Hello folks, My girlfriend & I went on a road trip to go pick up my new project car. I bought a 59 Elcamino after chasing one for 15 years or so. Actually, more accurately I bought a jigsaw puzzle that looks like a '59 Elcamino. It is totally disassembled and there were 3 loads of parts that came with the car. Included was a complete extra new mexico rolling chassis. The one under the car is pretty much junk. I bought it from a gentleman in Florence, KY. About 500 miles from my home. We spent 2 weeks just preparing the trailer to go that far. We repainted the whole thing, fixed all of the lights & replaced a couple entirely & rewired it. New conspicuity stickers (expensive!!) and new wheels & tires. Looks like a new trailer to me. While we were down in the states we decided to take in the Henry ford Museum. I highly recommend it to anyone that has not gone. We spent 7 hours in it & did not see anywhere near all of it. Planning to go back at some point in time to see the rest. I have a whole bunch of pics but I will only post a few of the HAMB friendly ones. One crappy thing about the trip though, after the museum we stopped in Toledo Ohio to get a bite to eat & some thieving bastard decided that he needed my tools and all of our clothes more than we did. Made a police report but I don't expect to ever see the stuff again. Kinda put a damper on the trip. We made a couple of stops on the way home as well. I had to cross the border during business hours with the car in order to import it so we stopped to visit with a couple of friends. I want to thank Mike Farris (Hemifarris here on the HAMB) for his hospitality and patience while I took about 400 reference photo's of his absolutely beautiful '59 Elcamino. I met Mike at the home & shop of a person whose name a lot of you will know, Al Bergler. Al is the gentleman who built (and subsequently rebuilt) the More Aggravation dragster. This car was the winner of the first Ridler award in 1964. IMO, Al is not a fabricator, he is a craftsman. I was drooling on the two rail's that are underway in his garage right now. It was cool to be able to hang out for an afternoon with guys like Mike & Al. Lots of cool stuff in every nook & cranny of Al's garage. Wish I could have spent a bunch more time there but we had to get to the border to get home. Hoping to go back down at some point to hear some more stories & soak up some more history from folks who were there in the thick of it years ago. On to the pics.....
The Museum was cool, even if you are not a museum person there is all kinds of cool stuff to see. This custom Merc was there but very little info was available on it. Does anyone recognize it? There was a bunch of cool cars in the race cars section.
There was this tank, no information provided but I could see the engine cover on the ground behind the boat tailed racer that was lettered "Beatty Bros". The tank looked like the real deal with a bunch of battle scars & modifications over the years. it had several exhaust holes in the body that had been cut & repaired. When the engine combo changed I would guess.
There was a "Parade of progress" display that started with buggies & carriages (to be pulled by horses) that progressed through the years of horseless carriages to automobiles & then displayed innovative cars/idea's & technological advancements. Pretty cool to see, probably had 50 vehicles in this one exhibit. One of the coolest things in the parade was a T chassis cutaway. Really interesting but I wish I could have gotten all the way around it to take photo's. There were mirrors on the floor so you could see the stuff on the bottom though, that was helpful.
There was a bunch of airplanes as well, but a couple that would definitely interest this crowd. A Ford tri motor - these were known as the tin goose. They look like they are made of shed siding. A Ford Flivver. Henry's attempt to build an inexpensive airplane for the masses - to try to do the same for planes as he did for cars. It did not work out, only 2-3 were ever made. Another cool hot rod was this Deuce roadster. Built in 1954 by Richard Smith in Arizona. 331 Hemi in it. Cool car, looked to be very well built. Also found this display in the Industry section. a blown apart T that was in the middle of a display with information on Henry's production line.
I was told by a trucker friend that I would not be able to miss the Florence water tower. He was right... My new car is not too pretty, but I like it. I will start a thread just for it later on with more detailed pics. Loading. On the road.
I had talked with Mike (hemifarris) several times before I went down about taking some reference pics of his Elcamino to help me put mine back together. His is an absolutely beautiful car. I have to thank him again for allowing me to monopolize his afternoon while I snapped photo's as fast as I could. I have his permission to post a couple of photo's of his car. Mike & Al have been best friends since long before I was breathing & Al recently did some work to Mike's Elcamino including swapping all of the clear glass for factory tinted stuff. We worked out a deal & I bought the clear glass set from AL for my car. Al is one of the coolest most laid back guys you would want to meet. I was allowed to take pics of his shop while we were shooting the breeze and I was also given permission to post them up for you guys & girls to see too. It is a small shop but crammed with cool stuff. in the pic's there are 2 different dragster's that he is building. Al is in the background of the pic with the rail up on stands. He was a little camera shy. A model A sedan that he had just finished an aluminum 3 pc hood for before we got there. Beautiful work. Olds wagon that is the push car for the dragster's
Sorry for some of the fuzzy pic's the museum is a huge open space with funky lighting and kind of difficult to take clear pictures in.
Sorry I missed you guys AGAIN while passing thru town. Next time I know we said we'd go to dinner BUT perhaps I'll have you over for dinner instead and you can eat off my '59 ElCamino dining room table hood that is in the process of being fab'd up as I type this. I think you'll get a kick outta it.
Hello Tone, It was great meeting both you and Laura. You two are like a breath of fresh air. So sad about the theft in Toledo. Maybe next time you can visit for a weekend . We can go to breakfast club on saturday morning, (75-115 guys w/cars),then visit Dan Webb's shop and a couple more of my buddie's collections. Take care......Mike
Mike's Elcamino is absolutely stunning in person. It is a super clean, super straight ride. I hope mine turns out 1/2 that nice when I'm done with it.
I forgot to post a couple of pictures. The Goldenrod land speed racer lives in the Henry Ford as well. the display case has the scale model built before the fullsize car to test the aerodynamics. it also has a different set of air scoops. Apparently the ones that were on the car for the record run were designed by the Chrysler engineers, after the record run the Summers brothers installed the scoops they built themselves just for the hell of it & made a pass. The car was 17 MPH faster with the hot rodder designed scoops! The Ford GT40 that Dan Gurney drove
I have a strange fascination with the Weinermobile so please excuse these ones, I just had to. This is the original 1952 Weinermobile. Here is a cool old soap box racer. Photobucket just warned me that I am approaching my bandwidth limit so if the pics drop out I apologize.
Thank's for sharing, man, lovely pictures. I've always had a soft spot for the 59 elky. Was close to buy on several years ago, but didn't happen.
Hey, I live in Nebraska and North Platte is not too far from me. Very cool to see something from here in the Henry Ford Museum.
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