On the Avenue

...Fifth Avenue, the photographers will snap us." Irving Berlin, who wrote those words to his song "Easter Parade" in 1948, probably knew about DeSotos, but he could hardly have foreseen Wayne Graefen, the CarPort's Texas Ranger. Wayne gads about in Texas and environs looking for interesting autos. Sometimes he buys them, like the Hupp Eight we featured last summer. Before Wayne could decide what to do with his solid but worn Hupmobile, he happened upon a Hupp aficionado who wanted it badly. Never one to disappoint a salivating enthusiast with cash in pockets, Wayne sold it.

And so last fall he was surfing through the Hot Rod Hot Line, an online marketplace aimed at the rodding fraternity. What should he find but a 1942 DeSoto Fifth Avenue convertible, for sale in Kansas. You'll remember the '42 DeSotos from the CarPort's first season. They're the ones with hidden, "Airfoil" headlights and a host of options which, when bundled together, made up the "Fifth Avenue ensemble." There were just 568 DeSoto convertibles built in the war-shortened 1942 model year. How many could have been Fifth Avenues, do you think? Wayne didn't think too long. He went to investigate and soon he owned the car.

It's solid but a bit forlorn. It was last worked on some 20 years ago, when someone installed an inappropriate vinyl interior. Outside, it's quite presentable, aside from the odd paint on the fenders and a crooked rear bumper, now fixed with a proper mounting bracket. Brightwork is good, the dashboard sparkles and it has the coveted cigarette dispensing steering wheel (some parts are off the car), funky fender skirts, translucent hood ornament and obligatory Fifth Avenue emblems. The engine is neat, if not detailed.

Like Dorothy, the Fifth Avenue awoke to find it wasn't in Kansas any more. In Texas, however, Wayne wondered what he should do. A megabuck restoration would probably not return its cost, and the car is fairly presentable as is. Moreover, he's not sure it's a "real" Fifth Avenue. Each of the options, after all, could be ordered on its own or combined with one or more of the others. Those emblems, moreover, might have been transplanted from another car, perhaps one of more mundane body style. The car itself has taken the Fifth, so he's requested its DNA from Chrysler Historical. While he waits for the verdict, he's installed a nice set of Studebaker wheel covers. They look good, he says, on "any car, any time." From my experience I tend to agree.

Staying Warm

It was cold in Washington, DC, this week, as the nation inaugurated our 44th President. For President Obama and his entourage there was no discomfort, as their new hermetically-sealed Cadillac limos kept them warm and dry. For the millions on the mall, however, it was shivers and shakes as the thermometer hovered in the high 20s. There was a time, however, when presidents and public alike braved the cold winds.

The photo above is not an inauguration picture, but it is presidential. The man in the top hat is Calvin Coolidge, who served from the death of Warren Harding in August 1923 until the inauguration of Herbert Hoover in March 1929. I'm not sure about his passenger and presumptive guest, but he looks rather like Joseph Stalin, then establishing his power in the Soviet Union after the death of Lenin (see update below). The license plate dates the photo to 1925, and the car is not an official White House convenyance but a '24 Packard Single Eight running on DC dealer plates. Cool Cal and his guest are bracing against the wind, but the car is comfy warm thanks to its Pines Winterfront.

The Pines Winterfront Co. of Chicago manufactured thermostatically controlled radiator shutters. Invented by James Raleigh in the early 1920s, the Winterfront had a thermostat that pressed against the radiator core. When cold, its shutters cut off air flow, allowing the engine to warm up. When warmed up (I've read that the threshold was 130 degrees F, appropriate in the days of alcohol-based antifreeze with a low boiling point), the thermostat operated levers that opened the louvers. Winterfronts were sometimes made in universal generic form, like this display discovered by Eric Minoff, webmeister of the long-slumbering blog Cars at Large, at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. Others were shaped for a custom fit to their cars. Dan Strohl, protagonist at the Hemmings Blog and an inspired young pundit who gives us hope for the new breed of automotive journalists, came across a Peerless-badged Winterfront at Hershey in 2007. A trash can special, it was shaped specially to conform to the radiator of the 1926-28 models, much as the presidential Winterfront was tailored to the Packard's hallmark shell. Dan has since sold his Winterfront to a passionate Peerless partisan. In the early 1930s, some manufacturers used Pines thermostats to operate the shutters on their OEM radiator grilles.

