Steam Fair

My favorite British vintage event, after Beaulieu Autojumble, is the Hanbury Steam Rally. Fortunately, the steam rally directly follows Beaulieu on the next weekend, so one can cover both events without losing any steam.

Stars of the Hanbury show, naturally, are the steam traction engines, which come in many flavors. The showman's engine was the mainstay of the carnival crowd, useful for pulling all sorts of fair equipment to a show and equipped with a generator for lighting and other electrical needs. The Pride of Worcester, an 8 horsepower Showman's Road Locomotive, was built in 1907 by C.Burrell & Sons, and has seen war service as well as show biz.

Ploughing engines were used to till the soil. Too heavy to pull a plough (they would pack the dirt), they ploughed in pairs, pulling the plough back and forth between them by means of a cable and winch. General purpose engines are useful for any number of tasks, such as threshing. Steam rollers, of course, are essential to any nation that travels. "Patricia," an Aveling-Barford, was used by Durham County Council from 1937 to 1963. Miniature traction engines were also represented.

Britain also had fleets of steam-powered lorries (trucks), and Hanbury had examples of the most popular Sentinel and Foden types. For good measure, there were a few petrol-powered rollers. And not forgotten was some real horsepower.

Fairground organs always give me goose bumps. Thankfully, Hanbury had several, including two Gaviolis, an 1890 89-key unit originally built for a European dance hall, and a 1902 98-key with ornate animated figures. I stood between them for about half an hour watching children ride the Helter Skelter, a kid-powered slide. Upon paying the entry, one picks up a mat, climbs the stairs and slides down on it, arriving promptly and excitedly at the bottom. It's ecofriendly, uses no hydrocarbons, and all who slide pay for the ride. Complementing the mechanized organs was a proper organ grinder, but, alas, no monkey.

The Hanbury rally is about more than steam, though. There are vintage bicycles, motorcycles (and at least a few scooters), military vehicles and tractors. Among the latter were several strongarm-type Fordsons (which we've examined before), a single-cylinder Field Marshall, even a John Deere. Stationary engines were there aplenty, pumping water, vacuum (for milking cows), and generating electricity. Celebrity of the lot was a monstrous V-12 diesel, whose dramatic contribution was simply to run.

You can't have a vintage event without vintage cars, and Hanbury had plenty, from Austin Seven to Morris Traveler, Wolseley to Jowett Javelin, even a barn-fresh Model T Ford. Steam cars were not forgotten. There was a solitary Stanley on display.

Because traction engines travel so slowly, workmen and showmen alike usually pulled their living quarters with them. Rally-goers still do. On display was a showman's living van, conveniently set out with all the comforts of home, even a showman's cat. Another genre of living van is the gypsy caravan, inevitably horsedrawn, several of which were on display.

Amongst all the glorious machinery, one could buy stuff, eat, drink and be merry. As the sun began to set I reluctantly took my leave. Hanbury is just off Junction 5 of the west country M5 motorway. Check it out next September.

Ruby Beaulieu

As in Ruby Anniversary. The Beaulieu International Autojumble marked its fortieth birthday a weekend back. Held annually on the Beaulieu Estate of Lord Montagu in England's New Forest, the Autojumble offers some 2,000 vending spaces were one can buy brass lamps, hampers, picnic sets, car mascots or spanners. An engine for your Riley or DeDion or Darracq? No prob!

The Automart, a British incarnation of the car corral, offers fare from restored DeSotos and Whippets to restorable hulks like a 1946 Wolseley, which on closer inspection was found to have no engine. On the Saturday afternoon, Bonhams holds an auction. This year's offerings included a well-conserved steam Locomobile, a curved-dash Olds, and a Crossley Ten just exhumed from a chicken house. Looking intensely more elegant was a 1933 Invicta, a bargain at £8,050 ($16,341 US) with buyer's premium. More of a project but attracting much interest was a 1913 Cadillac Model 30, its copper-jacketed engine a tourist attraction. It sold for £13,800 ($28,014 US). Auctioneer James Knight coaxed £141,200 ($286,636 US) from a buyer for a Sunbeam Super Sports, high sale of the day.

As at Hershey, clubs and marque registers have a presence, and one can buy toys or, perhaps, a Bébé Peugeot. The minimalist might like a Sinclair C-5. Trudging the fields of Beaulieu can be exhausting, but worth the effort if a sought-after part is found. If the prizes won't fit in a wagon, a friend might lend a hand. Alternatively, heavy parts can be left for later collection and free transport to the parking areas.

The forty-second Autojumble will be held September 13-14, 2008. Start planning now.

