With the slight upturn in the collector car market this year and renewed activity in all phases of the hobby, you would think that there would be a cautious growth in vehicle purchases and business development. Well there is. Sort of. Some businesses and individuals are starting to thrive again, but the overall picture is still one that is tied to the economy. Which, as any of you know, has been in the tank for several years now.

A long time (decades) parts supplier to the restoration hobby, the Paddock, shut its doors a few months back. Right in the midst of what some in the hobby were calling a resurgence. It is sad to see them go. I have bought parts from them many times. Going forward for us as enthusiasts, besides the loss of a great source for parts, it also means one less competitor price-wise. While the business environment in general has been tough, the collector car market has suffered quite a bit as people do not have the discretionary income to work on or purchase vehicles. There are many other smaller businesses in the hobby that have fallen by the wayside the past few years. Part of the problem is the cost of doing business in this economic cycle, not just the slowdown of business. While business has slacked off, the rents have still gone up, as have the utilities, taxes, and all other phases of living. For those companies that can stay afloat, when the economy turns around, hopefully they will get the rewards they have been waiting for!

So for those of you who are well-heeled, have deep pockets, large incomes, or money to play around with – spend it! Keep these businesses going until the rest of us can catch up! Our thanks to you! And for those of you who own these business, especially large companies like Year One, Classic Industries, Legendary, etc, etc – how about some discounts so the rest of us can play?! Remember - large volumes of business with slightly less profit will far outweigh small volumes of business with big profit! Plus, you will keep your suppliers humming as you keep ordering more stuff from them! Pass the savings on down the line from manufacturer to end user!

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Our car season is entering the colder weather now – but again – I say this every year…. don’t give up on it! Keep those rides cruising until the first snow of the season!! There is no reason to put our vehicles away now, no reason for all the cruise nights to be ending (the ones with lighting at their locations that is), no reason for car shows to end either. If you run an event – keep it going! I’ll be there!! Will you folks?

Enjoy!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1 Editor’s Introduction

2 Trivia Contest

3 Cruise Night Information & Updates

4 Guest Writer’s Columns

Tom Sebastian

Eddie Stakes

Rich’s Tech Tips

My Car Story

5 The Archive

6 Editor’s Closing

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Long Island Classic Cars’

AUTOMOTIVE TRIVIA CONTEST

Submit your entry along with your name and e-mail address to: newsletter@liclassiccars.com

This contest is open to everyone! (LI Classic Cars.com paid personnel, regular column writers, and business advertisers are not eligible.)

Winners will be notified by e-mail and/or phone.

Please submit all entries by the 20th of the next month. (Ex: for February’s contest the entries are due by March 20th)

No substitutions of prizes will be allowed.

In the event of prize choices, winner will be given the opportunity to select the one they want.

All decisions are final and are made by the paid personnel of Long Island Classic Cars.com

Winners must claim their prizes within 30 days of contest end or forfeit the prize to the runner up.

If there are multiple correct entries on puzzle, matching, fill-in, or Q&A contests - winner will be randomly selected from all correct entries.

A few simple rules:

1) Answer correctly

2) Be on time with your entry

Here is last month’s Picture Caption Contest winning entry from Herm Stanislaw…

“The E-trade baby spent his earnings on this. He is still stuck in a mess! Don’t take his advice!”

Herm wins an Armor All Cleaner Set! Congratulations!!

Here is this month’s Trivia contest….

1) In what year did AMC introduce the Rebel?

2) What does BMW stand for? (The real version please – no wise-ass stuff)

3) Talledega Super Speedway is 2.5 miles long. True or False?

4) Who was the Pontiac division of GM named after?

5) What is Mr. Tucker’s first name and how many cars did he produce that we know as the “Tucker”?

Send in your answers by 11/20/11 and be in the running to win the prize!

( Winner will be randomly selected from all correct entries sent in – if there are any! )

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“EXTRA EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!”

