As with the recent shot of Burlington, Vermont, today’s street scene, a postcard shot of the intersection of Market and Butte streets in Redding, California, shot sometime in the 1950s Safaris Tanzania | Tanzania Safaris and found over on Roadsidepictures’s  Flickr account, has been replaced with a pedestrian mall. Aside from the wonderful variety of signage, what do you see here?

It’s easy to forget now how non-traditional Toyota styling once was before the company deployed beige and came to dominate the American automotive landscape. Take, for instance, this super-clean and low-mileage 1972 Toyota Corona station wagon for sale on Hemmings.com, with its angular front end and healthy doses of Volvo-ish lines from the cowl back. It’d be hard to mistake it for anything else on the road or at the car show, but at the same time you’d be sure to get folks scratching their heads to accept it as a Toyota. From the seller’s description:

This rare example of Toyota’s top luxury model was manufactured in late 1971; the last month of production for this body style. It was originally purchased in Granite Falls, NC, and kept by its original owner until 1996. This vehicle’s equipment is inclusive of the 18R-C 2,000cc engine, Toyoglide automatic transmission, power brakes, factory air conditioning, radio, rear defroster, reclining bucket seats, and luggage rack. This vehicle shows a mere 30,173 miles and comes with factory manuals and warranty card.

See more Toyotas for sale on Hemmings.com.

Photos by David Newhardt, courtesy Mecum Auctions, unless otherwise noted.

The construction workers then building a new grocery store in Brunswick, Maine, must have laughed at the absurdity of Richard Sampson’s request. The guy who hired them to build the store, asking them to brick up a perfectly good Corvette within the store and top off the vault with a four-inch slab of concrete? With only a porthole window to see it? And no way to get it out? More than 50 years later, Sampson may end up having the last laugh, as that Corvette, now famous for its entombment, goes up for auction.

Of course, Sampson won’t be around to witness it cross the block next month at Mecum’s Kissimmee sale. The millionaire namesake of the Sampson’s Super Stores chain of grocery stores died in 1969, 10 years after he had the 1954 Corvette sealed away from the world with less than 2,500 miles on it. He made sure to put the Corvette on blocks to preserve the tires and to mothball the interior, ordered that two lights hang in the vault, and left instructions in his will that the Corvette not be disturbed until the year 2000.

When Ken Gross first related the story of the Corvette in 1976 in Special Interest Autos, the Corvette indeed remained in the tomb, though one of the light bulbs had burned out and the grocery store had become a sporting goods store. “By the dim light of the second bulb, the polo white Corvette can still be seen, surrounded by dust and cobwebs,” Gross wrote. “The dampness in the enclosed room has already caused the car’s surface to blister. The chrome and convertible top still look perfect, however.”

 12
Photos by Donald Stickles.

Ten years later, Ken Gross revisited the story to find out that plenty had changed. The family sold the store, but intended to keep the Corvette. And as it turned out, Sampson had voided the part about waiting until 2000 in his will, so his daughter, Cynthia – who ended up inheriting the Corvette – spent $3,000 in 1986 just to have the brick wall torn down and to remove the Corvette from the store. As noted previously, the paint had blistered, but the tires still held air and the top and interior remained in decent shape. Cynthia then had it installed (where else?) in her living room in Florida.

12
Photos courtesy Cynthia Sampson.

“I was concerned about putting it in a storage garage so, right now, this is the best place for it,” she told Gross. “I loved my father and I’m very sentimental about this car. I still haven’t decided whether to just fix it up or completely restore it.”

Apparently she decided to do neither. Another 10 years down the road, she sold it to ProTeam Corvette in exactly the same condition as when it emerged from the vault, and it has remained in that condition ever since, picking up the distinction of being the “oldest lowest-mile unrestored Corvette in the world.”

12

Mecum’s Kissimmee sale will take place January 18-27 at Osceola Heritage Park. For more information, visit Mecum.com.

UPDATE: Terry Michaelis of ProTeam recalls that he left the Corvette exactly as he found it during the time he owned it “We did not even try to get it running,” he said. He did, however, display it by invitation at Bloomington in 1996.

Photo via Nash Car Club.

