1905, Mercedes, Napier, Thomas.

Found on  https://www.facebook.com/marc.tudeau?fref=nf

This guy has to get through, or has plenty of tires to deliver

Found on https://www.facebook.com/georges.houze?fref=photo

the oldest motor racing trophy, is the Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy

The Royal Automobile Club Tourist Trophy was first awarded in 1905. The winner of that race was John Napier driving an 18hp Arrol-Johnston in a race over four laps of a fearsome 52-mile open road loop around the Isle of Man. His average speed was 34mph.

In 1930 the RAC began awarding the Seagrave Trophy on the basis of merit, rather than annually, to the British national who has displayed a ‘spirit of adventure’ in keeping with that of Segrave himself – whether on land, sea or air.

Found on http://www.royalautomobileclub.co.uk/

good reason not to safari across Africa. Sleeping leopards

 In 1914 this Belgian F.A.B. of Reinelt and Evanepoel set out from Cape Town for Cairo... with an 80-gallon fuel drum. They turned back after just 37 miles on hearing that a rival crew parked under a tree, disturbed a sleeping leopard, that promptly killed and ate the driver

Found on http://www.africarecordrun.com/history.html

From Algeria to Mozambique by eight 10 Hp Citroen half tracks in 1924-25

One day, French President Gaston Doumergue mentioned to André Citroën and Georges-Marie Haardt that a regular rail link between the North African French colonies and Madagascar, a French territory isolated in the Indian Ocean, would be advantageous to France.

André Citroën organized the "Black Cruise", to survey rail routes, and no doubt, to publicise his automobile company. After 10 months of preparation, 8 Citroën half-tracks left the southern terminus of the Algerian Railway on 28 of October 1924. It appears that the half-tracks were based on Model "B" Citroëns.

 The expedition was again led by the general manager from Citroën, Georges-Marie Haardt, and each half-track carried three men. A motion picture producer and a camera operator, an artist, a medical doctor who also took care of taxidermy, scientists, nine factory driver/mechanics, and other staff (some military) were on the expedition. http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/antique-machinery-history/ot-crawler-tractors-196276/index13.html

Georges-Marie Haardt authored a book about the second African trip (The Black Journey: Across Central Africa with the Citroën Expedition) and a National Geographic Magazine article in the June 1926 issue

So, it is a very long story, started by 1910 in St. Petersburg, where the Kégresse track was invented, continued in the twenties and thirties in Africa and Asia with the great Citroën expeditions, opening car routes across Sahara and on the Silk Road, immortalized in the two movies that were rediscovered by Jack Goelman in the fifties, then by the two German directors that created the documentary for ARTE in 2006, and finally published on youTube by the passionate Zagrebians from the Citroën Klub.

some info and the videos from http://updateslive.blogspot.com/2010/11/la-croisiere-noire-1926.html

in 1923-25 the Renault company was also trying to get publicity and accomplishments http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2013/05/1923-1925-renault-10cv-type-mh-6x6.html

above from http://thewesternhorizon.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-black-cruise-la-croisiere-noire.html

above from http://www.citroen.co.nz/citroen-universe/history/adventure/

To bring attention to his half-track vehicles launched in 1922, André Citroën organised a trans-Saharan expedition from 1922 to 1923. This success was followed by the Croisière Noire expedition, which crossed the African continent from north to south, travelling from Colomb-Béchar to Cape Town, between 1924 and 1925.

The Croisière Jaune expedition crossed Asia, from Beirut to Beijing, between 1931 and 1932.

Citroën subsequently supplied Admiral Byrd with three half-track vehicles for his Antartic expedition (1933 – 1935). It also supplied five vehicles for the Croisière Blanche expedition organised from July to October 1934 in the Rocky Mountains of Canada.  http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2009/12/failed-1934-expedition-acorss-canada-in.html

for a good over view of cross country pioneering motorists in Africa, see http://www.londoncapetownrally.com/history.html or http://www.andrewdenning.org/driving-into-darkness.html

1924 Oil delivery, Iron river Michigan

Manny Krans in 1924 with his Nash bulk oil delivery truck - "Red Crown Gasoline - Standard Oil Company" 1924 Iron River, MI

Wood spokes, solid rubber tires

Found on https://www.facebook.com/groups/447886021929743/

the Air Mail of 1926

loading a logging train in 1926

pretty bare bones rail cars... 

