Wickersham Humble

Everyone has a first ride, but I'll bet not too many are closer to Fred Flintstone's than this one! Boy, I loved it -- and it hated me! Live and learn, says the man alomost eighty! 1961: my '55 Chevy Delray two-door 'post' in all it's glory: lowered front and rear, red rims with 'Hollywood Moons,' lakes pipes, nosed & decked, all vertical bars removed from grille, 'Refrigerator White' with blue pinstriping by local genius 'Coop'. Also, built 265 Power-Pak, three on the floor (with 'Vette shifter, plate with ash tray, and all. Once one of the fastest cars in our rural county (in N CA) but slipping down when all the 390 Fords,413 MoPars, 6.5-Litre Ponchos, and 409 Chevys became numerous. No, I didn't build it, but I made payments on it ($26.60/mo., plus insurance, license, and gasoline) on an income of about $45.00 a month! Still, I never raced a car that I knew I could beat, and got trimmed a lot. It held Robert Hight's '62 Sport Fury through first gear, and then he said bye-bye (the Force funny-car's uncle and namesake) but we agreed the mouse motor played a superior tune at max rpm's. Last time I saw it, after selling in '63, was in the Shasta County Sheriff's impound yard: like an old girlfriend, it can be painful to see the last of your first ride! Outlaw to the last! What was yours, and are your photos as poor as these survivors? Wick Humble

John, Mott was a brilliant cartoonist/illustrator, per R&T stuff he contributed. Very distinctive style! I'm still planning the scan and submit on those photos, and yes a number of them have been published before, including by me in several articles for Street Rodder, Old Cars Weekly Car Exchange, and Special Interest Autos magazines. I have several showing the '58 Impala coupe mock-up posed with '57 Ford and Plymouth, btw. Life is complicated right now, and I've had a crummy attack of sciatica that slows me down horribly! Many car mags consider photos submitted with articles their property, which was prevalent before the ability to scan and copy that we have now came online; I let SIA, etc. have a huge amount of material I'd researched simply for the reason that the articles didn't really pay enough to let me make film-photographic copies. I recall taping GM b&w glossies to my 'fridge door, and shooting them with my old Nikomat on a tripod just to get some to keep! Wick

Them's the same. I got the engine from one of the old AMT Trophy kits; '36 Ford coupe, I think. Let me know if you find any? Story: In about 1986, I needed some sheet metal welding done on a '55 Nomad we'd adopted, and didn't feel I was up to the risk, so engaged a crazy old professional welder to section in a rocker/part fender (Nomad's rust!) and was trying to get a price guesstimate out of him. He said he'd heard that I also built models, and was finishing a '41 Chevy coupe as a replica of one he'd drag-raced 'back in the day' -- and that if I had a 1/25 Buick Nailhead engine to make it accurate, he'd just swap his work for that -- and I did! He did beautiful work, and went away chortling about his Buick mill, so we were both happy! Thanks, Wick

Not actually the original 'stock' type, but could do. Sorry to put you through all this hassle! My original is just the unpainted 'tin' version, with the lateral cross-grooves. Looks distinctly Buick Nailhead, for sure. Thx! Wick

Marty, thanks, that's cool! Be aware, I don't need the entire sheet, just the two 'hornet' decals. I'm building a resin 1/24 scale of my step-dad's 1952 White 3000 tilt-cab (bought new back then, as a semi-tractor) as a ramp truck using a Ford C-series cab-over chassis, and he always called the two-tone green rig 'The Green Hornet'. If I have anything you might need in trade...? My decals are mostly 60 years old now, but some fresher! Wick

Les, thanks, I'll follow up on that suggestion! OC, I have no printing capabilites, and not very adept at resin casting! The earlier cab with the late bed would get'r done! My little bro had to pick up a train crew at their coffee shop the first day he worked for the old Southenr Pacific, and his wet boot slipped off the'crummy' clutch as he parked it, running right into the exterior wall! Our USFS didn't use crew-cabs, but the local RR and loggers in N CA did. Wick

The resin I'll need, it seems, is this obsolete Modelhaus Dodge long-wide bed pickup, but if this doesn't get results, I'm giving up after three tries. I want to convert it into a 3/4 Ton 4x4 to replicate the last USFS Class IV fire tanker I was foreman on, in 1968. (Actually, ours was earlier, I think, more like '61.) It had bold 'Power Wagon' chrome letters on both hood sides, and tall, skinny stock steel wheels, a 318-cu.in. V-8, 100-gallon water tank (as I recall) with 'lunger engine/pump and one 2.4" rubber-hose live reel. Motorola radio, took box and Handyman jack, with Barden bumper. Any hopes, out there? Ole' Wick, age 79 and counting....

