Question for vintage car nuts

Loeffelholz · August 2007

Any motorheads out there?

Just what could one do to a car in the late '30s-early '40s to get maximum speed out of it? Were there such things as superchargers in those days? What modifications could be made to the engine? Or to the suspension?

I'm referring specifically to a 1935 Ford Roadster, with an early-era V8...

Thanks in advance! {[]

The Sly Fox · August 2007

Well, I'm no mechanic, but I believe many of the performance mods on today's cars can be applied to vintage ones. With that kind of engine, most likely it would take a supercharger. I know superchargers are sometimes applied to '70s vehicles. You also might be able to put a bigger intake on it so that it could get more air into the engine, and thus more power (this is commonly applied to average cars like some Toyotas and Hondas today as a simple way to boost the power). Please note that I have no idea how to do any of these things, I just read stuff...

Of course, I'm just saying what you might be able to do with it today. As for what they had to work with back then? I have no idea.

Does this happen to be a car you own (pictures!!!!

)?

Bill Tanner · August 2007

Well I'm no mechanic either, just an armchair enthusiast who tinkers a little. But since the earliest days of motoring people have competed in cars and tried to improve their performance, so by the early thirties and forties things were fairly sophisticated: larger carburettors, straight through exhaust systems, better plugs, bigger bores for larger cylinders, combustion chamber modifications, different camshaft profiles etc: most of the commonly-known stuff for hopping-up an the internal combustion engine. Most of the basic principles stayed the same for the next 70 or 80 years, but as the engineering tolerances improved people were able to develop horsepower more efficiently from smaller capacity engines. Superchargers were a surprisingly early development, (early 20s, if not earlier) and certainly commonly available by 1929 when Bond's 'Blower' Bentley first competed at Le Mans.

Bill Tanner · August 2007

Oh, and if you're specifically interested in the American scene, Hot Rod culture started up around 1930 (some claim earlier).

There are some good Hot Rod history sites out there, but Wikipedia will give you a start.

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

Loeffelholz · August 2007

The Sly Fox wrote:

Does this happen to be a car you own (pictures!!!! )?

I do, indeed, have a couple of pictures---but, alas, the pictures are all I possess

This is for a writing project, and I want my protagonist to have as fast a car as possible...within the bounds of moderate realism

...in 1941.

BTW, thanks to Bill Tanner for the suggestions. I've a place to start {[]

Loeffelholz · August 2007

Here's my hero's car:

Georgiboy · August 2007

Loeffelholz wrote:

Here's my hero's car:

That looks like a pretty cool and fast car for 1941.

Loeffelholz · August 2007

Thanks, Georgiboy -{

My guy wouldn't have had much extra money at the time, but he's living in a two-room flop above a bar & grill, so whatever money he'd have would likely have gone into the car...and I think he drives it well B-)

Bill Tanner · August 2007

Your project greatly interests me and I'd certainly like to read it when you're done.

There are some great passages in the earlier Fleming novels (and the excellent Pearson 'autobiography') that specifically relate to the Blower Bentley, how Bond drives it, how it was tuned and how it is maintained. One thing to bear in mind here is that some of the best writing on the subject doesn't necessarily contain that much specific information on the mechanics (which might alienate or even bore an unknowledgable reader), but conveys a flavour and enthusiasm. For example, the character of Bond never actually gets his own fingernails dirty, or has much mechanical sympathy judging by the way he tortures his supercharged engine until the bearings whine; yet we gather through Fleming's general enthusiasm for cars that Bond is very knowledgeable on the subject. And as with many of Fleming's descriptions (cars, firearms food etc), the enthusiasm easily masks the detail innaccuracies.*
I can't think of another literary character in the same vein as yours, but a movie parallel worthy of further study might be Han Solo: Lucas was a fan of Hot Rod culture and evidently evolved the character of Solo and the Falcon from his earlier American Grafitti. Solo plainly has little money, a dishevelled but hopped-up ship/hot-rod: whatever money he invests in the machine is spent purely on making it go faster rather than the asthetics. We are also given the impression that he knows how to tune an engine through surprisingly little dialogue: the odd line here and there about fluid couplings etc.