Miss Asheville, car #4, Blue Ridge Coach Line, 1926

just a step away from a horse drawn carriage, a 1912 Aberdonia, Landau

Found on https://www.facebook.com/groups/yachtclubdesavionsdelaroute/?fref=nf

The Aberdonia was an English car manufactured in Park Royal, London from 1911 to 1915 by the coachbuilders Brown, Hughes and Strachan. The engine was a 3160 cc, 4 cylinder, 20 hp (15 kW) unit, it cost £500 with seven-seated touring coachwork, or £700 with "special landau body". At the 1911 London Motor Show a one-off design, mid-engined and forward-control with the driver ahead of the engine was displayed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberdonia_(car)

How Craig Breedlove got Shell to sponsor him...

Hot Rod Magazine:
 You’ve had a long relationship with Shell Oil. How did that begin?

Craig Breedlove:
 When I was building the car at my dad’s house, I got to a point where I was more broke than when I started and was really down to brass tacks.

 When I was in a car club in Culver City, there was a Shell station at the corner of Venice and Sepulveda owned by Andy Anderson. We all used to hang out there and work for him sometimes, and he was kind of a mentor to us.

The Shell district office was right next door to the station, and when I was completely against the wall with the car, I asked Andy who was in charge of that office. It was a real tough guy named Bill Lawler, an ex Marine.

"I’m here to talk to you about the Spirit of America, which I think will be great for our country and also for Shell Oil Company, and I’d like to have a little of your time to present it to you.’ He gave me 10 minutes.

 I set the model down in front of the desk and set up the flip chart. He saw this big mahogany box but didn’t know what was in it, so after he saw the flip chart presentation he said, ‘Alright goddammit, what’s in the box?’ I handed him the model and said, ‘This is the Spirit of America.’

He got real excited and jumped up and showed everyone the model, telling all the Shell people about it. He asked me, ‘You really think you’re going to break the record don’t you?’ I said, ‘Mr. Lawler, I don’t think I’m going to break the record, I know I’m going to break it,’ and he pounded the table and said ‘That’s what I like to hear! I’m going to do anything in my power to see that Shell Oil backs you.” And that was the start.

We got turned down three times by the director of marketing in New York until one trip he was in Los Angeles for something, and they got him cornered in a bar and fed him martinis until he approved the project.

from the November 2014 issue of Hot Rod and their website
http://blogs.hotrod.com/craig-breedlove-americas-600-mph-man-129183.html

crowd funding a train restoration

In 1903 the North Eastern Railway developed a train that challenged steam, and is the forerunner of modern trains.They are engineering to make it environmentally friendly in terms of economy, emissions and noise thanks to a new Cummins engine that has been adapted to run the old motors.

 Called the ‘autocar’ it was powered by a petrol engine supplying electricity to electric motors. In 1930 it was withdrawn from service and the body became a holiday home in Yorkshire. Rescued ten years ago, restoration is well underway thanks to the support of Heritage Lottery Fund and other grants.

Found on http://www.electricautocar.co.uk/  and  http://www.getnews.info/turn-of-century-british-traincar-to-roll-again-with-help-from-crowdsourced-funding_6170.html

Johnson's Flying Service (if you've watched Planes 2, you might like to read this) invented the Smoke Jumpers in 1940

photo by Michael Gallacher of the Missoulian newspaper http://missoulian.com/news/local/wwii-era-bomber-retrofitted-for-firefighting-lands-at-missoula-museum/article_d0b607da-f3c0-11e0-8c43-001cc4c002e0.html

The proud museum's newest addition, a retrofitted, single-engine World War II torpedo bomber, is one that pilots flew and mechanics got in the air and kept there for Johnson Flying Service in the 1960s and '70s.