Had high hopes for these requests; thanks for viewing, at least! Still want them. Wick

Post WWII: clearly the superfine Studebaker 1953-54 Coupes! I've loved these cars since the 'fifties, and always get a thrill when I see them today. Not that they were great mechanically, but the Bourke/Loewy body and interior are not only far ahead of their time, but still 'look so right' today. Followed closely by the ever-classic '55 Chevrolets, and the 1961 Pontiac 'bubble-top' coupes. Imports: Early Datsun 240Z without a doubt, Porsche 911, and the European exotics from the 1950's-60's. Oh, and the Scarab racers! Pre WWII: Coffin-nose 1936 Cord, again ahead of it's time, and so bold! 1933-34 Ford (esp coupes/roadsters) and the Lincolns that inspired them. I put a lot of weight on style, because the mechanical shortcomings -- they all had 'em, even the '55 Chevy (my first car, and one of many including a Nomad) has lots of room for improvement. But, improving a car (the 240Z also comes to mind, and I wrote the book on restoration for that one) is enjoyable and rewarding. Ole' Wick

Tom, et al: think the kitbashing issue already has manifested itself. I recall the MoPar kits c. 1962 with JoHan and Revell both releasing promo type kits, and the latter had severly underscale B-blocks (still have some) that were wierd. As you note, it progresses. Wick

Some of my best repair/rebuld/restore kits are early JoHan MoPars. Sometimes the styrene was very brittle, tho. Used to find them (curbside promos, oc) at the local 88-Cent Store! Cheaper than AMT/MPC, back -- c. 1960 -- when pennies were worth something! Wish I'd bought more, or saved more of 'em. Wick

Gees, and I'm 1/4 Palmer! Not the kit mal-practicer family, tho. Maybe Dave Deal or even Big Daddy should have put their stamp on this one? Wick

Darn; sold out! Thanks anyway, John. I'll check again later with ebay. Wick

THE highlight of my days at Velocity 2024 last September was seeing the GG and Hildebrand snatch third away from one of the plethora (Jefe!) of Moostangs in the Trans Am final; picked it off from the final hairpin in a drag-race to the finish line; wonderful racing! And H. said it was without his #1 engine! I talked with him and the affable Harry at length, afterwards, and snapped a few pics. I had taken notice of the car back in it's heyday from magazine coverage, but never saw it 'in the tin.' The spurious GTO id's were/are silly; nothing wrong with being a Tempest! Versus the T-A pack, it looks like a misplaced Grand National car. It ran high in the pack all weekend, and led the T-A final for a while. Speaking of FIA approval: you've seen the photo of the 389-powered '62 "Tempest GT" in Thomas's book, with it's massive hood scoop? It has some unique trim call-outs (unreadable in the shot) but otherwise appears as a stock LeMans for the most part. The FIA application shows three VIN reserved for the 'series' but this shot is the only one I know of. What could they have been thinking, with the drive train as stock -- unless it was a prototype for the '63 'Powershift' or 'Super-Duty' Tempests that were built (in-house, perhaps a dozen) that worked so well at NHRA 'Super Factory Experimental' racing, or the one-shot with the Nichels/Goldsmith road-racer that won the Daytona Challenge Cup, vs Ferrari GTO and Corvette Grand Sport-- Rodriguez and Foyt up. Beautiful work on the Ghost model; love to see more! I did a 'version' of he '63-421 drag cars (ragtop; the only kits I could source at the time) using the 2X4 intake and Royal Pontiac decals from the AMT '62 Bonneville kit. Also, a close replica of the '61 Tempest 'Monte Carlo' roadster that I first saw in MT that year -- both of which I began in 1962, when I was a 'lot-bot' at the local Pontiac dealership, and got to drive a few new ones! Working on a replica of my '62 convertible and two other Y-bodied LeMans kits now. Need a Buick 215 V-8 to replicate my '61 Tempest V-8 coupe (small window) that I'm finishing up presently. Age 79. Wick PS/ I wrote the first Tempest history in 1978 for Special Interest Autos Magazine (Hemmings pub.) and interview a lot of PMD luminaries (except John D. !) back then: Mac MacKellar, Bill Collins, Fred Timpner, Hulki Aldikachti, Bunkie Knudsen, Mickey Thompson, Smokey Yunick, etc. Also John Bond of R&T. The competition piece was an adjunct to the regular article, and never got published, darn it! I shared it with some POCI guys, tho. What photos I had became property of Hemmings, I guess. Now all those mags are gone, with a few exceptions. The A-body GM 'intermediates' are great cars, but don't disparage the Y-body rides!

I like UPOL clear, it seems to give good results, and dries hard enough to color-sand, if necessary. My retirement job was with the local PPG paint store, and we kept UPOL (a British firm, maybe?) on hand, along with SEM in rattle-cans. It was used by many body shops, so I assumed it was a good material -- and it isn't cheap! More usually, however, I use PPG 660 catalyzed clear, since I have it on hand for 1/1 car stuff anyhow. It's super-premium, and never yellows. Remember the old automotive clears, and how they changed the base color! Almost like hardware store stuff, especially if exposed to the sun. Great instant gloss, tho. Wick

Tim, et al, All my years teaching little kids, one hope I had was to make them love the printed word (especially on paper!) with good story-times, well told. Learning was a side benefit, at least! Wish I could have interested more than a few on modeling... Wick PS/ Check my name [ Wick Humble ] on Amazon for my fiction stuff; mostly adventures, the kind I like to read! :-<)

