Technical The Ala Kart Suspension: What was George thinking?

Packard didn't use air bags, they had torsion bars front and rear.

 

There are a couple of grumpy posters that definitely need more prune juice....

 

Thank you

And Thank you again

 

A La Kart has what it has.

Everyone else only has a semantic argument.

 

I don’t think Barris had anything / much to do with the chassis, I remember reading peters and blackie drove to LA almost every week to work on the truck at Barris shop also

 

Dad had them on his 53 Buick.

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Guys . . . got to realize Ala Kart, Mysterion, Sillouhette, Beatnik Bandit, etc., etc., etc., are NOT cars, they are fine art. And we are all better for their existence.

 

“What’s a coil spring and who the hell is George Harris?” - too much of the classic car community today.

 

Packard's interconnected torsion bars were intended as an arguably superior alternative to Cadillac etc.'s air suspension. It's brilliant even if it's clear that Bill Allison himself didn't quite understand how it was supposed to work.

 

Here's all the pics you could ever want: http://www.roybriziostreetrods.com/progress/mumford_ak/index.htm

 

Alchemy
Thank you so very much

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MrPhat40


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has this car ever even moved under it's own power since being built?

 

See poet #38.

 

air lift was used on 1957 stock cars

 

Both front and rear show a panhard bar coil should work just fine. Before coil overs got big a lot of cars used rear coils Speedway still offers the mounts. More site friendly than coil overs. https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Search?Facet=GA_SuperMarket:Street&query=coil+spring+mount

 

Yep, 'split' wishbone. BUT! I recall first time seeing Ala Kart in the show. I was aghast at the 30* bent 'bones, wow...Super no-no.
But the coils were nicely engineered, bracket and parallel-wise...(no visible 'bind'...)

 

CLASSIC EXAMPLE, Gimpy: "Who you gonna believe? ME, or your lyin' eyes?"

 

If you mean since being built in the mid ‘50’s then the answer is yes. At some point the carbs were changed out for Hilborn stack injectors and one time when it was driven there was an engine fire. I don’t know who owned it at the time but it may have been AMT.
There was pretty extensive damage, top end of engine, firewall, cowl, paint and part of upholstery.
I agree on it being a piece of art but it did run and drive. If there had been a Ridler Award back then it would have crushed the competition at that show too.
On the other hand, since the Brizio restoration it might be a trailer queen, John Mumford has plenty of other cars to drive.

 

Engine too small...I once saw a model magazine article with that statement. The writer thought the engine was a chrysler, and it was indeed too small for that, but there were THREE sizes of hemis in different external sizes and no real interchange: Dodge, DeSoto, and Chrysler, from small to large. Barris used the Dodge (or perhaps DeSoto, I'm far too lazy to lookitup!), MUCH smaller in overall size. I'd say from the AMT model they got size about right.
BUT for AMT getting the size right was an accident...if you look at that era, AMT engines were interchangeable masses meant to fit early Fords in 1/25 and fitting the standard AMT mounts*...if the engine had been a 392 it STILL would have fit the model!
Suspension by bagged coil would in terms of support have been essentially the same except for the considerable anti-sway help of a properly set up cross spring. Whoever built the Ala Kart chassis knew that and put in Panhard bars, which are hard to spot in the blinding jungle of chrome.
That chassis is incidentally one of the most accurate Model A setups out there in 1/25, pretty much a standard A-V8 chassis.

*AND...I believed that when I was 12! I once almost bought a 352 Packard as an engine for my immobile pile-of-junk 32, quite sure that with the available Ford adaptor and the imaginary Hurst mount tabs it would drop right in!

 

Perhaps Bill (@slixauto) Ganahl will chime-in ... back in 2001, Billy was working at Roy Brizio's shop and performed most of the restoration of the Ala Kart for John Mumford.

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Is that drive the Ala Kart or the Howli Kart? I don't have sound, maybe it says in the audio?

 

That's the Howli Kart. No hood scoop and it's an automatic trans.

 

There's no narration in the video ... but I'm pretty sure is was Howdy Ledbetter's "Ala Kart II" Tribute Car (aka the "Howli Kart" named after his daughter).

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EDIT: D'oh! ... @Paint beat me to it!

 

Ma Mopar had them to in the late 50's.........

 

Found this in a October 1958 Hot Rod Magazine.....

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The original Barris truck ran all around Wichita Kansas years ago back when it was on the show circuit .

 

Quick disclaimer...I have never built anything that pretty or influential...I never will...But, Some of those build details remind me those pics of porn stars without make-up.

 

I heard about that and I also heard who was driving it but don't tell Starbird