Road Chatter

E N D L E S S R O A D

Road Chatter XLIV

P.O. Box 655

Falling Waters, WV 25419

Shop: 304-274-5074

FAX: 304-274-5076

snipped-for-privacy@aol.com

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IN THIS ISSUE

• Car Trivia Questions

• Cars DVD Pre-Order

• Gift Certificate Give Away

• Formula 1

• Bits and Pieces

• Car Trivia Answers

• 10% Off Purchases For Your Trivia Questions

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Car Trivia (answers are later in this email)

1) Jenson Button is the only British driver in F1 right now, and he is out of the hunt for winning this year's Championship. At one time, the British and other English-speaking drivers won the Formula 1 championship for 12 years straight. Care to guess when that was and who the drivers were?

2) In the Muscle Car days, Chevy put out their mighty 409. It was available with one or two four-barrel carbs. In its second year, it put out 409 HP, equaling 1 HP per cubic inch, quite a feat at the time. It later reached 425 HP, with solid lifters and two-fours. You may remember it by the Beach Boys hit '409'. OK, Muscle Car Lovers, what years was the 409 engine available?

3) We haven't done a Henry Ford question lately. So, here's one now. In 1939, Mr. Ford said 'Every time I see an ------------, I take my hat off'. What marque was he speaking of?

4) And another question from the Ford family history: What automotive flop was named after Henry Ford's only son?

5) Pit Lane, Pit Stop, Pit Strategy. Every form of auto racing has pits, although drag-racers could call their area the paddock. But, when and where did the word PIT come into use?

--- Retreads ---

These next three questions are from over two years ago. If you remember them from before, consider this a memory test.

6) In what year did General Motors first use the name 'Super-Sport'?

7) American entries in Formula 1 are very scarce, but one of these select few was Don Nichols and his Shadow cars. What was the team's logo, and what was its inspiration?

8) His first contact with cars was when he went to an auto dealership near his home. They carried Ferrari, Mercedes, Rolls, Maserati - a wonderland for a car-crazy kid. He applied for a job and was promptly turned down. Not one to take NO for an answer, he showed up the next morning and announced that he was the new guy. They put him to work, washing and preparing the new cars to be picked up by the customers. After a few days, the boss that had turned him down was surprised to see him working there. The mechanics said he was doing a great job, so he got to stay. Who was the kid with so much chutzpah?

And the last two are from four years ago.

9) Speaking of logo's, do you know where Chevrolet got the idea for their famous 'Bow Tie' logo?

10) Juan Manuel Fangio is on many people's 'Top Drivers of All Time' list. He only raced once in America. What track was that? Who won?

(I'll give you that one. He did.)

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*Cars on DVD

Cars: The animated film about Cars for Car Guys by Car Guys. If you have read anything about this film, you know it is full of neat stuff and the voices of some automotive greats:

Paul Newman as Doc Hudson

They copied the Hudson color from a Hudson Mfg. paint chip.

Richard Petty as the Dodge Charger Daytona

As it should be in Petty Blue

Larry the Cable Guy as the tow truck, Mater

George Carlin as Filmore, the Hippy Dippy VW van

The Filmore was a theatre where many great bands of the 60's performed.

Cheech Marin as the '59 Chevy Impala Low Rider

Darrell Waltrip as the race announcer

Mario Andretti has a cameo as his old Ford stock car.

Every time you watch it, you will pick up more details and insider lines.

There is no sign on the horizon as to when it will come out on DVD. But when it does, we will have it at a low introductory price. We will take pre-orders just as soon as we have a date and a price.

We did this with the Grand Prix DVD at about a 30% discount and shipped them to arrive on its release date, the first day they were on sale to the public.

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• Gift Certificate Give Away

Our regulars know that every month, we give away a $30 Gift Certificate from Endless Road to one of our regular Road Chatter readers. We are happy to say the winner this month was Thomas from Prince Frederick, MD. Nice to see 'Tomahawke', one of our old customers from the shop, as the winner.

Again this month, for every purchase our regular Road Chatter Newsletter recipients make, we will put their names in our drawing, and the person whose name is drawn will receive a $30 Gift Certificate from Endless Road.

Good Luck.

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Formula 1

This year, the Super Aguri team was added, greatly increasing the odds that other lower-tier drivers would not finish dead last.

