Gearhead, wrench, artist

As a matter of course, I write about people I don’t know here. I see a unique vehicle; I chase it down, photograph it, and interview the owner. Today, I’m writing about a good friend.







Mark and I met in art school back in the early 70s. He was studying Industrial Design, making sculpture for fun. And fixing up Corvairs. He was driving a primer white one then, with no interior trim except for the dashboard, driver’s seat, and - when you were lucky - a seat for you.

Ralph Nader would have been horrified. In fact, Mark’s license plate said it all; “UNSAFE”.







After a gap of some 30 years, I have had the pleasure of getting back in touch with Mark. He is still doing things his own way. (“Well, I lack any adult supervision”, he points out.) It struck me as ironic that he has worked for many years at Johnson Controls, testing and trouble-shooting automotive seats and interior parts.







And he’s still fixing up Corvairs. And Camaros, and ‘Vettes. And Chevy pickup trucks.







Mark has the skills to take a car completely apart, and the vision to then re-assemble that pile of parts. Each part, no matter how mundane, is cleaned, straightened, refinished before it is assembled into a complete, drivable vehicle. A work of art – industrial design and sculpture.







In the process, he has collected what he calls “The Archive” of Chevrolet parts from the 60s, mainly Corvair, some of which you see here. It may look as though these parts are just piled up randomly. They are not. Virtually every part is tagged and cataloged, hardware bagged and attached, and many carry Mark’s hand-drawn diagrams illustrating how this particular component attaches to its neighbors to eventually form an entire automobile.







Mark says he has enough Corvair parts to assemble “at least two really nice ones.” Which he might do, when he is finished restoring the 1953 Chevy pickup in the garage. And rebuilding his 1923-vintage wood frame house.







Mark took some time from all this restoration to collaborate with me on a photographic exposition of human expression through the automobile for a School of Art Alumni Show, and it was a gas to work with him.


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Your father’s Ferrari - Vintage racing at Road America

To those of us old enough to recognize a carburetor, there’s a powerful attraction to cars that possess these old mixing pots for fuel and air.

The cars of the post WWII era through the mid-seventies hold a spell on gearheads, especially racing cars.

While a modern race car is pretty much a computer lab on wheels, leaving a wake of data that’s analyzed and acted upon in real-time by a crew of engineers along the pit wall, these cars were generally designed without the aid of wind tunnels or computer simulators. Many are simply modified road cars that were never intended for competition.

Road car or purpose-built racer, they represent a team’s or sometimes a single man’s best guess at what would be fast at a given point in time. In the absence of actual data, there is wonderful and endless variety in their forms, dominated by the sure knowledge that lighter is better and a part is only too light if it breaks.

The purpose-built race cars are hand-made by experts at casting, machining and bending metals and other more exotic materials, and the intricacy of their construction is mind boggling. Full attention to the smallest part is required, or that part becomes the one that is not able to withstand the stress and the heat, and gives way, taking the entire operation out of the race.

All excess material having been shaved off, parts are frequently polished to various levels of reflectivity, sometimes just to show off the beauty of their forms.

The Kohler International Challenge at Wisconsin’s Road America is an annual gathering of aficionados of old race cars from all over the world. They come to celebrate the sounds and sights of these vintage machines. They represent a high point in optimizing an internal combustion engine and a set of four wheels to carry a single person as fast as possible around a given stretch of road.

The lucky ones even get to race them.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Vintage Wooden Driver – 1984 Chrysler LeBaron Town & Country

About the same time that serious golfers were bagging their wooden drivers and moving to metal-headed ones, Chrysler was bolting wood-like panels to its boxy K-car LeBaron, in the 50-year-old tradition they branded “Town & Country”.

I caught up with this one, most appropriately, in the parking lot of a local country club. The Town & Country could not have been more comfortable unless the forecast of thunder showers had not discouraged a top-down ride.