26 Big Locations now!!

Any others in Queens or Brooklyn that we don’t know about??? TELL US!

2011 Cruise Night location updates:

MONDAYS: Richie Ray’s Pizza. 540 Commack Rd. (Corner LI Ave) Deer Park, NY

Sponsored by L.I. Plymouth Club. FREE

SATURDAYS: Meyer Auto Group. Fresh Pond Rd & Metropolitan Ave. Queens, NY (Don’t have the city name)

Sponsored by the East Coast Car Association. $3 – proceeds to local Children’s Hospital.

SUNDAYS: *AM Cruise* Ocean Pkwy, Captree Beach thru May, then at OBI. Babylon, NY

Public Gathering. FREE

SUNDAYS: *AM Cruise* Bob’s/McDonalds Shopping Center. Sunrise Highway, West Islip, NY

Sponsored by the Long Island Road Gents. FREE

SUNDAYS: *Afternoon Cruise* KC O’Malley’s. Gardiner’s Avenue, Levittown, NY

Public Gathering. FREE

**** I have “heard tell” of Mineola on Jericho Tpk by Herricks Rd at a bank parking lot – anyone been there and know specifics??

Brooklyn – Caesars Bay Bazaar on Fridays and Canarsie Pier on Sundays. Who has been there and can give me info?

Also the Yaphank FD is holding one on Tuesdays. I would like to know if they are charging – how much if so, and room for how many cars before I list.

If anyone knows of any other cruise locations that are fully up and running and not in danger of being cancelled please let us know so we can post them for all to see - here and in the EVENTS section of the website. Minimum 40 cars attending.

Thanks again for the input folks!

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GUEST WRITERS’ COLUMNS

Tom Sebastian returns – and its all about fun and motoring with a different perspective…as usual! Tom inspires us to change our rides out every now and then to experience the variety of different forms of motoring. This time he shows us how cars from the same marquee can be so different from one another. Especially the European ones.

This month we have a contribution from a new writer. Eddie Stakes. Eddie is a long time car hobby guy. He lives in Texas and is just one of the hundreds of out-of-towners that reads our Newsletter and checks out our site. The column is about some of his cars and also responds a bit to my last editorial in August’s edition regarding our extreme heat wave. His reference point is Texas heat! Eddie also has an AMC business – so check that out too!

Rich’s Tech Tips discusses something that some consider a minor annoyance, while others go crazy trying to figure out! In either case, get it fixed so “The Man” doesn’t come down hard on ya and give you a ticket for … well, you’ll see.

In the My Car Story section, we have – for the first time – a Volvo! Not just any Volvo, but a really cool custom creation!

This car was designed and crafted from the mind of Bob Wright. Bob wanted something unique. He’s got it!

Enjoy…

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Tom Sebastian

Tom goes from this …. to this!

“THE SHARK”. THE FAB 633Csi: Age Appropriate And All!

Good nickname for this one... especially mine with that aggressive air-dam up front.

I have as long a history with BMW as I do with Saab. My first was the Wild Tii - no other word for it - the best Inside-the-Beltway Street Fighter I've ever driven (and the one that saved BMW from extinction). Yes, Sir, you can put Steve McQueen in his favorite Porsche, with the prize going to whomever crosses Chicago the quickest, and I'll take my chances with this one!

Though it turned the company around and actually saved it from outright bankruptcy it was too wild a thing to be considered the showcase car for the company. But BMW will always be proud of that one - especially as the fans abandoned the company when the higher-ups replaced it with the horrible 1st generation 3-series! Ugh!!

My second was The Darth Vader of the Autobahn... the Wizard from the Dark Side, that could play in anyone's game, be it the owner of the Italian roadster who also wants to take a chance on the wheel of fortune at Montecarlo that night - and then race you home for even higher stakes (at first glance the M5 would surprise him into giving you a headstart - a big mistake. He would not see you again until payoff time); or else you could play in Bond's world if he tried to double deal you and run his tiny roller-skate off right off the road!

