Our first episode of This Old Car Radio went live yesterday. You can listen to the show or download it at www.ThisOldCarRadio.com.
Please take a few minutes to listen to what is the first of many weekly shows that we will broadcast each and every week. Once you've had a chance to tune in, take a moment to tell us what you think by clicking on the "Leave a Comment" link bleow. We always like to hear what you like...and even what you think we could do better.
ThisOldCarRadio.com is our new 24-hour Internet radio channel dedicated exclusively to the old car hobby. The new station offers a weekly half-hour broadcast with the latest hobby news, commentary, interviews with a wide range of hobby figures and collectors, discussions of market trends, round-table interviews and news about upcoming shows and events.
Car collectors and memorabilia buffs have always found plenty to read about in Old Cars Weekly and Old Cars Price Guide magazines. Now, visitors to the magazines’ respective websites will also find plenty to listen to.
April 17 marks the debut of This Old Car Radio, a 24-hour Internet radio channel dedicated exclusively to the old car hobby. The new station will offer a weekly half-hour broadcast with the latest hobby news, commentary, interviews with a wide range of hobby figures and collectors, discussions of market trends, round-table interviews and news about upcoming shows and events.
Visitors to the radio site will be able to listen to 24-hour streaming programming — each new show will start over at the top of every hour — or select from a list of archived programming that will be available for easy downloading and through iTunes. New programming will kick off at 1 p.m. (Eastern) April 17 and new shows will debut each Thursday at that same time.
In addition to the latest hobby headlines and highlights of the upcoming old car show and event calendar, the April 17 debut show will feature a discussion of recent auction events with Old Cars Price Guide editor Ron Kowalke; an interview with Motor Trend Executive Editor Matt Stone, who recently released a new book called “McQueen’s Machines,” and a chat with noted Illinois collector and concept car expert Joe Bortz.
I was perusing the Web today and ran across an interesting article in a British newspaper. And, believe it or not it had nothing to do with the Queen or how the princes were being “royal” pains…
Anyway, the article is about the largest car “graveyard” in Europe. Apparently there are roughly 1,000 car “remains” quietly rusting away, not bothering anyone, about 10 miles from the capital of Switzerland.
The salvage yard includes everything from early Porsches to Ford Prefects and even includes the wreck of an early Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.
Recently a couple of local bureaucrats decided that the yard was an “environmental hazard” and are working to get a court order requiring all the cars to be cleared from the property before the end of the year.
We all know how quickly these great resources are disappearing here in America as scrap prices have skyrocketed and young shade-tree mechanics have turned their efforts toward “pimping out” little foreign cars. What are American and Swiss car nuts to do?
Well, rather than simply getting mad and bemoaning the fact that all the salvage yards are disappearing, these crafty Swiss folks (no surprise, they are the ones that figured out how to get holes inside a block of cheese after all!) have decided to battle bureaucracy with a little weapon of their own.
They are trying to get the yard declared as a museum, so that these relics will be saved for posterity. Not just any old museum…but an art museum…because who can actually define what is art. Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…or work of art.
What do y’all think…any chance this could work here?
For the past several months I have had a dirty little secret. It isn’t one that I am totally comfortable with, and I am not sure if I am really quite ready to own up to it just yet.
It’s a secret that I have only shared with a few people, and each time I’ve let it slip, I cautiously wait for their reaction…generally expecting looks of disapproval from my family and friends.
I have tried to suppress my desire, but the time has come for me to simply come clean.
I want to own a station wagon.
Not just any ‘ol wagon, but a ’58-’60 Rambler. Hold on, it gets even worse; I really want one of the cute little Rambler American Wagons that looks like an overturned bathtub.
Please don’t think less of me. I have looked, and there doesn’t seem to be a 12-step program out there to help me kick my craving.
Ok, so maybe I am making way too much out of this, but it seems that just days after my 35th birthday I suddenly found myself thinking that driving a classic wagon would be “cool.”
I’ve tried to convince myself that what I really want is a ‘60s or ‘70s muscle car. Something long and sleek that packs more power that a small bomb and would make everyone sit up and take notice as I roar into the parking lot here at the Old Cars Weekly office.
Heck, I even tried to talk myself into considering any number of hot rods and 50’s cruisers. But, each and every time I find myself imagining how “neat” it would be to pile the family into my very own Rambler wagon and strike out across the country for destinations unknown.
Who knows, maybe I watched the "Brady Bunch" too many times as a kid. I always did like the episode when they all headed to the Grand Canyon and Bobby and Cindy got lost like 200 times over the three days they were camping in the canyon.
To make the situation even worse, I find that I don’t even crave one of the hot-rodded Rambler American Wagons. You’ve all seen them, the ones where guys tried to hide the fact that they like little these wagons by slapping a wild paint job on the car and dropping a 350 under the hood.
No, I want the real deal.
I realize that there are many station wagon clubs and collector organizations out there, and that I am not the only one that has this dream. But, I always imagined that when I hit middle age I would be the guy that all the neighborhood kids looked at and thought,… “Wow, that guy has a cool set of wheels!”
Oh well, if Old Cars Weekly editor Angelo Van Bogart can get away with driving a ’94 Buick Roadmaster wagon, and still be cool, maybe my desire to own a Rambler American wagon isn’t so crazy after all.
I'm sure by now that each and everyone of you has heard or read that comedian Jerry Seinfeld was involved in a little accident thie past weekend while cruising around in a 1967 Fiat near his home in the Hamptons.
The New York Post broke the story and I have to tell you that I've spent the past hour or so searching our books and the Web to try and find out exactally what a Fiat "BTM" is?
From what I can find there were six models built by Fiat in 1967. None of them was listed as a "BTM."
1967 Fiat 1100R
1967 Fiat 125 Special Berlina
1967 Fiat 125
1967 Fiat 1500 Cabriolet
1967 Fiat Dino Coupe 2.0
1967 Fiat Dino Spider 2.0
Feel free to click on the "Comment" button below if I have missed any of the 1967 models.
Apparently Otis beat me to the punch on opening a discusison in the forums to try and determine what Seinfeld was driving. So...click on the link below to tell the Old Cars Weekly Community what you think the car is.
