Peter Behrens's Blog, page 506
October 15, 2013
The 1962 Chevrolet Impala project
Judging from the Moon decals and those period wheelcovers, I'd say this car was semi-hotrodded about the time of the Tet Offensive. Then it probably sat in the barn for a long time. Maybe the kid went to the war. I say the thing to do here, now, would be a 409. And restore the rest of the car as factory-plain-jane as is possible with an Impala. It's not a Biscayne stripper, after all. My Santa Barbara car guru Frank ordered one of these from the factory in 1962 when he was 17. Had them put everything go-fast on it. Frank ruled on State Street, and at the Pepper Tree. Did anyone ever order dog-dish hubcaps with an Impala? My father did on our 1968 Chrysler Newport Custom, and I thought it embarrassing. But I was a whitewalls & wheelcovers guy as a kid. My taste has matured. This solid-seeming unit awaits the go-ahead, maybe from you, at Twisted Wire Customs in Wiscasset, Maine.
Volvo P1800 ES, Austin-Healey, Jaguar XKE, etc.
from my cousin Rob Macdougall of Montreal. Rob recently bought this 1973 Volvo P1800 ES on eBay and took a trip down to Virginia last week to meet his car:"Left Montreal Monday morning on good old Air Canada--1.5 hr flight to Dulles airport outside Washington. Met Paul Warren of BCCdocs (British and Classic Car Doctors) at his house--he lives in a converted silo on the outskirts of Washington. This guy is 34 years old and was once a Ferrari and a Morgan mechanic---started his own shop 8 years ago--see www.bccdocs.com.We drove from his house to his shop in Upperville Virginia located just 9 miles west of historic Middlebury, Virginia --full of beautiful stone houses and antique shops--not a Starbucks to be seen!! This area is home to some of the Washington elite and horsey set who have country houses in the area.Spent most of Monday PM checking out the car. Body/undercarriage/ Interior all in excellent shape considering the car is 40 years old. Experiencing some problems with the engine running rough and was there until 9:00 PM trying to get it right.
"Booked a room at the Blackthorne Inn (see pic attached) just down the road and had a couple of Guinness and great fish and chips before hitting the sack.
"On Tuesday morning I decided to tour the area as the new parts were not expected to arrive before noon. Paul had lent me his Range Rover so I toured the beautiful country to the west of Upperville--basically the Shenandoah valley and the blue ridge mountains--understand why wars were fought over it!! Great civil war markers and history--love that stuff."Returned to the shop Tuesday PM and the guys were still working hard trying to isolate the problem. After changing many parts--distributor cap, plugs, wires and testing the fuel injection --again it was decided that the problem was the actual distributor which had some minor play in it and caused the engine to miss and idle roughly. We got on line and ordered a new one $500 for delivery the next day.Made the decision to fly home as I had some ongoing business which had to be dealt with. After a nice seafood dinner Paul drove me to a Comfort Inn close to the Dulles airport and I was home in Montreal by 10:30 Wednesday morning. Paul has agreed to drive Zelda north to the border some time this coming week. He has a diesel truck and full trailer so will be an 7-8 hour drive for him.BTW--the pics attached are of some of Zelda's stable mates, ready for restoration or completion- Paul has over $4M of inventory sitting around his various warehouses -the typical car is a $50K project with some--the Aston Martin's maybe $500K...?"--RM
October 14, 2013
1954 Chevrolet station wagon, Banff
This just in from our man in Banff, the pleine-aire painter Alex Emond. I think a 1954 Chevrolet wagon, not quite a woody except for that tailgate, but a handsome machine.
October 12, 2013
1950 Chevrolet Advanced Design-era Truck; Twisted Iron
Another project waiting to happen at Twisted Iron Customs in Wiscasset, Maine. Losing those whitewalls would be a start.
October 11, 2013
Love, Inertia, and Poultry: The Ford Econoline and the Rooster
Actually it's the passenger Econoline, which was called a Falcon. For sale. In Maine. Check out Shawn Hibna-Cronan's amazing edition of this van here.
October Haul, Eggemoggin Reach, part 2: Stonington and Deer Isle
Went back to Benjamin River this morning to finish getting Scout ready for hauling out. This meant pulling the motor. She's a Cape Dory 25 with a small outboard in a well, that we use for getting in an out of the harbor. (Nissan 6 h.p. four-stroke.) When the wind dies, as it did yesterday, it will move the boat at @ 7 knots. Motors, even small ones, are heavy. I pulled it out, somehow got it into the dinghy, and rowed it ashore. Then went back and got the boom off, cleaned things up, and generally got her shipshape to be hauled out--maybe tomorrow morning, depending on Bill Grant's lobstering schedule, and the tide. Then I had to drive down to Dean's Small Engine at Stonington, on Deer Isle, where the motor is winterized and stored. Beautiful day to cross the D.I. bridge. The Island always feels like its own world. Grabbed a couple of photos on the way, for anyone missing Maine.
1967 International Harvester Loadstar 1700: The Maine Blueberry Truck: My Brilliant Careerism
The big old I-H is a decommissioned fire truck now working on the blueberry harvest. I found it in Union, Maine. I have a fondness for these because I drove one of these I-H trucks when I worked on the wheat harvest in the astoundingly beautiful province of Alberta...
The combines would start threshing at 10 am, or as soon as the dew burnt off the crop. We'd keep at it until moisture settled down again, usually around midnight. We drove alongside the combines and off-loaded them on the move, then raced to dump the load in grainery bins, then raced back out to the fields for more. (BTW, found an I-H grainer in New Mexico last year: It's up here.) Bouncing around those enormous prairie wheat fields at night felt a bit like sailing on black sea under a starry sky.. If we happened to shift into a new field after dark, sometimes navigation was tricky, and it was possible to get lost driving cross-country between the combines and grain bins.I used this experience in the first short story I published in the US, "Vulcan", which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly. It is a included my story collection, Travelling Light, published this year. (The last signed first-editions are at Betsy's Sunflower here in Brooklin Maine.) Jerome Hellman, the legendary Hollywood producer (Midnight Cowboy, Coming Home, Day of the Locust, Mosquito Coast, etc) optioned "Vulcan", and writing the script for Jerry was my first job as a screenwriter. (Watch Liz Taylor presenting Jerry with the Best Picture Oscar for Midnight Cowboy) Vulcan never was made, though it came close a couple of times. The story is set on the High Plains, in the ruthless modern resource-extraction economy. The real farmboys are all up on "the rigs" making tons of money drilling for oil and gas, so transients (like me) are hired on to do farm and ranch work. Sounds like now, actually. Time to activate that project again. There are a couple of great star roles. Call me. Call my agent.
Meanwhile, back in Union, Maine, on a bright October morning:
October 10, 2013
The October Haul on Eggemoggin Reach
Had a sleepless night Monday. Scout was on her mooring at Center Harbour, I was three hours down the coast, and the wind was gusting S/SW at 40 knots. She rode it out. But October is a chancy time on the coast of Maine. Today was clear, warm, breeze S 5-10 knots--for a while anyway, then it died completely. I sailed, then motored, up Eggemoggin Reach to the Benjamin River and put her on a mooring just off the Sedgwick Town Landing. Stripped sails and most of the gear and Bill Grant will haul her out sometime in the next couple of days. Beautiful October light. There are plenty of good sailing days left but intense wind and weather are increasingly part of the mix, so it was time to haul. Always sad but one of the great rituals, too. Took these photos from the float at Sedgwick. Last sweet light of an October afternoon.