 The  aircraft that was one of six Grumman TBM Avengers closed out of the Missoula-based flying service in 1974 and sold to Forest Protection Limited in New Brunswick, and spent most of the last four decades spraying Canadian forests for bugs and dropping retardant on forest fires. A-13 first came to Johnson's in 1964 as a replacement slurry bomber http://missoulian.com/news/local/wwii-era-bomber-retrofitted-for-firefighting-lands-at-missoula-museum/article_d0b607da-f3c0-11e0-8c43-001cc4c002e0.html

in the movies Planes and Planes 2, Skipper is a Corsair... not an Avenger, but similar in that they were both warbirds... and I find it cool that they used Avengers as fire patrol airplanes



1917 - At the age of 24, Missoula resident Bob Johnson enlists in the army and is sent to Camp Lewis, Washington. Johnson is discharged less than a year later. Johnson goes into business for himself, opening an automotive service station

1920's 1923 - Missoula’s first landing strip is laid out in May. The field is located near the base of Mount Sentinel, roughly between what is now the University of Montana and South Avenue 1926 - Bob Johnson purchases a Swallow bi-plane for $2500 and continues his flying lessons with instructor Nick Mamer, believed to be the first pilot to ever fly over Glacier National Park. Bob Johnson decides to start Johnson Flying Service to teach others how to fly

 1927 - Bob Johnson, in an interview with a University of Montana journalism student, says he believes airplanes will eventually make regular stops in Missoula. Decades later, that same journalism student, who thought Johnson was crazy for making such an incredible statement, would eventually fly out of Missoula International Airport aboard a large passenger airliner; a group of men meet at the Palace Hotel to discuss Missoula's future in aviation. Missoula, it was felt, needed an airport to succeed. City businessman Harry O. Bell was elected president of the Missoula chapter of the National Aeronautic Association. Their first act was to secure an airmail route to Butte and Salt Lake City; Walter Beck secures a 60-day option on eighty acres of land just east of the Missoula County Fairgrounds. The County officially purchases the 80 acres of land, as well as an adjacent strip to construct an east-west runway. Total cost was $5000. A northwest-southeast runway was later built.

1934 - Northwest Airways inaugurates regular mail and passenger service to Missoula at the Garden City Airport

1938 - President Roosevelt authorizes W.P.A. funds for the construction of Missoula’s third airport. The Missoula County Airport Board purchases 1300 acres of land seven miles west of Missoula adjacent to Highway 10 West as the site for a new airport. Since the Forest Service needed access to an airport, and Missoula County needed heavy equipment to build the new airport, a deal was struck between the two parties. The airport board gave the Forest Service a perpetual easement at the airport site, while the Forest Service granted the use of their equipment for construction. The agreement eventually led to Missoula becoming a major center for aerial firefighting and research. The new airport would feature four runways each a mile or more in length, capable of accommodating any airplane in service at the time. Total estimated cost, including the land, for the new Missoula County Airport: $1.5-$2 million

1940 - July 12, Rufus Robinson and Earl Cooley become the first firefighters to parachute from a Johnson Flying Service airplane to extinguish a fire in the Pacific Northwest Region. On that day, the legendary Smokejumper program was born

1952 - Congress authorizes $700,000 to construct a new aerial fire depot west of Missoula near the new airport; Red Skies of Montana is released in theaters. The film portrays the dangerous lives of Smokejumpers who battle fires in the Pacific Northwest by parachuting into the flames below

1980 - Bob Johnson passes away. "When Bob Johnson was just getting started flying in 1923, aviation and airplanes were considered absolutely a thing for fools, daredevils and irresponsible playboys," said aviation historian Steve Smith of Missoula, whose book Fly the Biggest Piece Back chronicles the history of Johnson Flying Service. Johnson had accumulated over 17,000 hours during his flying career

Info from http://www.flymissoula.com/About_Us/Airport_History

A good thing to read is "What it means to be a Smoke Jumper" from the only survivor of the 1949 disaster. http://www.nifc.gov/safety/mann_gulch/memorial/documents/What_it_Means_to_be_a_Smokejumper_by_Robert_Sallee_1993.pdf

One of the first aerial fire patrol pilots in the northwest was Nick Mamer, a legendary pilot, who had served with the U.S. Air Service during WW I, and later settled in Spokane, establishing the Mamer Flying Service. He taught Bob Johnson of the Johnson Flying Service of Missoula how to fly.

