Hawker Hart

Designed in the Twenties by Sydney Camm, who also designed the lesser-known Hurricane.  Designed as a light bomber, when introduced in 1929 the Hart was 30 mph faster than the best British fighter.

John Sweetman.  Bomber Crew.  Taking on the Reich.  London:  Abacus, 2004, 2007.

Throttle knob

No idea what it's from.  Intuitively, I'd think to pull the throttle to open it.  Anyway, just neat.

CB400F header

Cycle Magazine March 1972. Say, those pipes look familiar! When the CB400F arrived in two years later with its iconic 4-1 header, could it be that Honda stylists had seen this ad for  aftermarket CB750 pipes before?

1925. H.M.Walter in his 'Jappic'

H.M.Walter in his 'Jappic' of 1925, good for 68.79 mph using a 350 cc JAP single cylinder engine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jappic

Find the Volkswagen

What traffic looked like in 1986.

Bookmobiles

National Geographic February 1927

1962

That's a nice set of pipes.

Dymaxion

James F. Fales, Everett G. Sheets, Gregg J. Mervich & John F. Dinan.  Manufacturing:  A Basic Text.  Second Edition.  Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, 1986.

This three-wheeler was designed by F. Buckminster Fuller to  travel at 120 mph and get 40 miles per gallon.  As a young engineer, he convinced Nannie Biddle (a famous aviatrix and contemporary of Amelia Earhart) to finance his experiment.  With the help of 27 skilled workers, they built a prototype that had an 85-hp V-8, front wheel drive, but steered by the single rear wheel (so it could be turned around on the spot).  Driver and passenger seats had rear-view periscopes.  The car was 19 feet long, planned to seat four but had room for eleven.  Made primarily of aluminum, it weighted only 2300 pounds. Fuller had a gas driving the prototype around New York City, creating traffic jams from all of the attention it garnered.  According to the manufacturing text referenced above (and contrary to what Wikipedia reports) it call came to an end when one of the test drivers was taking an interested buyer back to the airport, and rose to the challenge of a politician who came along side and suggested a race.  The two cars reached speeds of 70 mph before the politician lost control and crashed into the Dymaxion, killing himself and seriously injuring the passenger.  The politician's role was initially hushed up, and the press labelled the Dymaxion a killer car.  That ended the car's brief career.

Know your blocks

Boatswain Trade Group One BRCN 3039(64).  Royal Canadian Navy, 1960, Revised 1964

Stafford Diesel



Another Stafford Train Toy. At almost 18" long, this was much larger than the company's (roughly HO scale) streamlined steam locomotive toys. Unlike the others, this is not a pull toy as there is no hole for a string. It also has no couplers so it appears no train cars were planned.

 They picked an odd prototype, a double ended diesel, very rare in North America, it was perhaps modelled after Central Railroad of New Jersey's #2002, a rather homely beast.



More Stafford liners in an earlier post