Great Cars of Song Books (and Radio and TV and Film and. . .): The Ford Prefect.

This post could also be subtitled “Cultural References You Completely Missed For Literally Decades”. For those not much into British humour, I am referring to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. If you liked Monty Python you would probably like Hitchhiker; if not, well, you could probably skip reading the rest of this post and feel none the worse for wear for it. For the record, I don’t look up to or down at anyone who finds either of these tedious and unfunny; being a live-and-let-live kinda guy, I don’t consider either to be “an acquired taste” or “more sophisticated” or any of that (heck, I find farts — even mine — well, okay, especially mine — funny). It’s different and that’s that.

Studebaker Drivers Club, Tallmadge, Ohio 8/27/16

The annual Ohio Region meet of the SDC is billed as the largest one-day gathering of Studebakers in the world. Here’s some of what I saw at the 2016 edition last Saturday.

The yellow street-rodded ’55 sedan really looked good in the bright sunshine.

The case for Studebaker put forth in adjacent parking spaces: on the left, a 1953 “Loewy coupe”; on the right, an Avanti.

1972-1976 Volkswagen SP2

While searching images for another post, I stumbled on this car by accident.  I had never heard of an SP2… and now I’d love to have one.

But I’d probably have a better chance of going to Mars than getting one.  Only 670 of them left their home in Brazil, and none of them ever came to the United States as new cars.

That racy bodywork included a rear-mounted engine under a hatchback lift gate.  Not an easy trick to design, I’m sure.  And it’s got to be safe… look at all that front crush space.  The only styling reservation I might have is that I think a little more time should have been spent on the grille-less front end… though it does grow on one after a while.  And just imagine some rallye or fog lights there.

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1969 Buick Riviera

Note: This post was originally on Car Lust on May 23rd, 2012. This one does vary slightly from the original, and the images are a little larger as well.

Things are different when you’re 12.  Especially when you’re really beginning to notice cars… and other things.  When I was a dozen years old in early 1969, the original Star Trek series was still on, and we had not yet landed on the moon.  As a nation, we were still recovering from the horrific events of 1968, including the public murders of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy.

Studebaker Lark Convertibles

I will be attending the Studebaker Drivers’ Club Ohio Region meet at Summit Racing in Tallmadge, Ohio on August 27.  This meet attracts Studebakers of course, but also Packards, Ramblers, AMCs, Kaisers, Hudsons, Auburns, Facel Vegas, street-rodded Australian “Utes,” and even the occasional Ford or Chevy–and you’ll be able to read all about it right here at It Rolls.

To give you a sense of what this meet is like, here’s an old Car Lust post of mine taking a look at the Lark convertibles that were on display in 2013.

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It’s the new convertible, seats five adults in style. It’s so pert and perky! Runs on pennies per mile.  —Studebaker Lark radio jingle, 1960 model year

There seemed to be something of a run on Studebaker Lark convertibles at [the 2013] SDC meet in Tallmadge. A Lark is a fundamentally happy car, and that goes double for the drop-tops.

The owner was offering it for sale because, he claimed, he had “too many Studebakers.”  Is that even possible?