Other automakers stuck with the pure and simple. Angus, my 1925 Hudson, has manually-operated louvers. A rod from the dashboard enables the driver to move them from open to shut, but one must watch the temperature gauge in order to regulate properly. Hudson built them into the radiator shell, but others, like this 1926 Nash, used a manual aftermarket unit.

Some time in the 1930s, manufacturers began to install thermostats inside their engines (does anyone know who was first, and when?). Thereafter, the need for Winterfronts faded. Eric notes that you never see Winterfronts on collector cars today. While they might be considered the ultimate accessory, they're useless on cars that are seldom driven in cold weather. Moreover, even those that are an exact fit to the radiator inevitably compromise the car's looks.

UPDATE: Dennis David points out that a better candidate for the mystery General is John "Black Jack" Pershing, then General of the Armies. It did occur to me that Stalin was unlikely to be in Washington in 1925 - the US didn't recognize the USSR until 1933. Does the flag on the car tell us more? Cropped out of the big picture is a reviewing kiosk or shelter bearing the general form of the Seal of the United States of America. So what was this event?

Dinky Toys

I've mentioned before that I never had Tonka toys when I was growing up. I was not deprived, however. By the time I was seven or eight I had been given several Dinky Toys, and a new era in my life had begun.

Dinky Toys were a British invention, sold by Meccano, Ltd., makers of construction sets akin to the Erector Sets made from 1911 to 1967 by the A.C. Gilbert Company of New Haven, Connecticut. Called "Modelled Miniatures," the first Dinkys appeared in 1934. They were die-cast models of popular cars and trucks in 1/42 scale, and were an immediate hit: by 1935 there were 200 different types.

Production halted during World War II, when metal was diverted to military use. Dinky manufacture resumed in 1945, and the postwar drive to export from Britain brought them to the United States. My first Dinky was an Alvis sports car, a make I'd never heard of. So fascinated was I with my Alvis that when a young truck driver from Memphis hit the charts with "Heartbreak Hotel" in 1956 I thought he'd been named for the car.

Other early arrivals in my Dinky collection were an Austin A40 Devon, of which there were many real examples in our northwest Connecticut neighborhood, an early British taxi and a double decker bus (I don't remember what happened to its tyres). Meccano knew their success depended on export, so American makes were not neglected. I had a '49 Ford, a '48 Hudson Commodore and a '48 Plymouth station wagon. On Saturdays, when I had saved a dollar from my allowance, I'd go to Marshall's Toyland and buy another Dinky.

There was one rather generic "truck" that appeared with a variety of bodies (mine lost an eye), an "articulated lorry" and a "tipper" (dump truck) whose bed could be raised with a crank. My earlier Dinkys saw much hard use; as time went on I played less so wear and tear decreased. My Land Rover shows only muddy tyres, the Studebaker fuel tanker looks almost new.

There were farming Dinkys, like the Massey-Harris with harrow, construction machinery like the road roller, and two- and three-wheel variants like the Royal Automobile Club patrol unit. The breakdown lorry, aka tow truck, had a working crane and winch. Now Quite rare, I'm told, are the petrol pump set and the vintage road signs.

My favorite Dinky is the Jaguar XK120 Fixed Head Coupe, a car I've found attractive from first sight. Even today, I drool when I see a real one. Until quite recently the Dinky Austin A90 Atlantic was the only example of that car that I'd ever seen.

Meccano was taken over by Tri-Ang, another British toymaker, in 1964, and afterwards the brand changed hands again and again. Eventually it was absorbed by Matchbox, now part of the eponymous Mattel empire. Dinky Toys, alas, are not what they used to be, but mine live on in a dusty old shoe box. From time to time I get them out to play.

Strawberry Shortcake

It was July 1990 and we were driving along in Beluga, our 1970 Chevy Impala, headed for a week's vacation in Vermont. We'd been contemplating a change in our automotive stable, as our three children were outgrowing the Impala and our other vehicles comprised a Peugeot 504 Diesel and a rusty Dodge Club Cab pickup. "What's that?" said Jill, referring to a large station wagon towing an immense camper that passed us easily on the Interstate. "That," said I, "is a Chevrolet Suburban." Instantly I had the answer to our dilemma.

I'd had a long succession of pickup trucks, the Club Cab a concession to the growing family, but increasingly a compromise one. Our friends were all buying minivans, a solution that was entirely practical yet unappealing. A Suburban, I reasoned, would replace both the Impala and the pickup, while forgoing only the ability to haul a load of manure for the garden.

