Wednesday, August 27, 2014

ILLINOIS STOCK CAR HALL OF FAME - HISTORIC AUTO ATTRACTIONS PART 1 AND THAT FRENCH STORE JC PENNEY

As you will see this museum turned out to be many museums in one, first part a racing tribute wing

 Richard Petty's actual, not replica 60 Plymouth
 Gotta love the crude seat bolsters to hold the King in the seat!




 One side stock flathead, the other side a look at hop up parts from back in the day


 Found as is shows the good ol' boys homemade modifications 




 This Dodge below now has a new home in Pennsylvania and it was the JC Penney "Penney Pincher"  
 Very rare factory A/FX racers with Fiberglass body parts shown below 
Mopar was building lightweight A/FX race cars that included some special aluminum body parts replacing fenders and bumpers and then acid dipping the steel parts to lighten the car even more so you can imagine the HEMI powered altered wheelbase terror!  A990 sound familiar? They were kinda outlawed by NHRA and were raced in AHRA sanctioned racing.
6 Dodges and 6 Plymouth's were built before they were disqualified NO ALUMINUM BODY PARTS!
The Men of Mopar came up with the fiberglass  body parts and had to offer them as an option on street cars. It appears only one fiberglass clad racer was ever ordered and by JC Penney! 

The "Penney Pincher" was used to promote the department stores line of auto parts, just like Sears except they offered a line of hi-performance parts under the FX line including Magnesium wheels (Mags,got it?) and drag slicks!  
    

 Mini Bikes,Tools and Drag slicks. 
 The trade name was Tigre 


 Some crazy collection of race cars!






 Almost missed the NASTRUCK up in the lights 
 As you will see soon there much more to this museum and how does one man build such an impressive assemblage of history? 
Wayne Lensing operates "Lefthander" which is a very successful mail order race car parts supplier just across from the museum

Monday, August 25, 2014

WHAT'S ON YOUR GARAGE, NO I SAID ON, NOT IN!

My feelings are mixed on this new trend although the first one is very cool!
Vinyl decal murals adorn the rather mundane garage doors.
The one below is nice because it makes a regular roll up look like a carriage house
I think those of us with collector cars would rather not draw attention to the garage hiding our treasures?








I think people would actually make a diversion to see a garage door like this, but they are really interesting!




Does not even look like a door and look how big it is in there below
 Underground garage pops up with a country view, why?

 New slants on stacked parking ideas in reverse

 So it looks like a house!
No comment!

I will try to put a few blogs out on crazy garages on a semi-regular basis