Corvette History Part 2: A Fish Tale

Last week began the seven part series on the history of the Corvette, starting with the first generation of Corvettes.  This week, we’re looking at the Corvette’s next evolutionary leap:  the 1963-67 “C2.”

With an established reputation and a (finally) profitable product line, the guys in the Corvette design and engineering team got down to the business of building a second generation of “the poor man’s sports car.”  Japanese-American designer Larry Shinoda had already conceived a prototype, dubbed the “Mako Shark” after the deadly sea creature that inspired it, which toured autoshows across the country in 1961.  

Corvette History part 1: A legend is born

This week not only kicks off a new web address–SundayCruiseFever.com–it also kicks off our 7-part series on the Chevy Corvette, from C1 to C6 and beyond.

 

Name a car that has the lasting power of the Corvette-that is, name a single model of car that’s been produced continuously for 55 years.  One that’s kept the same configuration, without being humiliated with the optional station wagon, “sport wagon,” crossover wagon, or any other body style of the week that Detroit pukes up.  The ‘Vette is a car that whose power, attitude, and most importantly, style, has stood up on its own for over half a century.

Big, Bad & Purple

No, it’s not a Barney the Dinosaur re-run.  This purple hunk of Detroit sculpture is Clarence Zabolotny’s ‘51 Ford “Custom.”

Clarence’s car was originally built by Bill Chartier, near Selkirk, Manitoba.  The car itself started out as a 1951 Ford Coupe, but has since been transformed into the beautiful machine you see here.  It’s received the usual chopping & stretching treatment to the roof and headlights, and what appears to be a re-sculpting of the hood as well.  Laying cutting torch to metal to accomplish this is a rite-of-passage for the “lead sled” scene, an initiation process that traces its roots to the original legends of hot rodding.

One of the earliest pioneers were Larry and Mike Alexander, best remembered as the Alexander Brothers.  Larry, the older brother, started tinkering with cars as a young man, before joining the army in 1948.  While he served his country, Mike picked up his first hot rod-a ‘32 Ford three-window, which was promptly traded for a ‘41 Ford Coupe.  The car had its doorhandles and trim shaved which, although it wasn’t the first, still made Mike a pioneer in the Kustom world.  After both had served a tour of duty for Uncle Sam, the two began repairing cars out of their father’s garage in their spare time.  Over time, this became a full-time venture, which led to the brothers becoming automotive legends.

However, the greatest contribution to Lead-Sledding was made by someone who wasn’t happy with his new car.  Sam Barris (no relation to George Barris) went to the local dealership to pick up his shiny, new 1949 Mercury Coupe.  Even though the ‘49 Mercs and Fords heralded a new age in automotive engineering, Sam still wasn’t happy with the roofline-and he intended to fix it.

What resulted was the first recorded “Top Chop” on a ’sled, a car that reputedly still pops up from time to time.  Sam’s influence didn’t end there, however.  His later contributions to the cause of hot rodding were fondly remembered by his peers, who immortalized him decades later in “The Rose,” a customized 1951 Mercury Custom.

 

Of course, it’s the paint that makes these cars really sparkle.  And it was thanks to the efforts of one Joe Bailon that we have “six-inch deep” colours covering these picture-perfect rods.  According to Joe, he was driving at night when he was inspired by the tail lights of another car.  ”It was so pretty…  I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have the whole car the colour of the taillight?”  What followed was ten years of experimenting before finally inventing a process that leads to the dream colour, which he named Candy Apple Red.  And just like top chops, the process has become standard in lead sleds, as well as the lowrider and general hot rod populace.

That’s it for this week’s article, but come back next week as we celebrate something special:  Our new web address, at SundayCruiseFever.com!  And to kick off the name change in style, we’ll be doing a 7-part series on the Corvette, starting with the C1, going right through to the next generation of The General’s All-American supercar, one generation per week.

See a car you like?  Get a print, a T-shirt, and much more featuring any image off this website!  Click Here to find out more!

Do you want Sunday Cruise Fever in your media outlet?  Contact Jordan at jordan.morningstar@gmail.com or (204) 997.8827 to get great automotive content in your publication or website!

 

Required Reading:

The Leadsled Blog:  Not a car site, but a well-titled blog from artist/illustrator Dominic Bugatto.

Hall of Fame:  Alexander Brothers in Custom Rodder magazine

Runnin’ With The Rat Pack:  River City Rad Rodz Car Club featured in Willy’s Garage

Required Listening:

The Creepshow:  Burlington, Ontario-based Hellbilly band.  It’s what you listen to in a lead sled.

The Creepshow official website

Pontiac “Surfin’ Safari” Wagon

In 1950’s Southern California, something big was emerging.  A combination of fast cars, slick-haired hot rodders, youthful spirit, and a new sound called “rock & roll” came together to create an entire lifestyle that spread around the world.  This “Something Big” is now a car culture that permeates the entire world, inducting more and more car nuts to our way of life every year.

Although that new sound is much different today, it was those original classics that helped to forge the lifestyle that many of us are a part of.  However, one band known simply as The Beach Boys, went the extra mile to weld a connection between  the hot rodding community and the “devil’s music” that blared from AM transistor radios back in the day.

This definitely isn’t The Beach Boys-it’s The Matadors, a rockabilly band that’s embraced the term “Devil’s Music” as a theme in their stage show

In 1963, the Beach Boys had gone into the studio and laid tracks on two new songs–”Shut Down” and “409,” both hot-rod themed songs.  Somebody at Capitol Records had heard the tracks, and promptly had them added to a compilation record, without the permission of the band.  In order to prevent the label from stealing their music, lead singer Brian Wilson dragged The ‘Boys into the studio and rushed the production of “Little Deuce Coupe,” their fourth album.  Recording and production happened so quickly, the record was in stores less than a month after their previous album, “Surfer Girl” had been released.