A couple of weeks later I was perusing the Washington Post over breakfast while on a business trip to the nation's capital, when a classified item jumped out at me: 1980 Chevy Suburban, 454, towing package, low miles. With time to spare before my return flight that afternoon , I went to take a look. It was a '79, not an '80, but nearly indistinguishable since last redesign in 1973. The "low miles" were in the high 80s, but the price was negotiable. The seller took my offer, so I went to a bank and took a cash advance on my credit card so I could close the deal and go home with the title.

With temporary plates in hand, my son Edward and I (he the railfan) took the train to DC, then a taxi to Hyattsville, Maryland, where the Suburban awaited us. I had not driven the 'burb before purchase, as it was neither registered nor insured. Setting out on a 400 mile trip with no shakedown was a bit of a gamble, but the truck ran strong, if a bit rough, and displayed 45 psi oil pressure at idle.

I had bought a half-ton, two-wheel drive Suburban with Chevy's tough 454 cubic inch Mk IV engine. It had the all-important Class III hitch receiver and low-line mirrors. While not as sure-footed as a 4x4, its limited slip differential enabled it to cope easily with snow drifts. The upscale Silverado interior was state of the art in the day before power windows and leather had become de rigeur, it had the stylish Rally Wheels. While cargo doors were standard on Suburbans this one had been ordered with an electric window tailgate. It had its foibles. The air conditioning didn't hold a charge for long, and the cruise control had a vacuum leak that caused it to cruise in fits and starts. The roughness in the engine was traced to a missing pushrod. Someone had disabled both valves on one cylinder, perhaps as an economy measure. In any case, reconverting the V7 to a V8 made a world of difference. We named it "Strawberry Shortcake" after its color scheme of Cardinal Red and Santa Fe Tan.

Strawberry Shortcake took us far and wide, to Cape Cod, to Nova Scotia and easily towed my vintage Shasta camper to Hershey each October. The 454 pulled like a locomotive, so towing Angus, my 1925 Hudson was an easy task. After four years and about 60,000 miles I aspired to something different, so I sold Strawberry Shortcake to a classmate of my son Nick and treated myself to....another Suburban.

Socket to Me

One thing instilled in me by my late father was an appreciation for tools, their care and feeding and especially the use of the right tool for the job. As a jack of many trades, in his 89-year lifetime he accumulated quite an array of tools, many of which I still have.

One Christmas, some time after I started messing with cars, my parents gave me a set of socket wrenches. It was a wonderful present for a car-obsessed boy, and in the ensuing 50 years I've added to it. The initial set was half-inch drive, entirely adequate for the engines of that day, but over time I've acquired 3/8 and 1/4-inch drive sets and many specialized tools.

However, one never has enough tools. That was brought home to me shortly before Christmas when I decided to treat my current Chevy Suburban to a tune up, which these days consists merely of spark plugs, new wires and a distributor cap. The Suburban's small block Chevy V8 is very old-tech, forty years and counting when it was built. You'd think that any old tools would fit, but I found it impossible to remove the last two plugs on the left bank. My deep sockets were half-inch drive; the location demanded an extension but my short extension was too long. I had beaucoup extensions for my 3/8-drive set, but not for the half. Luckily, my next-door neighbor is a diesel mechanic with a cellar full of tools, and he doesn't mind lending. Fortunately, he was home so I borrowed a 3/8 drive deep socket. Instantly, though, I had an item to add to my Christmas wish list. While I was at it, I also asked for a new tool box, as my old ones had started to overflow.

My family did not disappoint. Jill and Harriet came up with 3/8-drive deep sockets, one set in inch sizes and the other metric. Nick followed with a superb tool box with three-drawer storage, plus a swiveling ratchet handle that will make the next plug change a breeze. Edward suggested I get some household drawer liner for the new box, which I duly installed before moving the tools to their new home. My traveling tools, however, the ones I take everywhere, remain in the Army surplus ammo box that's been their nest for decades.

Each of our children, male and female, has been given a tool set when they've reached the tinkering age. It occurred to me, though, that, while Jill has a collection of odd tools she keeps in her car, she has never had a proper set of socket wrenches. So for Christmas this year I got her a 53-piece set that should accomplish most any task she'll face. It's already seeing good use.