The Elio: Perpetually Right Around the Corner

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The Elio: Perpetually Right Around the Corner

Starting a car company from scratch is hard. Ask Henry J. Kaiser and Powell Crosley, Jr., both of whom had tremendous experience and tons of money, or John Z DeLorean, who was an engineering and marketing wizard, or Preston Tucker who had a great product and the charisma to attract the best talent around. All of them failed miserably. So it should come as no surprise that Paul Elio, former stock broker and NYC cab driver, touting an odd little car with limited appeal, followed the others into the annals of the Makes that Didn’t Make It.

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The Nethercutt Collection

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The Nethercutt Collection

A few weeks ago - before the world shut down - I was able to drive down to Sylmar, CA north of Los Angles to see The Nethercutt Collection. For years I had seen it writen in various reviews that this was one of the five or 10 best car museums in the world. I had never seen it. Niether had my good friend, Steve, who is turning 80 this year. So we decided to celebrate the momentous event with a 385-mile jaunt south. The commentary was not hype. The Nethercutt is magnificent!

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Take a Flyer on the AEROCAR

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Take a Flyer on the AEROCAR

The AEROCAR of the 1950s was the worlds only successful flying car. Successful in that it is the only one to perform both flying and driving functions reasonably well, not from a commercial standpoint. Only 5 of them were ever made. The AEROCAR was successful, too, as far as longevity. Every one still survives today after 60+ years. There was a sixth AEROCAR that exists in digital form…but more on that later. Many thanks to my friend Joe Cychosz for turning me on to the the fact that the AEROCAR even existed.

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Recycling at its Best: ThePowell Sport Wagon

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Recycling at its Best: ThePowell Sport Wagon

While most vehicles end their lives in a junkyard, every one of the thousand or so Powell Sport Wagons built from 1955 to 1957 started out there. Beneath each modern looking steel and fiberglass truck body lays the refurbished bones and innards of a 15-year old Plymouth car plucked from the scrapheap. This noble act of recycling resulted in the first of a whole new category of vehicle that we now call the Crossover SUV.

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The Story of the Keller

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The Story of the Keller

The immediate post war period saw more than its fair share of entrepreneurial automotive adventures. Dozens of them sprouted from 1945 to 1950, achieving varying degrees of success and fame. The Keller Motor Company was one of just a hand full that ever reached production, even in tiny numbers. Keller’s one and only product offering was a wood boded station wagon called the Super Chief in 1949. The Super Chief filled many altruistic needs. It was cheap to buy, economical to operate, and if successful, could bring prosperity to a downtrodden region. But even with all that going for it it is hard to find anyone, even among car buffs, who has ever heard of the Keller. Like so many of its post-war contemporaries, by the close of the decade it was gone. Keller’s demise was more literal than most…but more on that later.

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Hailing the Checker

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Hailing the Checker

If you grew up in or frequented any big Eastern city during second half of the 20th Century, you have seen a Checker. Probably you’ve ridden in one, most likely amid the mixed aroma of spiced meats, cleaning fluid and vomit. Drive one? Without a stint as a cabbie it’s hard to imagine. But by happenstance in the summer of 1983, this writer did have the pleasure of driving a Checker without need of a hack license. In between graduating from college, and starting my first “real” job, I worked as a chauffeur for a drive-your-car service in southern Connecticut. This was decades before Uber or Lyft. Then, when a driver was needed, we would be dispatched to the client’s house, and then chauffer them in their own vehicle to where ever they needed to go. Most every trip was to or from a New York area airport. Most every car was the ordinary fare of early 1980s suburbia; Oldsmobiles, Buicks, the occasional Honda. But one fine day the drive would not be to the airport, and the livery would be anything but ordinary.

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The Playboy: A Product of Its Times and a Victim of Them

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The Playboy: A Product of Its Times and a Victim of Them

Pity the Playboy. This darling little roadster with the world’s first retractable steel roof was launched in the heady times following WWII, when the can do spirit reined supreme, where anything seemed possible. The Playboy was a contemporary of the famous Tucker. It was a bit less ambitious, but just as optimistic. The master showman Preston Tucker sought to change the way the world thought about automobiles. Playboy’s founders just wanted to sell a bunch of them to young people and housewives. Alas, the promise of the times proved illusory, at least for startup car companies. The Tucker and the Playboy shared a similar fate.

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Continental: The Finest of Fords

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Continental: The Finest of Fords

The Continental’s chrome script has been affixed to the cars a top the Ford Motor Company line up for the past 80 years. Sometimes those cars were rarified classics like the original 1939-41 Continental, or the 1956-57 Mark II. In more forgettable times the name appeared on forgettable cars like the 1982-86 bustleback sedans. Whether it was a beauty or a beast, that depended on the state of automobile design of the day. The following is a stroll through the fond memories of Dearborn’s finest car. 

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