Life got you down? Itching to travel? Tired of seeing your neighbor scratching his butt when you leave the house every morning? What you need, son, is a house on wheels. Yes, sell that boring ol’ house on a foundation and put your money into mobility, maybe something like a 1938 Curtiss Aerocar, towed by a one-of-a-kind Chevrolet-based streamlined tractor, currently for sale on Hemmings.com for $250,000. Continue reading at Hemmings

Like the Land Rover and the Hummer, Mercedes-Benz’s Geländewagen came from militaristic roots before it became a yuppie status symbol, except here in the States, we tend not to see much of its “Franz goes to war” past, shown in this 1982 Geländewagen currently on Hemmings.com for $29,900. Continue reading at Hemmings

To round out this Stude-themed week on the blog (yeah, I totally planned that), let’s go digging for one of South Bend’s finest for the Hemmings Find of the Day. Of the 35 Studebakers on Hemmings.com right now, perhaps the most eye-catching one is this creamsicle 1956 Pelham station wagon, offered out of Houston, Texas, for $49,900. Continue reading at Hemmings

Rum runner? Given the location – Dobson, North Carolina – the black paint and the hop-up parts, that’s certainly a possibility. From the seller’s description:

1940 Ford Standard Real moonshine car. This Black 40 is a rare find can be seen in NC. This car has new paint and new Hot Rod Interior. This car has a FLATHEAD engine with headers along with 3 carbs & aluminum intake. Edelbrock Heads help make this car a real find. Original 1940 NOS Running Boards. Three on the tree just like Henry wanted it.

Seller’s asking $49,500. More pics at Hemmings

Seriously, belt drive? That belt looks skinnier than the V-belt on Heather’s Midget. And not only that, but belt drive between the wheels? If you have a hankerin’ to see how this works, check out the ad for this 1956 Diamond T out of Ottertail, Minnesota, for $4,900. From the seller’s description:

Very RARE rear belt drive tandem. All the bells and whistles ! “532″ Model- North Dakota truck , running when parked. Low original miles (Supposingly an army issue)

More at Hemmings

While cleaning out the ol’ hard drive, I came across some photos from a Studebaker Drivers Club regional meeting in Rutland earlier this year and recalled that I spent most of that show going around and shooting Studebaker (and Packard) gauge clusters. Man, they really knew how to put a good dashboard together. More pics at Hemmings

It’s long been known that Harvey Firestone, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were camping enthusiasts, motoring out into the wilderness for a good ol’ time (and, likely, leaving the wives at home). But did they build RVs to serve that purpose?

Allegedly, Firestone did, and one of them recently turned up in South Carolina on a 1929 Studebaker chassis, and H.A.M.B.er mottsrods shared some pics of the behemoth with us. The only real clues as to its origin – beside the apocryphal Firestone story – are the “Dulce Domum – San Marino” painted on its flanks and the Advance Auto Body Works plate screwed to the body. Continue reading at Hemmings

So we know the Hungerford Rocket Car still exists, and just this week, we got a call alerting us to the fact that the AMC AMVan (a concept vehicle highlighted in Pat Foster’s article in the September 2009 issue of Hemmings Classic Car on AMC’s Concept 80 cars) still exists. Joe Bortz, he of concept car collecting fame, said he got the AM Van from Chrysler when the company was going through AMC’s inventory shortly after the buyout in 1987. He notes that it’s just a fiberglass styling buck, not a functioning vehicle – so the wheels don’t turn, nor do the doors open. And, as you can see, AMC decided not to go with the bubble window for the cargo hatch, opting instead for full glass.

After yesterday’s $5.3 million Ferrari, just to prove that I’m an equal-opportunity classified-ad skimmer, I went digging around the bargain section of classifieds on Hemmings.com. There’s at least a couple pages’ worth of sub-$1,000 listings, mostly for parts cars, but I found these two – a 1951 Packard 300 and a 1962 Chevrolet Corvair – at the $1,000 level, both being sold out of New Orleans. Your first thought upon hearing that city’s name is correct: They’re both flood cars, a shame in both cases because the Packard seems to have been fully restored and on the road prior to Katrina and the Corvair is a turbo Monza Spyder coupe. Project cars – if not parts cars – for sure, but it goes to show that not everything on Hemmings.com is a multi-million-dollar showpiece. See the rest of the pics at Hemmings

Back when I was just a wee cub reporter hacking away at a keyboard for a daily newspaper in northwestern Ohio, I spotted in downtown Port Clinton a chestnut-colored Cadillac station wagon. By the time I returned to the spot with my camera, it had vacated the scene, and I never saw it again.

Now Steve Donohue, who lives in my former stomping grounds (and who owns the Belvedereamino we recently beheld), comes along with some photos of a Cadillac shooting brake which he spotted on nearby South Bass Island in the village of Put-in-Bay, and which recalls those hazy days of my youth. I’m pretty sure this isn’t the same wagon, but that didn’t mean I was sure what exactly it was that Steve spotted. Continue reading at Hemmings

On first blush, you’d think some hillbilly down South found a GTO rusted up to its doorsills and decided to live out his Ricky Bobby fantasies by cutting out the wheelwells and stuffing wide tires underneath. But the seller of this 1966 GTO out of La Jolla, California, claims it has actual race history. Continue reading at Hemmings

Frequent commenter Gene Herman recently set his camera on stun so he could gather several examples of automotive wildlife he thought we’d enjoy. First up, his buddy Will’s 1952 Moto Guzzi Ercole. Continue reading at Hemmings

Another one from the Steve Williams collection out in Napa, California. It seems somebody decided they needed a bed cap for their 1963 Studebaker Champ, couldn’t find one in the aftermarket, and simply decided to make one themselves. I’d hazard a guess that the cap was built from a domestic 1960s van, but that window glass seems awfully big. From the seller’s description:

Has an odd custom camper on top, straight 6 we drove it to where it was parked for a couple of years so all is probably well with engine and drivetrain

A grand takes it. Your thoughts?

Years of training have honed my senses. Tracking these creatures for days on end has instructed me on their habits and habitats. I’ve learned to discern them and their camouflaged forms from their surroundings. I know when to shoot from safe distances and when to close in for the kill. Their trails are like roads to me, and their scent is in my nostrils. This one I captured in North Adams, Massachusetts. Note its unique coloration and its variation from the established species. These have been documented before, but this particular specimen requires further study. Continue reading at Hemmings

I would like to steer discussion of this 1957 Cadillac toward its professional car roots: Was it originally a flower car? Why alter the roof? Who did the conversion(s)? And I’d like to keep the discussion right there, because, quite frankly, those clowns on the organ freak me out. Continue reading at Hemmings