It truly was an anomaly… a “Bond-esque” equipped façade made to protect rich Autobahn execs from both recognition – and perhaps, capture! One hit on that accelerator and the awkward sedan would explode into something unrecognizable to the pursuer: a boxy affair that flew down the road like a McLaren!

But by the time the hit man recovered his senses, the M5 was history – at lease as far as his interaction with it was concerned.

My number 3 was the flat-out-gorgeous, 3.0CSi: just a curve or two short of Ferrari splendor. But again, it was almost too pretty for a German car; not the best visual symbol of engineering excellence that makes the company and nation work as well as it does... or, at least, what makes people 'think' it works that way. The French can get away with those wild cars - their primary philosophy being "Perfect Cartesian Symmetry Above All Else".

But the German concern with Metaphysics is a different ball of cheese entirely: "Give me the essence of the thing; we're not interested in fluff!”**

And that is precisely why I believe the 633/635 to be ubber alles as far as the best historical representation of the company -- and perhaps the country.

**If you’re interested: The British base concern is Empiricism – “Just the facts, ma’am”. And that gets you….a Range Rover! You can drive the thing forever over any terrain and be home in time fro dinner, perfectly relaxed, and filled with quips from the day’s outing! Ours is Pragmatism: “If it works, we’ll take it.”

(How that works in the cars we build I haven’t quite figured out yet. Corvette? All that cheap V8 power? Maybe!)

Now with the Italians you get a larger than average does of Christianity (I can see Caravaggio in a nice Lancia Zagatto) plus a bit of NeoPlatonism (Perhaps that connection with the ancients gets them the lines of the Enzo) plus and even healthier does of Machiavelli gets you the craziness of the Lamborghini Countache and all of it’s loony successors! Yes, sir. Coming up fast on someone’s rearview mirrors with those teeth (air dam) exposed can’t be too unlike what those poor Aussie surfers feel like when the Great White makes it’s next (in the surfer’s case, “last”) move right up his hind quarters!

But never mind that!

The outright blend of perfect performance, stability, feather-light braking, and supreme shifting makes this thing an absolute joy to drive. BMW tries to deep-six their inline 6 every so often. But then they call it back into service. It’s simply too good a setup! Truly the “Driver’s Car” from BMW.

If there is anything I dislike about the car it’s the disappointment upon opening the hood. My M5 would scare people even before the ride with the show of the engine! But hey – you can stick a Dinan Chip in the 633 and scare the “new crowd” with its new ride – or that silly surfer dude in his silly Mustang or whatever else he hangs his board on. (Besides which, this thing outbid an M6 at a recent auction! So take the $$ savings and just don’t open the hood!)

When I buy a car of this quality and for under $5,000, I have to laugh at my neighbor who bought the $140,000 AMG Mercedes. “HA Haaaaa!”

(Tom – your story telling makes it easy to visualize your adventures!) Pete

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“Hot? – You Don’t Know Hot!!”

by Eddie Stakes

Concerning your newsletter about how hot it is.....we are in the middle of the worst drought in Texas history, and have shattered all sorts of records this year! As I write, it is the 18th day in a row of over 100 degrees here in Houston!! Just brutal. Temperatures usually hover about 80 at night here. It has not rained since January, we are now in August and about 30 inches below normal rainfall. So the heat just feeds on itself! Tons of trees and lawns are dead, and I just came back from Corpus Christi, my hometown and was saddened to see all the dead crops along the way of the 210 mile trip. Corn only 2 feet high and dead on stalk, just this morning figures released $5.2 BILLION dollars in damage in agriculture and crop losses so far! Farmers crops that never grew, cattle being sold off as there is nothing to feed them, and on and on. The rest of the nation won't see it until it hits grocery stores in the coming months. Be ready.