By 1984, Lee Iacocca had moved over from Ford to take the stick of the nose-diving Chrysler, which he saved by going to Washington in 1979 and asking the government for loan guarantees to calm banks and deserting investors. But in addition to his considerable political skills, Lee was a car guy with legendary ability to read the market, even before his customers. (Remember Iacocca’s personal challenge in those TV commercials; “If you can find a better car, buy it.”) Without this K-car and its siblings, it’s safe to say that Chrysler would not have survived to be bailed out again.

The Town & Countries were almost all station wagons, making this convertible quite rare, with just over 1,100 built in 1984. It was definitely the high-end variant of the K-car, with Mark Cross supplying the design of the “fine Corinthian” leather interior touted so famously by spokesman Ricardo Montalban.

This car also has the “Electronic Voice Alert”, which the owner tells me still works perfectly. Built by Texas Instruments, and using the same voice synthesizer technology as the contemporary “Speak n Spell” educational toy, the system lowers the radio volume (if necessary) and provides polite reminders to put on your seatbelt, seek service for a critical engine problem, and, when disembarking, “Don’t forget your car keys”.

The owner, Mr. O’Neil (who tells me his friends call him “Tip”), smiled and told me “And it always says “Thank you’. (You can listen to an EVA and a Speak n’ Spell having a conversation - of sorts – here.)

Mr. O’Neil is recently retired and drives the car almost exclusively to the club. Tip told me he has worked there for over 30 years. When I asked him if he was a Pro, he smiled and said, “Yeah. I’m a professional bartender.”

While he worked nights and weekends drawing beers for people of comfortable means, Mr. O’Neil worked days for as many years teaching kids who are “at risk” at a local high school. “It was very challenging,” he told me, “but I loved it.”

I think it’s wonderful that Mr. O’Neil and his Town & Country get to spend so much time at the club these long summer days. They’ve both worked hard and done a fine job. In the words of the Electronic Voice Alert, Mr. O’Neil; “Thank you”.

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Land Shark; flat black 2000 Ford Taurus

I was meeting my friends Clay and Paul in a hip café near campus on the east side of Milwaukee. How hip? Deep fried balls of shredded turkey meat with mashed potatoes and beer gravy? Comet Café. Farwell Avenue.

As I approached, I sensed the presence of this menacing car.

Go ahead and snicker. I don't blame you. There is probably no more domesticated a car than a 2000 Ford Taurus.

But look into the yellowed, moist, cataract-covered eyes of this beast. Even the self-adhesive Gothic symbols are shredding themselves from its flanks. There’s a roll of toilet paper on the rear package shelf, for God’s sake. This is a nasty car. Nasty.

I was telling Clay and Paul about it as I slid into the booth.

Our waitress, Ariel, smiled cheerily and said “Oh, that’s my car.”

“I got the sweet Wolverine gash when I backed into a fence.”

This incident prompted the paint job, and the blood gushing from the wound is meant to make a statement. “I wanted to enter a demolition derby, so I wanted her to look real mean," Arial told me, clenching her teeth a little bit. (She also confided that she sometimes refers to the Taurus as the “BratMobile”, but that’s not an "official" name. I'm sure she'll come up with something more intimidating.)

"But then I found out that the derbies have all these safety requirements, like a special gas tank, harnesses, and everything. And the suspension is shot. I was afraid I wouldn’t even meet the safety standards for a demolition derby." There's your proof. This car is too dangerous for the demolition derby.

“There was never any doubt about the color. It was always going to be flat black.”

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010
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Stock cars at Road America

NASCAR was in the my neck of the woods over the weekend, and the opportunity to see the big cars muscle around Road America’s 14 – left and right – corners was not to be missed.

I’ve been to any number of the United States’ premier road racing circuits; Laguna Seca, Mid-Ohio, Michigan, Indianapolis, and Watkins Glen for the U.S.G.P back in the day. Plus a bunch of smaller circuits for SCCA club events. But Road America is by far my favorite race track.

Road America would be a lovely place to spend the afternoon even if there weren’t a race track there. Deep green forests of mature oaks stand at the tops of long lush hills leading down to the track.