Although going from start to finish in less than a month is pretty impressive on its own, the biggest impact “Little Deuce Coupe” made was on the music world.  Because all the songs were directly or indirectly related to cars or car culture, it became the world’s first concept album.  The idea of having an entire album dedicated to a single theme is still popular in every genre, such as Corb Lund’s recent Civil War-themed album, “Horse! Soldier, Horse!”  Even songs about cars are still incredibly popular, such as “Jesus Built My Hot Rod” by Ministry, or Van Halen’s “Panama” (which is actually about a car David Lee Roth saw in Las Vegas).  Even the signature “surf rock” sound pioneered by the Beach Boys and others is still being cranked out today by bands such as The Aqua Velvets, The Tormentos, and Dick Dale & The Del-Tones.

* * *

Fifty years later, Daral Travis of Thunder Bay, ON, was up to his elbows restoring a 1970 Pontiac Bonneville Safari Wagon when he ran into a dilemma.  He had just stripped everything off the car to make room for a dark green paint job when he realized that he had removed the one thing that separates the “Safari” model from just another station wagon-namely, the fake wood panelling.

The rest of the car was done to the nines;  the stock 350 received a performance intake manifold and some chrome dress-up bits, the new chrome wheels had received a set of fake knock-offs, and the back windows had all been tinted a near-opaque shade of dark.

The car was certainly ready to drive, too.  Daral didn’t say how many miles it sees every year, but it’s at least been to the 2008 Car Craft Nationals in St. Paul, Minnesota.  There’s a good chance the Pontiac sees a lot more miles than that; this photo session took place at a strip mall in Winnipeg, roughly 700 kilometres from its home.

But back to the original dillema-what to do with a Safari wagon when it isn’t a Safari wagon anymore?  That’s when Daral looked to The Beach Boys’ first album for inspiration.  He collected the emblems off several 1970 Pontiacs until he could spell out “Surfin” by cutting and re-gluing them back together.  This was attached next to the original “Safari” emblem on the rear quarter-panel, creating the world’s only Pontiac Surfin’ Safari Wagon.

Daral and his friends have had a lot of fun with this family hauler, and not just driving and showing it.  Apparently, their favourite prank is telling people that GM built it this way.  ”The scary part,” Daral said, “is how many people walk away believing it.”

That’s it for this week, but don’t forget to come back next week for more great cars, and more great stories.  And don’t forget that all pictures on this site are available as prints-Click here to find out more!

Required Reading:

The story of ‘32 Ford “Little Deuce Coupe” from the Beach Boys album cover

Official Beach Boys website

Required Listening:

“409″ by the Beach Boys

“Surfing Safari” by the Beach Boys

“Panama” by Van Halen

“Spanish Blue” by the Aqua Velvets

“Drag Strip Night” by The Tormentos

“Misrilou” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones

“Nitro” by Dick Dale & The Del-Tones

1969 Oldsmobile 442 coupe

Camping as we know it today consists of being old, buying an RV/small house on wheels, and putting more gasoline through it than the average Petro-Canada refinery.  Somewhere along the line, you give up all your driving skills and become this guy:

 

But for Grant McKay, camping with the family meant shining up his ‘69 Olds 442 Coupe and hooking a small trailer behind.  And not just for one summer while the truck was in the shop–Grant did this for nearly twenty years, right up until 1995.

But let’s go back a step.  Grant’s ‘69 Olds came to him in 1975, when his family was young and he needed to get around.  And when getting around meant going on vacations, he installed a trailer hitch to cart the family across this great continent.  The car served him faithfully, even outliving it’s own namesake.

The big hunk of street muscle was eventually replaced, and it stayed parked until 2001.  That’s when Grant decided it was time to “freshen up” his classic machine, starting with the engine.  The 445 cubic inch big-block Olds engine was bored .030″ over, and stuffed with a Comp Cams camshaft, roller rockers, and an Edelbrock Performer intake manifold.  And to help the bigger, tougher engine breath, a 2″ flowmaster dual-exhaust  system was installed.  All that power gets to the ground thanks to the stock Muncie 4-speed transmission and posi rearend.

These days, Grant’s new truck takes care of camper duty.  However, the truck also has a role in the Oldsmobile’s new life: hauling it to Gimli Dragways for race weekends.  Hey, with that much engine under the hood, what else would you do with this classic 442?

Required Reading for this week:

Wikipedia’s entry on the Oldsmobile 442

The Olds 442 area of MuscleCarClub.com

The Official Oldsmobile Site

See a picture that you like?  Click Here to get any of these images as prints, T-shirts, Mugs, or more!

Sorry Folks….

For all of you regular readers, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for coming back to the site every week to read the articles.  Knowing that people read and enjoy what I put up on this site makes it worth the extra time and effort, not to mention making car shows just that little bit more fun!

That said, I regret to tell everyone that today’s article won’t be up until tomorrow (Wednesday).  You see, I got married this past weekend, and according to my new wife it was more important to attend our ceremony than Sunday Night Cruise.  Sheesh, the sacrifices us married guys have to make!

Thanks to my new cousin, Alannah Bowes, for capturing this great shot of our centrepieces

But fear not, if you really need your automotive writing fix.  There’s a new article on a classic Oldsmobile 4-4-2 that you don’t want to miss, coming tomorrow.  So until then, keep it shiny side up!

**Just a quick reminder:  If you see a picture of yours or a friend’s car on this site–or any image you just plain like–you can get prints, T-shirts, Mugs and more featuring the car pictures you see here.  Click Here to find out more!