In 2008, there will be another new team on the track, Prodrive. F1 followers will recognize the driving force of Prodrive, David Richards. He was the former boss of British American Racing (BAR) till Honda bought the team and pushed him out. Richards is hoping that he can assemble a team depending on customer engines, possibly complete cars, from other F1 teams. He has approached McLaren about such a deal. At the same time, he hopes to have his cars as showcases for new technology from his other Prodrive customers.

David Richards first tasted competition watching RAC Rallying in the late

60's. Starting at the age of 16, he went on to win a World Rally Championship. And that was the beginning of his career winning championships for himself and his sponsors. He was the first to convince Rothmans to enter automotive competition, leading to wins in rallying, sportscar racing, and endurance racing for years.

You know Prodrive from their blue Subaru #555 Rally cars and their Aston Martins at Le Mans. Consider the cars that David Richards has driven or managed: Ford, British Leyland, Nissan, Lancia, Fiat, Porsche, BMW, and Subaru in Rallying; BMW, Alfa and Honda in BTTC; Porsche and Aston Martin in endurance racing; Renault, BAR and Benetton in F1; and Ferrari in The American Le Mans Series.

Pretty good for a guy who studied for a degree in accounting.

2006 Schedule

August 6 Hungary

August 27 Turkey

Sept. 10 Italy

Sept. 17 Belgium

Oct. 1 China

Oct. 8 Japan

Oct. 22 Brazil

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• Bits and Pieces

Do not get rid of your VHS machines; there are many great racing videos that are available on VHS tape and not scheduled to be put on DVD. And for those of you finding it difficult to find new blank tapes, we carry the Maxell tapes.

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The last several months, we have had a MY FAVORITE CAR story here from one of our readers. If you have fond memories of one of your fine machines and would like to tell us about it, send us your story, and, when we use it, you will have your pick of any one item we have on our web.

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Last month, Bob sent this note about a movie he was looking for.

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Do you know the movie that was about a guy who had a race one car hidden under the floor because cars were forbidden? The story took place in the future. He had a pump, so that when he would go to an abandoned gas station, he would pump the gas out of the main tank. Please help me identify this movie.

.......

Within days, three readers sent us notes that the movie was 'The Last Chase' with Lee Majors and Burgess Meredith from 1981. The car was a Porsche Can Am car.

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For those of you that frequented our shop in Savage Mill, you will be glad to hear that Detour Dave is now writing articles for DiecastX magazine. You can still see his ramblings on his site:

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This is floating around on the web:

Senior Carjacking

This is a true account as recorded in the Police Log of Sarasota, Florida. An elderly Florida lady did her shopping and, upon returning to her car, found four males in the act of leaving with her vehicle.

She dropped her shopping bags and drew her handgun, proceeding to scream at the top of her voice, 'I have a gun, and I know how to use it! Get out of the car!'

The four men didn't wait for a second invitation. They got out and ran like mad. The lady, somewhat shaken, then proceeded to load her shopping bags into the back of the car and got into the driver's seat. She was so shaken that she could not get her key into the ignition. She tried and tried, and then it dawned on her that there was a football, a Frisbee and two 12 packs of beer in the front seat!

A few minutes later, she found her own car parked four or five spaces farther down. She loaded her bags into the car and drove to the police station to report her mistake. The sergeant to whom she told the story couldn't stop laughing. He pointed to the other end of the counter, where four pale men were reporting a carjacking by a mad, elderly woman described as white, less than five feet tall, glasses, curly white hair, and carrying a large handgun.

No charges were filed.

If you're going to have a Senior Moment, make it a memorable one.

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Almost Heaven

We no longer have our shop in Historic Savage Mill. We have moved to West Virginia. No more Washington Beltway. No more 95 / 395 / 495 interchange traveling south in Virginia. No more five minutes to drive two miles past strip malls.

Things are a bit different here. The highway speed limit in WV is 70 MPH. So much nicer than the 55, 60, or max 65 in Maryland and Virginia. Yes, there are states that have 75 MPH, and Texas is toying with 80 MPH, but for now, we are happy with what we can get.

There is a winding, hilly, two-lane road with plenty of blind corners and reverse banks a few miles from here, leading to Berkeley Springs. The speed limit is 55 MPH. It's almost not so much a limit as a goal.

Looking at our Maryland road map, there's our Governor in a suit and tie. The WV road map has its governor and his wife in their leathers, astride their touring motorcycle.

And, we are less than half an hour from Summit Point Raceway!

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There is a closed flea market a few miles from here. We assume the two lines on the marquee are not related to each other, but who knows? It reads:

Perhaps Jesus Will Come Today

Flea Market Closed

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West Virginia has up to eight letters on a tag.