To someone from Wisconsin, it’s almost unnatural that there are no Holsteins on the slopes of the valley that holds turn five.

When there’s a race, it’s like county fair time, but instead of prize cows you have these amazing cars.

In this case, it was the NASCAR Nationwide cars that were stampeding around the course, and these animals do have some very wide shoulders. The NASCAR boys are not afraid to lean on the competition when things get tight, and Road America has lots of turns where things got very tight. Too tight in a couple of cases. NASCAR needs to learn that a car off the course doesn’t necessitate a full course yellow flag until - well, until the cows come home.

Unfortunately, I was not at Canada Corner when the three lead cars entered this legendary downhill 90-degree right-hander side-by-side, but that amazing moment has been added to the lore of this track, which goes back to the mid-50’s – the very beginning of sports car racing in the U.S.

I don’t know if you’d call these machines sports cars, but I’m pretty sure the drivers enjoyed their drive in the country about as much as we enjoyed watching them.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Crazy ‘bout a Mercury Ford

In tribute to the fallen Mercury, here are some that I have photographed recently.

I had my money
I tell you what I'd do
I would go downtown an’
Buy a Merc'ry or two
I'm crazy 'bout a Merc'ry
Yes, I'm crazy ‘bout a Merc'ry Ford
I’m gonna buy a Merc'ry an’
Cruise up and down the road

Mercury Boogie by K. C. Douglas and Robert Geddins

My Dad’s first job with Ford was actually with the L-M division, so I have known more than a few Mercurys. A Turnpike Cruiser - which I remember for its extremely awkward styling – and a Comet Caliente which I remember for being a red convertible with a four-on-the-floor are the only two that stand out.

Mercury’s best years occurred before I was born – on the salt flats, beaches and drag strips of Southern California. But I did get to see Cale Yarborough and David Pearson muscle huge Mercury Cyclones around Michigan International Speedway back when NASCAR stock cars were basically stock cars. And I saw the great Dan Gurney race a Cougar wheel to wheel with Panelli Jones in a Mustang and Mark Donohue in a Camaro in the classic TransAm series.

Sales figures prove that there are not a lot of people who will mourn, or even miss, Mercury. But as long as it was breathing, there was always the possibility that it would get an infusion of support from Ford management. Not-quite-a-Lincoln is obviously not a viable niche, but perhaps it could have become the Scion of Ford. Could the brand survive as the entry gateway to Ford, rather than the exit from it?

Ford says they are now going to focus those Mercury resources on developing Lincoln. Judging from the Mercury products of recent years, that is not a lot.

I’ve got my fingers crossed for Lincoln.

All contents copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

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Cartoon Caravan

I came across this second generation Dodge Caravan parked in downtown Sterling, Illinois one morning.

It’s really unfortunate that I didn’t get a chance to meet the owner, because I would love to discuss the iconography behind this art.

Signed over the driver’s side headlight by “tater”, this is much better work than your run-of-the-mill ”Hey, let’s get out some damn brushes and paint the damn minivan!” minivan.

The whole thing has sort of a Peter Max/Yellow Submarine 1960s vibe to it, yet I didn’t see a single peace sign. And there are some edgier elements, like the rats and the voracious-looking shark and T-Rex comparing maws across the rear hatch. Then there’s the boxing condiments. (How do you even tell when a ketchup bottle is bleeding?)

The flying eyeball prominent on the hood has been symbolizing the all-seeing eye of various gods going back millennia, and has a prominent place in “Kar Kulture” due to its frequent use by the legendary pinstripe designer known as Von Dutch.

There’s a Native American “dream catcher” and a Christmas tree perilously close to an old-school Spy-vs.-Spy bomb (fuse lit!)

I welcome your interpretations of any of these elements, I’m sure they’re as good as mine. But I’d love to talk to you, tater. If you see this, drop me a line, man.

All content copyright Jeffery Blackwell 2010

My blog on True/Slant

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