1906 Ford Model K Touring Car
Like I mentioned yesterday, over the course of the next few days, I’ll be posting some pictures I took of the classic cars at the California Auto Museum this past Saturday. Normally I’ll mix things up, like I did yesterday, but today I’m sticking with only one car, because someone said that it made his week to see the engine of this car, and I thought I’d put pictures of it online for him.
As I happened to be wandering through the museum, a nice gentlemen asked the docent to open up the hood of this car so he could take a look, and I happened to be right there and popped in for a picture. He asked me to email me a copy, so I gave him one of the Moo MiniCards I had made with my website address on it, and told him I’d put it online. I can’t remember your name, sir, but please email me if you need me to send you this picture–I’d be more than happy to do so!
After I took this engine picture (more difficult than it sounds because of the lighting in the museum), I took a few more pictures of this car, because it was just a really neat car. As always, click on these pictures if you want a larger version.
Engine on a 1906 Ford Model K Touring Car.
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Text from the display:
This 1906 Ford Model K made its debut as a true luxury car. Henry Ford never cared for the car as building it was the desire of his business partner, Alexander Malcomson, who wanted to build expensive, luxurious cars for wealthy customers. Ford eventually bought out his partner and turned his attention to smaller, less-expensive cars. The Model K, selling for $2500, was built at the same time as the much Smaller Model N, which sold for $500.
The K roadster was guaranteed to reach 60mph, which would have taken courage given the roads and tires of the time. Its great weight, cost, and persistent problems with the transmission, combined with Henry Ford’s dislike for the car led to ending its production in early 1908. The Model K was the first six-cylinder Ford, and the last until just before WWII. Only 11 of the 867 Model K touring cars remain today. This car is one of only two known to have its original body, a style called “Victorian” or “Tulip”. A lighter and faster model, called the “Gentleman’s Roadster”, was also available.
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1906 Ford Model K Touring Car.
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When I look at this car, I can’t help but break into song. Come on, tell me this doesn’t make you think of the musical “Oklahoma”… You all know what I’m talking about, right?
…right?
…no?!?!
…sigh. Do I have to do EVERYTHING myself? Ok, here goes…
All the world’ll fly in a flurry
When I take you out in the surrey,
When I take you out in the surrey with the fringe on top!
There, now do you know what I’m talking about?
Ok, back to the pictures.
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Closer up shot of the cab area. Check out the horn and the two shift levers (? I think that's what they are?)
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And now a few detail shots…
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Front wheel.
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Top of a headlight
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Headlight/spotlight. Look at the wood! It's so beautiful!
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It’s classic cars week here at HowISeeLife.com!
Today I went to the California Auto Museum downtown for a photography workshop, where I was fortunate to spend several hours there having fun looking at the gorgeous cars and talking to one of the docents. While I don’t really care about a car’s performance (well, except the one I’m driving!) I’m a sucker for body styling, especially of classic cars. I think I have a slight obsession with anything related to transportation (hence the train pictures I feel compelled to take, and why I love sitting and watching airplanes.)
Anyway, over the next week or so, I’m going to be posting some of the pictures I took, with links to more on my Flickr. Tonight I’m going to start off with the few I took at the outdoors portion of the workshop, where they took three classic cars outside for us to experiment with. Unfortunately, since they were outside, I don’t have much in the way of details about what the cars were. I was able to look up make, model, and year for two of the three, but I’m not entirely sure about the first one (other than that it’s a Ford, which is pretty obvious.) If you know more about this than me, help me out here–take a peek at their inventory list and see which one you think it is. :-) A few more pictures are available in my Flickr gallery of pictures from today, and I’ll be putting more up there as the week progresses. :-)
Driver's side of an old Ford
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Old Ford
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Back in the days when trunks were trunks.
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Logo from a 1951 Ford Crestliner
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1951 Ford Crestliner
They don't make 'em like this anymore
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I love the lines on this. Beautiful.
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Are we there yet? (I was trying to go for the feel of what it would have been like to be a kid sitting in the back seat of this car taking a road trip. Don't know if it worked or not.)
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Dashboard.
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1967 Chevy Camaro convertible
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Aerospace Museum of California
Last Sunday I ventured out in the torrential rain (over an inch!) to the Aerospace Museum of California to check out their new space display, a NASA-created traveling exhibit that will be there through September. I like space well enough, but I didn’t think the exhibit was worth the extra $10 on top of the regular admission price. I did find the huge GM commercial at the end of the exhibit rather amusing… at least they funded it before things went south!