Soy, cattle, beef, chicken, hell, even oysters and seafood as the gulf temp is about 88 degrees down near Galveston, that is bath water temps. Things are not surviving!

Which brings me to this. I have driven nothing but the fine cars of American Motors since getting my driver's license in 1976.

That's right, 35 years of driving AMC, no brand x anything. No Ford, GM, Mopar, out of control Toyota, nothing but AMC. I have owned 367 of them so far, and currently have 14 in my collection. My 'AMC Wagons' are shown here:

http://www.planethoustonamx.com/amc-station-wagons.jpg

How do they fare in this extreme heat? Rather well. Inside the cars it easily hits 150+ degrees on hot days here. My personal recorded high was 173 degrees in a black/black/ Pacer wagon. (After all – the car is basically a magnifying glass!)

This is my 72 Ambassador wagon's ECKO oven thermometer on dash:

http://www.planethoustonamx.com/Photo_Gallery_AMC/aug2010.jpg

This was even featured on the Weather Channel and several local news stations as reminder to please do NOT leave kids & pets in car alone for even one minute!

As for the cars themselves, I run all the "V8" powered AMC with NO thermostat, pure anti freeze, no water, and also Hyundai twin small electric fans on the radiator. They all have factory seven-blade flex fans, however, the small electric fans have come in super handy when Houston's infamous traffic might come to grinding halt and you watch the factory temp gauge head towards 200 degrees. Simply flip the toggle and watch it go back down to a more manageable 170 degrees or even lower. Heat can kill the transmissions and engines and there is no shortage of “car-b-ques” as we call them, on the side of the road where a car has over heated and died, or worse, caught fire and burned. This holds true even for new 2000-2011 cars – it does not matter on that one.

Something else I am fond of is adding limousine tinted, that is maximum dark tint, to my classic AMC cars like this 74 Hornet Sportabout I just had it done to. While not stock, it protects the interior from harmful UV rays which can easily destroy obsolete interiors. Read the last line again, obsolete interiors, one can't find them as they are all being taken out by the Texas sun. I don't do the tinting on all my AMCs, just some. It definitely helps.

I may add that my ‘68 Rebel convertible 'Machine' has not been out most of this summer as it is too hot for a convertible if you can believe that. If I do bring it out it has to be at night when temps are “only” in the 90s or 80s. If you take it out in sunlight, you better bring along tortillas, pico de gallo, and queso, as your ass is the fajitas sizzling on the dark green seats, so make own fajitas.

Take care, send rain!

eddiestakes@planethoustonamx.com
www.planethoustonamx.com

(Eddie – thanks for the perspective. Be well and hope you get some much needed moisture and lower temps!) Pete

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RICH’S TECH TIPS

By Rich Fiore

A LITTLE SPRING IN YOUR STEP ... NOT YOUR SPEEDOMETER

In the world of automotive restoration there are some big issues to be dealt with and some smaller ( annoying ) issues that sometimes arise. In this installment I will address one of those smaller issues.... (perhaps you have all of the big stuff taken care of. ) (Lucky you!)

This month what I am addressing is that annoying little bounce or worse yet, that big spike of your speedometer needle that you can get during acceleration. Usually you will have a pretty good idea of how fast you are traveling but that bounce and the noise that sometimes goes with it, can be a little distracting.

The first thing I like to do with any car related problem is to start with a visual inspection. Take a look at the speedo cable under the dash and under the car. You are looking for a kink or cut in the cable housing. Also check for possible burn marks or looseness at either end. If kinked, you can try and straighten it out, but with any sign of real damage, its probably better to replace the cable. If its just loose, then simply tighten the offending nut. A burn or melted cable housing usually means it is located too close to the exhaust pipes. That could have wiped it out as well.