During the time that he flew aerial fire patrols he never experienced a forced landing.  During the period 1925-1935 Forest Inspector Howard R. Flint and Nick Mamer were inseparably connected with the pioneering of aerial activities in the Northern Rocky Mountain Region. Then while flying as a chief pilot for Northwest Airlines on a Lockheed Super Electra during a flight from Seattle to Minneapolis, parts of the tail section were torn from the aircraft about 15 miles northeast of Bozeman, Montana and the plane went into a dive.

Mamer, the copilot and eight passengers died instantly. Later, an investigation revealed that the tail structure had failed on the new design from what is known as "natural resonance, or period of vibration". So ended the life of one of the very first aerial fire patrol pilots in the northwest, a pilot who at one time was known as "Mr. Spokane Aviation".  http://www.fs.fed.us/fire/people/smokejumpers/missoula/History/General/

Maiden Detroit... clever name, with an interesting and notable story

See, they were racing boats before they were making airplanes, and with the customary way of calling ships and planes in the female vernacular, but having to come up with a new way of doing that since Gar Wood had already named his racing boat Miss Detroit, it was only possible to call the Stout Metal Aeroplane Co airplane with a Liberty Engine airplanes "Maiden" as it was a clever pun for the city it was manufactured in as well as a female term.

Photo and info from http://home.earthlink.net/~ralphcooper/pimagb17.htm

A good story about the pioneers of airplanes involving the Maiden Detroit:
 It was a great day when we first took the plane out to Selfridge for its trial flights. The new field al Ford's was not ready yet. It was early spring and ice was still on the lake. Walter Lees was the test pilot. He took off against a light wind and headed out across the lake. Then, something happened. A couple of dips and down he came, landing on the ice which was fortunately thick enough to hold.
     It took us ten minutes to run out to where the ship stood on the ice and find what was the matter. Walter was furious.
     The windshield had blown in against his control wheel and he had to push the celluloid back in place with his foot before he could free the controls to land. Windshields, from then on, were made much stronger.
     A few days later he took off again---this time over land.
     Frost in the carburetor brought him down once more---in a swamp! All was safe, but the ship had to be taken apart to get it out on dry land again.

Ford later bought the Stout Metal Aeroplane company, and evolved the above into Tri Motor airplanes  http://www.nifc.gov/safety/mann_gulch/organization/equipment/docs/Evergreen_Ford_Tri_Motor_%20Aircraft_and_Crew_Information.pdf

Johnson's Ranch and trading post on the Rio Grande, from 1929 to 1940, also had a small landing strip

The Johnson Ranch airfield was the first permanent installation by the Air Corps in the lower Big Bend. It was distinct from other airfields in the area in that it was neither an auxiliary nor emergency field. It was established solely due to its strategic location, where combat troops and aircraft could be deployed in case of a border emergency. It was also unique in that the ranch house became the airfield headquarters, and Elmo Johnson—with neither rank or authority—provided a quaint civilian dominance over the field's operations.

The closure of the Johnson's Ranch airfield ended an era of military aviation. The era of the members of the “order of the white scarf”—those who built America’s aerial armada, trained the pilots, and led them to victory in World War II—was forever past. The jet age Air Force that followed bore scant resemblance to the Army Air Corps that established Johnson's Ranch.

photo and info from http://www.nps.gov/bibe/historyculture/johnsonsranch.htm

the airplane is a DeHaviland, and was the first to land at the Johnson's

the beautiful art in the Studebaker brochure

Found on http://aacalibrary.tumblr.com/

World War 1 equipment on public roads... nearly 100 years ago, this was the way most equipment was moved, slowly

Post by Vince Young.

Skip the first 45 seconds

Evolution of the bicycle

A 1 min animation of the bicycle's evolution, all the way from the wooden horse to the modern racer. The video was made in combination with an application to the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, 2013. Animation : Thallis Vestergaard Music : Flying Home by The Benny Goodman Sextet

The bicycle has changed a lot from its beginnings in Germany as a pedal-free "dandy horse," which is basically just a plank of wood with two wheels (you move by running along like a Flintstones car). The animation shows the two-wheeled vehicle's design from the dandy horse as it gains pedals and gears, as the wheels change sizes (with a brief stop at the penny-farthing, the ultimate in absurd modes of transport), and finally to our modern road bike.

Found on http://www.fastcodesign.com/3028191/a-visual-history-of-the-bicycle