been driven by Tazio Nuvolari (or maybe not).

There's automobilia galore, including luggage, picnic sets and acres of gleaming brass.

Beaulieu's Automart is their version of a car corral, replete with elegant cars like a Rolls-Royce 20 hp doctor's coupe, a charming Amilcar or a rare Australian Chevy with "sloper" body by Holdens of Adelaide. The more adventurous might like this Jaguar 3.4 Mk 2, complete with vintage cigarette butts in the ashtray. In the Automart interesting things can happen, such as this demonstration of why Wolseleys were furnished with starting handles.

Bonhams hold an auction during Autojumble weekend. This year, the cars were as varied as a 1910 Austin 18/24 Endcliffe tourer (£41,100 with buyer's premium), a 1931 Mathis PY coupe (£1,265) and at the low end a browbeaten Humber Super Snipe for £250. My favorite was the 1929 Singer Junior delivery van, that went for £5,750. But since cars and parts are difficult to pack in one's suitcase, I followed the lead of my friend, journalist Mike Worthington-Williams, and concentrated on literature.

The organizers of Beaulieu Autojumble take pains to make the weekend visitor- and vendor-friendly. To guard against mud in rainy weather there are "plastic roads," there are food concessions offering ice cream to noodles, there's a free tent for leaving heavy parts (and free truck transport to your car when it's time to take them home). They even have classic toilets.

Serious autojumblers can sign up for a tour to Hershey. The 2006 Autojumble will take place on September 9th and 10th. Book your B&B now.

Packard at the Crossroads

I first met Jim Schwantes in 2003, when he joined the Society of Automotive Historians. An enthusiast and collector of automotive advertising and art, Jim wondered about the 1948 Packard ad seen here, whether it represented an actual place or whether the location was entirely a creation of the artist.

The signpost tells us that the Packard is 2 miles from Milldale, 5 from Marion, 11 from Waterbury, 3 from Meriden and 12 miles from Middletown. Marion and Middletown might be anywhere: there are 19 Middletowns and 20 Marions in the United States. A bit less numerous are Meriden (5 in US) and Waterbury (only 3, though there are 8 Watertowns). "Milldale," however, struck a chord. I recognized it as a village in central Connecticut, not far from the CarPort's cyberportal. A glance at a Connecticut map confirmed my suspicions: all five locations lie within a twenty mile stretch of what would, in 1948, have been US Route 6A (now State Routes 322 and 66, interspersed with sections of Interstate 691).

I wondered if the artist, Australian-born Melbourne Brindle, might have lived near the area, as the legendary Peter Helck often painted scenes near his home in Boston Corners, New York. The location of the Packard is accurate, and represents a point on old 6A where two rutted dirt roads intersected the maine highway. The reader looks generally east, toward Meriden. Automobile Quarterly (Vol. 28 No. 3, Third Quarter 1990) published an article on Brindle, explaining that he lived for much of his working life in New Canaan and Bridgewater, Connecticut, and that many of his other works use local backgrounds.

Jim has recently lauched Vivipix, an enterprise marketing posters made from some 1,000 advertising images in his collection. This Packard ad is one of them, and they span the period 1937 to 1970. It is interesting to note the progression of Packard during this time, from the conservative 1937 cars to the decorous 1956 Caribbean. I consider Packard to have been at a crossroads in 1948, wondering whether to be a prestige car, or merely an upper-middle class on. This ad confirms their quandary, for it implies that the Packard Eight, the entry-level car, was the measure of the Custom Eight, which sold for more than twice as much. Unfortunately, they didn't look very much different, which might have been the problem.

Vivipix posters can be ordered on line; presently Packard and all GM marques, covering 1937 to 1970 are available. In some of them you will recognize artwork that appears in other installments of the CarPort.

Never Say Never

Five weeks ago the CarPort explored the mysteries of convertible windows, a subject which resonates with a number of our regular readers. One of the oddities discovered in researching that story was the three-passenger Chrysler Town & Country convertible, and we speculated that no such car was ever built. Clearly there was literature for such a car, because we used it for illustration. As you can see here, there was at least one real three-passenger T&C; Fred Summers has seen it and took some pictures.

Last year, Fred, who travels a lot on business, was in Phoenix at the time of the marathon auctions. While cruising the parking garage at one of the hotels, he found this car in an area reserved for "sold cars." Not surprisingly, a group of men had gathered and they were discussing the car. One proffered the idea that it had been converted from a business coupe (Chrysler Corporation, remember, offered three-passenger coupes in all their makes, and for some reason the Chrysler catalog had business coupes in all series, Royal to New Yorker, through 1948. Thus with a Sawzall and some wood applique it would be possible to make a salesman's T&C.

Another person in the group said he'd seen another such car; that three were built, one Windsor and two New Yorkers (the Windsor, remember, had a six-inch-shorter wheelbase). He knew the owner of one of the cars, and he'd heard another was in Cleveland. This must be the third. Tire kickers have been known to spin (or repeat) tall tales, so we looked for some independent corroboration.

Richard Langworth has been delving the mysteries of the automobile for more than forty years. While many tire kickers were speculating, he was talking to the people who designed and built the cars, people now largely deceased. His book Chrysler - The Postwar Years contains a chapter on the T&Cs. Indeed, there was an intention at Chrysler to build more than just a convertible and a sedan Town & Country. In 1946, literature was printed showing five wood-bodied models,the convertible and sedan production cars, a "hardtop convertible" ( factory photos of which are quite well-known), the three-passenger car ("roadster"), and a two-door sedan version ("brougham"). In fact, the cut-outs of the two T&C soft-tops illustrating that August 10th item were taken from just such a brochure. There must have been more than one brochure, because this green brougham, headed the opposite direction, turned up in the CarPort archives.

Langworth puts the total of hardtops at seven, and records one brougham, built in 1946, sold to a private owner and never seen again. He says no roadsters were actually built. When asked about his sources and he said that Chrysler Historical had records on the hardtops and the brougham, but nothing on the roadster. According to one of the designers involved with the T&Cs, "not even a prototype was built." But that doesn't rule out something happening in a back room somewhere, and even the factory would probably start with the closest production body style, in this case a business coupe, just like a latter-day clone crafter.

So there we leave it. The fact that at least one Town & Country roadster now exists rules out "never." The relevant questions, then, are "Who?", "When?" and "How?"