Spent ten minutes searching; any tips on source? WIck

News Flash! Okay, while I'm damning Car Tech Books with faint praise, I get a call from 'my guy' there: my "Z-Car" book is coming out in revised edition after all! After CA Bill's Automotive Handbooks ceded all their car titles to CT, I got the impression that it was dead, and they'd only be selling out the remaining stock, or at best doing an exact (obsolete) reprint, but not so! I get the proof mss. in a week or so, and get to 'red-pencil' it for imminent publication. Whew! Am I relieved! New life for an old manual -- but then it's still the only game in town for early (1970-78) Z restoration, as far as I know. Never actually out of print for 35 years! Yay! Wick

I had a bestie in the Army who (another draftee) who was a professional industrial model-maker, eg. he made wooden -- and soft-metal, other materials -- machinists models for shops; amazing skill! Read the blueprints, and created a dimensionally-perfect 3-D prototype that the machinists and so forth could refer to for size/shape. He was assigned (typical Army, but... ) to their Medical Museum and making displays; besides hanging around together and riding dirt bikes, I worked a rotating one-day-per-week shift with Mike, otherwise I was doing drafting, lettering, and R.Crumb-style cartoons for the Medical Field Service School at Ft. Sam Houston, TX. While most draftees went straight to 'Nam (home-town bestie was killed there two-weeks in country!) we were both left to our MOS jobs, and ETS'ed from Ft. Sam. I bought my new 1970 240Z there. Ex-SP5 Humble 81E20

Okay; makes sense. I never use water-based paints; no use starting a new system at my age and stage of development, tho. My B-B pack might be old enough to be lead; I'll check. But, think I'm off B-B's. now. Thanks a lot! Wick

John, nice look! Source...? Wick

I believe that putting B-B's into a jar of paint as agitators affects the composition of the liquid; after having to toss a plethora (Jefe!) of Testors jars with B-B's, I stopped the practice, especially when the Daisy pellets emerged without their copper plating! Wick

I only have the old Ala Kart Red Ram hemi version, but don't forget, the original 1/1 engine wasn't as big as the Chrysler/DeSoto version, so the original Dodge from '54 was smaller, right?* I had one for a while in the '80s, dumb 4-door, but a torquey little monster even with stock 2/bbl. Moreso than my pet Power-Pak 265 Chevy Nomad at low rpms, anyhow. Great match for it's 3-sp./OD trans! Too bad so few were built/sold. Chevys got rpm's a lot quicker, oc. Like my '61 Tempest (Buick) 215 V-8, light but not small; it's the same dimensions side-to-side/top-to-bottom as the SBC, but actually longer due to front distributor! The original 221-260-289 Ford resembles it. Only 3,600-ish Tempest/LeMans V-8's total in 1961-62. Few survive in Pontiacs. Ever see a Diamler 'hemi' V-8, or the little Siata/Fiat V-8? Or, the Toyota?! Wick *It didn't use the same castings as the upper-priced cars, did it? Sure looked smaller, and cuter.

One of the big selling features of my "How to Restore Your Datsun Z-Car" manual was the set of Datsun parts-book exploded drawings and call-outs we were able include as an appendix. NISSAN USA wouldn't supply me with the material, but said if a dealer let me have them, it was okay -- no joke! Datsun dealers who were established in the early Katayama era (late '50s) got a lot of concessions from them for taking on the new-to-USA Datsun line. I also borrowed the entire 'recall bulletin' collection from 1970-78, and culled it for pertinent info on Z's, plus some other technical drawings from their shop manuals. Basically, stuff I'd like to see if doing a good, accurate restoration of their cars. My text far outshone my photos -- it was a learning curve! Aside: Datsun recruited dealerships so assiduously before 1960 that a local outfit that was established to sell McCulloch chainsaws was recruited, Norbergs Motor Center, Redding CA. The dealer I bought my new 1970 240Z from operated under a huge Renault sign; Calmbach Motors in San Antone, TX. Wick

MoToR's went way back to when that was a car mag, I think! A 'friend' swiped the one I got for Xmas in '63, darn it! Loved the 'faces' of each year of auto, used for reference when drawing frontal views when I should have been doing my mechanical drawing projects. I have a number of older ones, too. I like the manufacturer's shop books, but they vary a lot in usefulness. The GM ones were used, because of their good grammar, I guess, to teach English in some of the Arab countries, it is said. They truly are meant for factory mechanics, though, and gloss over many, many needful details -- for my money, after 60 years of screwing around with Chevy's and Pontiacs, mostly. I like the 1949-51 Ford book (reprint) I have, esp for readability, but it has some of the same faults. Great illustrations. I had Datsun books for all the first-gen Z-Cars; great in some ways, hilarious in others. They never had a native-speaking English/American beta reader or editor, obviously, and got some nomenclature badly, humorously wrong! A brake-adjusting spur was called a 'claw.' When they suggested something be shaken, they said 'give it a vibration.' And so forth!! And imported motorcycle manuals -- don't ask! Wick (now writing 'stream of conscious' style.)