I suppose the point I'm making is that, while it's good to know what makes the machinery tick, the odd hint dropped-in here and there is more teasing than a lengthy description. And it always seems to be a feature of old cars how it's the most trivial of parts (fuel lines, head gaskets, fan-belts etc) that give the most trouble. I'm more interested in reading about the charisma and patina of the Blower and the Falcon and the attitudes towards them of Bond and Solo.

*(It's also worth looking-up Fleming's enthusiastic description of Leiter's Cord... LALD?)

Jones · August 2007

Who needs a car? I ride bulls!

(No, jokes aside, I'm afraid I cannot help you with that....weapons are a different story, but cars are of no help. I lug around in a Chevy Silverado and that's the only car I've needed for the longest time.)

Loeffelholz · August 2007

Bill Tanner wrote:

There are some great passages in the earlier Fleming novels (and the excellent Pearson 'autobiography') that specifically relate to the Blower Bentley, how Bond drives it, how it was tuned and how it is maintained. One thing to bear in mind here is that some of the best writing on the subject doesn't necessarily contain that much specific information on the mechanics (which might alienate or even bore an unknowledgable reader), but conveys a flavour and enthusiasm. For example, the character of Bond never actually gets his own fingernails dirty, or has much mechanical sympathy judging by the way he tortures his supercharged engine until the bearings whine; yet we gather through Fleming's general enthusiasm for cars that Bond is very knowledgeable on the subject. And as with many of Fleming's descriptions (cars, firearms food etc), the enthusiasm easily masks the detail innaccuracies.*
I can't think of another literary character in the same vein as yours, but a movie parallel worthy of further study might be Han Solo: Lucas was a fan of Hot Rod culture and evidently evolved the character of Solo and the Falcon from his earlier American Grafitti. Solo plainly has little money, a dishevelled but hopped-up ship/hot-rod: whatever money he invests in the machine is spent purely on making it go faster rather than the asthetics. We are also given the impression that he knows how to tune an engine through surprisingly little dialogue: the odd line here and there about fluid couplings etc.

Good advice, Bill, and I'll do my best to follow it. In fact, I'm looking for a bit of knowledge so I can do that very thing: drop a phrase here or there, and then move along.

Bill Tanner wrote:

Your project greatly interests me and I'd certainly like to read it when you're done.

And I certainly hope you do read it! {[] I want to be widely read, as I desperately need to escape my day job

This one IS going to see the light of day, even if I go the online, 'on demand' publishing route...and maybe court a publisher, down the road, as I continue the series.

Thanks again for your advice---and for the automotive stuff as well.

Bill Tanner · August 2007

Loeffelholz wrote:

And I certainly hope you do read it! {[] I want to be widely read, as I desperately need to escape my day job This one IS going to see the light of day, even if I go the online, 'on demand' publishing route...and maybe court a publisher, down the road, as I continue the series.

Good luck with that - perseverance is the only way. Send to as many publishers (obviously targeting those who publish similar work) as possible, and expect a lot of rejections - not all of them polite. A literary agent is a must before you get to contract stage (if they're any good at their job they'll know what is a reasonable deal and how to read and ammend a contract), but whether you can find a good one who is willing to take you on with no track record is doubtful.

Loeffelholz · August 2007

Bill Tanner wrote:

...perseverance is the only way. Send to as many publishers (obviously targeting those who publish similar work) as possible, and expect a lot of rejections - not all of them polite. A literary agent is a must before you get to contract stage (if they're any good at their job they'll know what is a reasonable deal and how to read and ammend a contract), but whether you can find a good one who is willing to take you on with no track record is doubtful.

Of course...but it can't be any more difficult than getting one to simply read a movie script X-(

Fortunately I'm fairly stubborn...it's a 'German thing'

Question for vintage car nuts

Comments