It didn’t take long after we posted the photos of the prototype 1946 Nash pickup that we got the entire scoop on the pickup’s history, how it was built, and where it is today. To begin with, Thomas Harrington, who now owns the pickup, left the following comments:

The serial number, K77646 is a Nash 600 number, a few numbers before the first Nash 600 car for the year 1946. The cab ID plate says “SAMPLE”. I have the original plate from perfection Steel Body company, Galion, Ohio, which did the box; model number P1, serial number 80072. A replica of the plate is on the truck. A couple of years later a few pickups were made at the same time the larger trucks were made for dealers and export. Don Loper of NCCA found the truck.

I should add that I probably erred in restoring the truck, by making it fancier than it no doubt was originally. As no early engine was with the car a 1941 Ambassador Twin ignition 6 with overdrive was added. A wood floor to the box was added and a storage box in wood (removable). The word NASH was added to the rear gate using the same form as the original Nash lettering from the truck, which I keep separate from the truck.

We then heard from Don Loper:

I can tell you about the truck as I was told when I bought it. It’s titled as a 1946 Nash pickup, but it was built at Nash Engineering in Kenosha during WWII, with an eye toward building trucks after the war. Then after the war, they couldn’t get the steel to build all the cars they could sell, so the project went no further.

The man who more or less designed the truck took it with him when he retired in the ’50s and traded it in on a car at Waters Rambler (long closed) in Madison, WI. Waters used the truck for years as a car pusher, parts chaser, runs to the dump, etc, and when they closed up in the ’60s, one of their mechanics bought it for use on his farm. Later, one of the mechanic’s sons took it apart and it sat in a tobacco shed till I found it about 1980.

When I first heard of it, my first thought was someone cut a car off and made it, and I was right except that the someone was Nash Motors. The cab is a 42 Nash 600 4-dr, cut off right behind the B pillar (still visible) and a new rear panel welded in. I know it’s a 42 as the holes for the air filters on the ill-fated Lancia-type front suspension are in the inner panels under the hood. The resulting cab is mounted on a 1936 Nash frame which had a heavy X-member with 41 Ambassador rear springs and axle and front leaf springs from about 1936 with a beam axle from 1939. It had an open drive shaft. Airplane type shocks on the front but there was no provision for rear shocks.

The pickup box was bought from the Perfection Steel Body Company of Gallion, OH, and 41 Ambassador rear fenders were fitted along with fillets to move them out from the box. As you noted, it is shown with a side mounted spare (still has it) and without.

The interior was lined with a heavy cardboard like others of the period and the seat was covered in heavy “leatherette”. The dash was standard Nash car, even including the engine turned aluminum around the gauges. The only change was it had no clock and there was no provision for one as the glove compartment door had no hole in it (like the inexpensive 600 business coupe).

The pictures you have in the blog are all of the same truck except for the 48 Ambassador pickup. What they did was to put a front end on it, take it out and take pictures, bring it back and change it and take more pictures. I’m sure of this as when I got the truck, all of the holes for the different grilles, etc, were still in the front sheetmetal. I found that the company pictures for the most part were taken at the Southport Beach House in Kenosha.

I heard that there were several 48 Ambassador pickups built for use at the plant and the proving ground out by Burlington, WI. We do have one of them in the Nash Club.

As for where it is today, Thomas has loaned it to the Wisconsin Automotive Museum in Hartford, Wisconsin.

Ah, a perfect street scene. I see no particular reason why Cal Humphrey took this shot of downtown New Richmond, Wisconsin – specifically South Knowles Avenue just south of Third Street, looking north – so we can presume that everybody here is simply going about their normal daily business in their normal daily drivers, giving us a glimpse of a normal day in the life. What do you see here?

While it used the same basic body shell, the later versions of the Midget seemed a little less jolly than the earlier versions, what with their roll-up windows and radios and gloveboxes. On the other hand, later versions used a larger engine that gave the little car a little more power to avoid lumbering lorries. The owner of this 1962 MG Midget for sale on Hemmings.com thus did the sensible thing and restored a Mark I Midget roadster with a later 1,275cc engine. From the seller’s description:

Early MK I Midget, front drum brakes! This is a CA car stripped to bare metal and repainted. No sheetmetal was replaced during the restoration. Engine upgraded to 1,275cc (original was 948cc). She runs and drives very well, like a go-cart!

This was a 10-year restoration that was never finished. Medical issues forced the older gentleman I bought it from to sell. I finished the assembly of the car. Having owned a couple of these in the past made it an easy assembly.