One of the things they had that I thought was interesting was a bicycle-powered centrifuge. I got to take a ride on it – it was fairly neat. Close your eyes, tilt your head the direction it spins, and you just feel like you’re moving. But try to face up or opposite of the way it’s going, and instant stomach-churning. Also, opening your eyes also = a bad idea. For the record, I was only a bit green when I stepped off.
Me trying not to yack.
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My favorite part of this was, maybe not surprisingly, a camera. According to the display, astronauts on Apollo 17 used this 70mm Hasselblad aboard the command module during their December 1972 mission to the moon. The docent seemed bemused that I was taking a picture of a camera. I couldn’t explain it to him more than “it’s just cool” because, well, it is cool, or at least to photobug me, anyway.
Space camera.
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The reason I wanted to go to the museum yesterday was that this week’s photo challenge is “the moon”. I’ve only got a couple of shots of the moon, and neither is particularly creative. I was hoping to get something more moon-ish here, but alas, this chunk of rock was the best I could do.
Moon rock.
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While I thought I’d be more into the space exhibit than the aviation part of the museum, the opposite ended up being true. I really had a good time looking at the planes and plane accessories (sorry, lame King of the Hill joke), and I wish I’d gone on a day where it wasn’t raining, because they have a HUGE outdoor lot with old restored aircraft on display. Inside, along with all of the vintage planes, they also had one that was in the process of being restored, and I spent a long time just checking it out – it was waaaay neat.
Wing struts.
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The plane was a 1939 Cessna T-50 “Bobcat”, built as a passenger airplane. I was surprised to see all of the wood used in the plane’s frame, but then put two and two together and realized that they probably were trying to conserve steel for ramping up preparations for war. The accompanying display, which I read after I drew this conclusion, referred to the plane as being built out of “non-strategic materials”, so I figure I guessed correctly.
Wooden wings.
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Anyway, the plane had a reputation as being easy to fly, so it was frequently used as a trainer aircraft. When it’s in one piece, it looks like this:
Cessna T-50 Bobcat
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As you can see, they have quite a ways to go with the restoration. :-)
I don’t remember what this next plane was, and I forgot to take a picture of the sign that went with it, but it was shiny and therefore captured my attention.
Oooh, shiny!
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I saved the most awesome thing for last, though. Right when you walk into the museum is the thing I think they’re most proud of, and rightfully so – a 1932 Curtiss-Wright B-14-B biplane. There were apparently only two of these built, and one of them was destroyed in a crash in the ’30s, so this is the only remaining one. It was built for air racing, but it’s been primarily used for aerobatics instead. It spent seven years (from 2000-2007) being restored, and then was flown to the museum where it sits now. I couldn’t back up enough to get decent pictures of the entire plane (need a wide angle lens. need a wide angle lens.) so you’ll have to content yourself with this picture from someone else’s website, only imagine it a heck of a log brighter and shinier. Seriously, I’m not a huge mechanical stuff buff, but this thing was GORGEOUS. I could have spent an hour cheerfully ogling it.
The N-shaped wing strut was apparently well-known. I just thought it looked cool.
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Curtiss-Wright.
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Cockpit.
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Engine and propeller.
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Engine and propeller.
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Old Town Sacramento
Last Sunday I went down to Old Town Sacramento with some friends. First we went to the Crocker Art Museum for the last day of their Warner Bros exhibit, and then we wandered around Old Town a bit.
My favorite picture of the day is probably this one, just because of its sheer randomness:
Dock and Tower Bridge.
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This is the dock in front of the Tower Bridge on the Sacramento River. I used TiltShiftMaker.com for the effects on the picture–it’s supposed to make it look like a model. The original of this picture is here.
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We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the Warner Bros exhibit inside the Crocker, so I don’t have anything to show of that, but suffice to say, it was really neat. They had, of course, tons of old sketches and animation cels, but what I found the neatest was looking at some of the old backgrounds done in the 40s and 50s. They were true works of art, actually quite rich in color and techique, and it’s kind of sad to think how little (if any) attention they got in the cartoons.
My other two favorite pictures of the day:
What can I say--I like trains!
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This cat was hanging out under one of the trains and watching the world go by. Not a bad place to hang out.
Click here for a link to the entire gallery from the day.
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