If all is ok, the next logical step would be to remove the cable end from the transmission. This means loosening the large nut which threads on to the transmission. An adjustable wrench or Channel Lock will usually do it. After removal look at the cable core and inspect. See if it has rounded... it is usually square. If you are very lucky and can get this done, slide the cable core out and inspect it for damage. ( More than likely it will not slide out ) I have seen some cores unravel. If that turns out ok, use the proper lube and put it aside.

If everything so far was found to be ok, then remove the gear from the transmission. Make sure that you have the rear of the car up high enough to push the gear oil/trans fluid forward. Use an oil pan anyway since some oil will always leak out. Before actual removal of the gear, check for any marks on the trans case so you can return it back to its original position. Chrysler was known for this. Once the gear is out inspect for excessive wear or missing teeth. Replace if necessary with another gear.

If your speedometer readings were always inaccurate due to a rear gear ratio change or change in tire diameter, now would be the time to change the speedo gear. If you went with taller tires and the speedo reading is slower than normal... you will need a gear with less teeth. If you swapped the rear for one with taller gears, then you will need more teeth on the speedo gear to bring the reading down. There are charts and tables that you can access that will give you the proper gear selection based on all the above factors. It would be a good idea to look that up.

Finally if all looks well, the only item remaining would be the speedometer head (gauge) itself. If you are very ambitious and wish to remove the speedometer from the instrument cluster, you can do an inspection. The speedometer consists of a bi-polar magnet which spins around an aluminum wheel. You can lightly grasp the magnet and look for play in the bearings. See if the magnet actually touches the wheel. If this is the case, then its time for another speedometer. Also see if it spins too freely. Some lube might do the trick. (usually does for a variety of things!)

So with some visual inspection and a quick removal of the cable from the trans, more than likely you should be able to find the source of your speedometer woes.

Quick and Dirty: When was the last time you checked your speedometer for accuracy ?

(Rich this has got me spinning! – pun intended. I have had speedo issues on one of my cars for over 20 yrs now.) Pete

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My Car Story

Bob Wright: 1962 Volvo P210 Duett

To begin with, I bought this car for only $600 bucks. It was old, in so-so shape, and needed a lot of work. I found it through a guy at work who knew I was in a band and could use something cool to get stuff around in. I already was an owner of a classic Volvo, so I was interested right off the bat. It had no brakes, and wasn’t running, so getting it home was a challenge. My son helped me with that chore. We got it running by the end of the day. Shortly thereafter I started work on redoing it.

The car was a custom job already, done in a late 60’s style with wood interior panels, curtains, and other out-of-date stuff. I took all that apart and cleaned it up. Originally I was going to just use it as a work vehicle, but I decided to make it a cool cruiser. It had been sitting for many, many years so it needed just about everything. Most of the work I did myself. The car was a 4-cylinder with a 4-speed transmission. I blew the original tranny and rear on my way to a gig on the south shore one day. The clutch dropped and got stuck, so I kept going in first gear. Well, the rear end went too! I ended up pulling the running gear and replacing them with a 4.3 V6 Chevy engine that I got from a friend who’s car needed too much work to keep going, a Powerglide transmission fro twenty bucks from a junkyard, and a rear end out of a GMC Jimmy that fit surprisingly well. This light car is awfully quick now!

I also redid the interior, the brakes, the suspension, and I cut and welded up a custom exhaust system to fit the car. The car has power drum brakes, as disc units are not available for it. Between all the length changes to engine, trans, and rear – I had a custom drive shaft built from scratch to tie it all together.

I own it for about 6 years now and have redone just about everything on it. The body was sent to Touch of Class in Valley Stream, NY. They had it for over a year. It was stripped, redone, and then painted the colors you see here. $5,000 later, I am happy with the results and have won many trophys with the car.

I use it now for fun, and for my music business. It runs great, it’s a surprisingly quiet ride, and… it’s unique! I like that part best.

(Certainly is unique Bob. That’s what drew me to it!) Pete

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The

Pete Giordano

Editor

Long Island Classic Cars.com