Happy Kamper

If you grew up during the 1960s you may be excused for thinking that Winnebago invented the motor home. So metoric was that company's rise that the name took its place alongside Kleenex, Kodak and Xerox as a generic description of their product (and many other people's). In fact, motor camping was well established by the 'teens, when Henry Ford and his chums Harvey Firestone and John Burroughs, often accompanied by the venerable Thomas Edison, went roughing it in style.

The movement had its own magazine, Motor Camper and Tourist, and that may have been where Victor Toillon saw an ad for the Zagelmeyer Auto Camp Company of Bay City, Michigan. Zagelmeyer offered camping trailers as well as camper conversions on Reo and Chevrolet chassis. What caught Victor's eye was the Kamper-Kar, a camper body for use on a Model T Ford chassis. Victor already had a 1923 Model T touring car and he longed to travel, so he ordered a Kamper-Kar and installed it himself. As the ad said, the "top automatically rasies to full standing room as berths are thrown open."

Victor and his wife made one trip in the Kamper-Kar, an 1,100-mile journey in 1926. Afterwards Victor became a farmer and never had another vacation. The Kamper-Kar sat in a shed. Collector John Grunder bought it in the 1960s and gave it a freshening, but it's still largely original. It has a gasoline stove, storage in back for utensils that can be opened, chuck wagon style, and a radio that Victor built himself. The radio antenna is in the roof. A zinc-lined iced box keeps things cool.

When collapsed for traveling, the Kamper-Kar is hardly larger than a Model T Ford van, but it doesn't drive as easily. Zagelmeyer said the Kamper-Kar weighed the same as the Ford touring body. That's an outright falsehood. The Model T's 22 hp engine has a hard time moving it along, so a two-speed Ruckstell axle has been added along with a Moore auxiliary transmission - giving eight speeds forward.

No, it's not as comfortable as a Winnebago, nor does it move as fast. But for auto camping in the 1920s the Zagelmeyer Kamper-Kar was mighty up-to-date.

A tip of the hat to Joris at PreWarCar.com for inspiring this CarPort.

Man on a Tractor

In 1947, International Harvester debuted a new logo. Instantly recognizable as the corporation's initials, IH, it was the work of Raymond Loewy, the renowned industrial designer who had already put his stamp on the Gestetner mimeograph machine, the Coldspot refrigerator and the Lucky Strike cigarette package. There was a deeper meaning, however. Given the nickname "Man on a Tractor," the new emblem symbolized a person driving a tricycle-style row crop tractor, the dotted "i" representing the driver's head.

The symbolism was apt. IHC had pioneered the row crop tractor in 1924. Called "Farmall," the new machine ran high off the ground, and was configured so that its wheels fit easily between rows of corn or other agricultural crops. The Farmall, retroactively called the "Regular" once other models were introduced, had a 221 cubic inch ohv four developing 13 horsepower at the drawbar. Most of them had steel wheels. In 1929, IH introduced the F-20 Farmall, named for its drawbar horsepower. It had a more powerful engine and a four-speed transmission, but had the same no-nonsense appearance as its predecessor. Some 136,000 were built before World War II.

In 1932, a smaller version arrived, the F-12 with 12 hp at the drawbar. The F-12, with an economical 113 cubic inch engine and three-speed transmission, was built alongside the F-20. Top of the line was the F-30, actually a 25 hp machine. An intermediate F-14 was produced in 1938 and 1939.

In 1939, all the Farmalls got a makeover. Much the same mechanically, the fashions of the times called for covering up the F-series' exposed innards. Raymond Loewy got the job of devising a tough, yet streamlined package. The result was the classic Farmall that everyone over 50 now remembers, a smooth envelope ending in a rounded fuel tank. The nose was blunt, with a slotted grille.

Models were now identified by letters. The A was a 17-hp machine, four-wheel configuration but offset. A Model B was similar. The mid-range tractor was the H, with 25 hp. At the top was the 33 hp M (diesel version illustrated). A 15-hp C was introduced in 1948. With more horsepower, all but the B were given "Super" prefixes. In 1947, for the rural householder or small farmer, the Cub was introduced. Although the Cub became eponymous, remaining in production until 1979, the other models were replaced with numerically-designated facelifted models, starting in 1954.

My Farmall period started when I was about fourteen and went to work for Bob Frueh at Misty Meadows Farm. His workhorse was a Farmall F-12, in whose seat I spent many hours plowing, harrowing, cultivating, mowing, raking and harvesting. At the Historic Construction Equipment show held in July at the Zagray Farm Museum in Colchester, Connecticut, I was overcome with nostalgia. The Zagray brothers had a fetish about old Farmalls and acquired about 80 of them. The museum has kept a few of them in a Forest of Farmalls. I couldn't resist taking a few minutes to once again be a man on a tractor.