That opens up so much more to the License Tag Novelist.

Two of our favorite license tags this month are both eight letters:

- A Mini John Cooper Special reminding us that John was a New Zealander: MINIKIWI

- A Barracuda 440: ICAUGHT1

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Car Trivia Answers

1) The English-speaking F1 champions for 12 years straight were:

1958 Mike Hawthorne - English

1959 Jack Brabham - Australian

1960 Jack Brabham again

1961 Phil Hill - American

1962 Graham Hill - English (London actually)

1963 Jim Clark - Scottish, of course

1964 John Surtees - English

1965 Jim Clark again

1966 Jack Brabham for the third time

1967 Denny Hulme - New Zealand

1968 Graham Hill once again

1969 Jackie Stewart - Scottish

(Thanks to our friend, Jeff, for this one.)

2) Chevy's Mighty 409 was available from 1961 to mid 1965.

3) When Henry Ford said 'Every time I see an Alfa Romeo, I take my hat off', he was expressing his respect for the highly regarded favorite of Europe's elite for decades. Alfa has been away from our shores since the early 90's. It was a great affordable Italian beauty, with quite a rabid following. And now, Alfa is making noises (again) about coming back to The States. This time, they are discussing bringing in a $200K Competition coupe. That will be followed by their Alfa Romeo Brera Q4 with a GM based 3.2 litre 256 HP V6, Alfa designed heads, cam, and a purely Alfa exhaust note. The sound alone should make it worth waiting for.

4) The automotive flop that was named after Henry Ford's only son was the Edsel. It is said that they are still plentiful in Cuba. Maybe that is what Ford did with them after the car bombed here.

5) In the beginning, racers would just pull over to the side of the track for fueling and repairs. The area was called the Service Depot. But then, this would often block the view of the paying customers in the stands. So a trench was dug, running along between the stands and the track. The track would be a bit wider there with a row of railroad ties to define the edge of the track. There was a length of wood flooring resembling a narrow boardwalk between the railroad ties and the trench or 'pit'. Areas of the pit would be divided by chicken wire for the individual teams. All the spares, tires, fuel and mechanics would be in the pit. The example we found, and possibly the first to do this, was at the 1908 Grand Prix at Dieppe, France.

(Thanks very much to our friend, Jeff, for this one, too.)

--- Retreads ---

6) When did General Motors first use the name 'Super Sport'? You may remember the 1961 Chevy Super Sport, but Oldsmobile used it in 1922! From CHEVY SUPER SPORTS 1961 - 1976 by Terry V. Boyce:

'One of the earliest applications of the Super-Sport name to an automobile was made by Oldsmobile in 1922. That Super-Sport was a four-passenger sport touring outfitted with numerous special features. It was described as 'The smartest of smart cars,' as Oldsmobile modestly declared that it sparkled with originality. It had cycle fenders, disc wheels, step plates, a nickel radiator shell and, believe it or not, a V8.'

(Thanks to our friend, Warren.)

7) In 1973, after his outrageous entry in Can Am, Don Nichols entered F1 with his car designed by Tony Southgate, who also designed for BRM. The Shadow's logo was a silhouette of a man in hat and cloak, with the word Shadow in the foreground. The inspiration was 'The Shadow', as in 'The Shadow Knows' from radio and earlier pulp fiction books.

(Thanks again to our friend, Jeff, for this one.)

8) The new kid on the job, Jay Leno, probably has more exotics now than were in the shop the day he lied his way into the job.

9) What Chevrolet is calling a BOW-TIE was, in fact, the design on the wallpaper in a hotel in Chicago, IL, where Louis Chevrolet stayed. The background of the wallpaper was black, and the 'Bow-Tie' was white. It is said that he tore off a sample to show the boys at GM.

(Thanks for this new and improved answer from our friend, Richard C.)

10) Fangio ran at Sebring in 1957 in a Maserati 450S. That car was back at Sebring in 2002 as part of their 50th Anniversary Celebration.

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10% Off Purchases For Your Trivia Questions

To Jeff M, Warren M, and Richard C, thanks for the trivia questions. Remember, you all will receive 10% discounts on your next orders.

Send us an interesting fact on just about anything on wheels: cars, trucks, F1, Drags, Muscle Cars, weird obsolete car thingies, whatever, and, when we use it, you get 10% off all purchases on everything on your next order.

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Thanks,

Dave Payne