Original color of the car was black, but it was red when the PO bought it. So, he restored it the same color. 1,275cc engine, 12v w/alternator, reduction gear starter, Facet fuel pump, ignitor ignition, new side curtains, new tonneau, rare center locking hubcaps, correct whitewall tires, the list goes on…everything new or rebuilt.

Issues: odometer not working, but trip is; a couple runs in the clearcoat, and dirt specks in the paint. Needs color sand to be mint. 1st gear makes a growl, as all the rib case gearboxes do; at least all the Midgets I have driven have all had noisy 1st gears. Other than that, gearbox shifts very nice, wiper motor not working, got hot when I hooked it up, so I unplugged it.

See more MGs for sale on Hemmings.com.

Photos courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum.

As is the case with many car museums, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles has more cars in its collection than it can display at any one time. Having such a large collection gives the museum flexibility in assembling exhibits, but it also means that the public doesn’t get to see most of those cars. For just a couple of weeks, however, the Petersen will open its storage vault to the public for guided tours.

From now through January 6, the Petersen will take small groups of no more than 10 people through the vault, where it currently keeps such cars as the Shah of Iran’s 1939 Bugatti, Steve McQueen’s Jaguar XKSS, and the famed Jonckheere “round-door” Rolls-Royce Phantom I Aerodynamic Coupe.

“In a way the vault has become a legend,” said Terry Karges, the museum’s executive director, in a press release. “At any given time we have as many as 150 vehicles on display in exhibits around the museum, but with over 400 vehicles in our collection many go unseen by the public. People are always asking for access to the vault and we’re excited to finally be able to offer the opportunity.”

Tour participants must be over the age of 12, and photography is not permitted on the tour. Tickets for the vault tour cost an additional $25 on top of museum admission. For more information, visit Petersen.org or call 323-964-6331.

UPDATE: Jesse, the justacarguy, took the tour and offered some photos of the cars in the vault.

1
Photo courtesy Wright Auctions.

The Ford Gyron never made it to production, which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise – the gyroscopically stabilized delta wing on two wheels hardly made it beyond the rendering stage at Ford, let alone to full-size concept car. Nor does that full-size concept car still exist, and both of these facts help account for the recent $40,000 sale price of one of the few styling studio models of the Gyron.

That sale price far surpassed the $10,000 to $15,000 estimate that Wright Auctions believed it would sell for at its Wright Important Design auction December 13 in Chicago. Only two other styling studio models of the Gyron are known to have existed, and one of those – which belonged to designer Alex Tremulis, who conceived the Gyron – went missing about a dozen years ago. This particular Gyron model left the studio in the hands of designer Joe Oros and remained in his possession until March of this year.

The Gyron concept car, designed in part by Tremulis, McKinley Thompson, Syd Mead, Bill Dayton, John Najjar, and Elwood Engel, debuted in 1961 at the New York International Auto Show, stabilized not by a gyroscope, as Tremulis intended, but by two outrigger wheels. The following year the fiberglass concept car was consumed in the fire that destroyed Ford’s Rotunda.

Loyal Hemmings reader, retired autobody guy and New Englander Carlton Stackhouse mailed us a typewritten letter this week (along with some prints) describing his most recent find: this clean 1981 Chevette four-door with 70,000 miles on the clock.

Carlton writes:

Enclosed are photos of our newest antique. We had two 1979 Chevettes and loved them. Our boys all had them also. Five years ago, my wife said she would like to have another Chevette. I thought that might be impossible, but last January my oldest called us from Springfield, Massachusetts, and said he had found a 1981 Chevette in Connecticut near Enfield. It had been driven from Washington, D.C., put in a garage and left there in 2000. It was sent to a junkyard, the owner called my son and, needless to say, we bought it.

It’s a four-door sedan with cloth upholstery, tilt steering column, sport wheels and sport hubcaps. The paint was in bad shape, but my son, being a body man also, with the help of his younger brother, sanded the car down and applied a professional paint job.

They brought it up to us in April and we drove it all summer.

People just took to it, wanted to know where we got it and all about it. It is very clean inside and the spare tire still has the little nubs on it.

Chevrolet sold a whopping 250,616 four-door Chevettes in 1981, but good luck finding a driveable one for sale in the Northeast today. The styled steel wheels with center caps that Carlton’s car rolls on were new to the Chevette that year, as was the sport shifter and floor console. Talk about an affordable old car if you can find one though, NADA lists the values at a low of $850, $1,950 average and $2,750 on the high end.