July 2, 2009

Bottoms Up! (Feb, 1940)

Filed under: Aviation — @ 10:42 am
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1940
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Bottoms Up!
IT LOOKS like an aviator’s nightmare of a mass crack-up, but it’s just the way one airport solves a “parking” problem. Due to lack of space, these light planes are set up on their noses in a hangar at Boston Municipal Airport, their propellers protected from injury by wooden blocks. By using this unique, if unorthodox method, 15 ships can be stored in the same space that five would ordinarily use.

Mechanical Flying Goose Decorates Radiator Cap (Jan, 1932)

Filed under: Automotive, DIY — @ 10:39 am
Source: How To Build It ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1932
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Mechanical Flying Goose Decorates Radiator Cap

For novelty in radiator ornaments, you’ll have to go a long way to beat this mechanical flying goose. As you speed along in your car, an ingenious arrangement of mechanism in the bird causes it to straighten out and flap its wings to simulate a real live goose in flight.

WHILE your car is standing still this wild goose isn’t so wild. He perches sedately upon the radiator cap surveying the world with a glassy eye. But as soon as you start up and shift into high he flattens out his tail, stretches his neck forward and begins to flap his wings as if he were going somewhere, and going there in a hurry.

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June 30, 2009

Jivin’ Up THE JEEP (Nov, 1947)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 12:46 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1947
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Jivin’ Up THE JEEP

THE front seats of the jeep are tolerably comfortable, but the shallow, flat rear seat is a notorious back-breaker. It can be improved considerably by installing two pieces of1/2in. plywood, (photo 1, above right), hinged to the bottom of the seat frame. Position the back board to about the angle shown. To the front of the bottom board, attach short wooden feet (photo 2, right) about 10 inches long. The back board can be pushed forward, (photo 3, below) to give access to the hand crank mounted against the rear wall of the jeep.

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June 23, 2009

Car Owner’s Name on Foot Plate (May, 1932)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 12:34 pm
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: May, 1932
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Car Owner’s Name on Foot Plate

WITH so many cars on the street just like the one you drive, it is convenient to have some little individuality on yours to make it easily identified from the rest. One way to do this without altering or detracting from the car’s beauty is to use a little foot plate with your name on it. The plate is made of white rubber and is easily installed on the running board, as shown in the photo. This forms an attractive, inexpensive accessory that makes identification simple.

June 22, 2009

Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES (Jan, 1931)

Filed under: Aviation, Nautical — @ 10:23 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1931
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Floating Fuel Station for SEAPLANES

IN THE future, when airplane travel comes to be as commonplace as automobile travel, we may expect to see floating filling stations, such as shown in the drawing above, dotting the airplane travel lanes of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This is by no means a fantastic project of dreamers, for already just such floating service stations are to be seen scattered along the Pacific coast; and a west coast oil company, looking to the future, has announced its intentions of establishing a chain of 99 such stations for the accommodation of planes journeying up and down the seaboard.

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June 19, 2009

MI Tests the 1950 Studebaker (Nov, 1949)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 11:50 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1949
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MI Tests the 1950 Studebaker

“One of the best dollar values today,” says Tom McCahill. They’re not the fastest cars on the road but they’re tops in comfort and quality.

THE new, needle-nose Studebaker gives the boys of the Big Three something to shoot at. Back in ‘46, with the introduction of the 1947 Studebaker designed by Raymond Loewy, this first real post-war auto stirred up the populace. And now, once again, Loewy has set the pace with the 1950 Studebaker.

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June 17, 2009

NEW for the ROAD (Oct, 1951)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 6:10 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1951
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NEW for the ROAD

Motorcycle Car was built by automotive engineer Theron Huish of Los Angeles in one year’s spare time. The body is a reinforced aircraft drop tank; engine is the motorcycle type with a fan for cooling. Top speed is about 60 mph.

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June 10, 2009

Auto-Boat Speedy on Land or Sea (Jul, 1931)

Filed under: Automotive, Nautical — @ 10:15 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1931
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Auto-Boat Speedy on Land or Sea

YOU may take your choice and call it a sea-going auto or a road-boat, but whatever it is, the vehicle shown in the photo below performs nicely on land or water, developing 25 miles an hour in the liquid element and 40 per on terra firma.

The land-boat (or sea-auto) was invented by Peter Prell of Union, New Jersey, presumably for the purpose of beating the jam on both tube and ferry while commuting to New York.

June 1, 2009

Where Do They Keep The Towels? (Feb, 1940)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 6:28 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1940
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Where Do They Keep The Towels?

THIS new foreign limousine has a hot and cold water folding wash-basin of aluminum built into its right front fender. Beneath the hood is a 2-compartment tank holding two and a half gallons of water. The hot water section is heated by exhaust gases passing through a spiral pipe. The two faucets give water of any desired temperature. The basin is automatically emptied when it is folded into the fender.

SAN FRANCISCO FIGHTS FOR ITS CABLE CARS (Aug, 1954)

Filed under: Trains — @ 6:27 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1954
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SAN FRANCISCO FIGHTS FOR ITS CABLE CARS

“Save our cable cars,” say Frisco’s citizens. But the City Hall boys have other ideas.

By Louis Hochman

SAN FRANCISCO shakes again! In 1906 it was Nature that rocked the infant town into a mass of ashes and rubble. Today it’s human nature that is giving this Golden Gate City the shakes with a wave of public sentiment that has spread far beyond the city’s own boundaries. Once again the people of San Francisco have gathered in force to go fight City Hall. It’s a battle between practicality and sentimentality and the object of this latest uprising is once again the dinky little cable car—that ding-dong relic of the Gay Nineties that continues to clang its merry way up and down the precipitous hills of San Francisco in blissful defiance of modern science and the forces of progress.

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May 25, 2009

UNDERSEA SPIES (Feb, 1946)

Filed under: Nautical, War — @ 11:48 pm
Source: Mechanix Illustrated ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1946
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UNDERSEA SPIES

BY JAMES NEVIN MILLER

BACK in December, 1944, Lieut. Earl E. Cook of Seattle, won the Navy Cross for a unique achievement. First, in a successful effort to locate three enemy depth bombs known to be in immediate danger of detonation, he dove deep inside a patrol bomber sunk in a vital channel off Oahu, Hawaii. Then for three never-to-be-forgotten days he directed a six-man team of divers which finally recovered the death-dealing weapons.

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May 13, 2009

Trailer Saves Return Haul Costs (Aug, 1931)

Filed under: Automotive — @ 11:26 pm
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1931
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Trailer Saves Return Haul Costs

A GREAT saving in the return trips of trucks used for the transportation of automobiles from factory to dealer has been effected as a result of the development of a new type of trailer. Built with rear extension that can be folded back, the trailer can be shortened so that one truck can be hauled by another on the return trip.

Triangular truss frame construction of the trailer makes possible a combination of maximum strength and minimum weight. The photo below shows the manner in which one truck is carried by another, without danger of accident on road.

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