Vanderbilt Cup Races

Well…..if you’re gonna miss the mark, miss it by a bunch…...ah well, congrats to all and maybe next time.

From Mystery Foto #13 Solved: Mustang Pegasus and Mustang III on Display at the 1965 Autorama in Detroit

I’m looking for specifications and any other detailed info on the Thomas Torpedo race car.  Right now I don’t even have documentation proofing that the Torpedo was made by the ER Thomas firm in Buffalo, NY.  I certainly believe it was (made by Thomas) but all I can seem to find on the car are race results, not details about the car.  Can anyone steer me toward some detailed information?  Does anyone have a guess as to whatever happened to Torpedo race car?  The Thomas Torpedo seems to be overshadowed by the Thomas Flyer which won the 1908 NY-To-Paris Race, and that’s probably why the Torpedo seems to have been forgotten.  Thank you in advance!  /Brian S.; Elma, NY USA
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From Howard Kroplick

Brian, here are some links that may be useful:

http://www.firstsuperspeedway.com/photo-gallery/ca-coey-thomas-torpedo-1905

https://books.google.com/books?id=oVIfAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=thomas+torpedo+race+car&source=bl&ots=y6NeTy1sla&sig=kq1CLfc4muCQuKUD2nMp1iSFqro&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj0vJKdg-bLAhXMPB4KHf1vA1EQ6AEITDAM#v=onepage&q=thomas%20torpedo%20race%20car&f=false

From Mystery Foto #2 Solved: Edwin Ross (E.R.) Thomas and Charles Andrew (C.A.) Coey at Krug's Hotel

All of this stuff should have been preserved. More hiking could have been done here. The planners of Levittown didn’t think of the future enough.

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

Make them leave the sacred road alone!

From William A. Bellmer Article: "The Long Island Motor Parkway in Garden City"

Yes, sad that this part of the Parkway is once again being thrown to the wayside.  But relics still remain.  See my website for some update pics.   

http://www.freewebs.com/limparkway/levittown20142015new.htm

Also, an additional two homes are planned on the east side Heron, two blocks to the west of Crocus. 

Richard - you probably saw this in your research, but in case you haven’t here’s a website with much info. on the airport. 
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/NY/Airfields_NY_LongIs_Nassau.htm#aviationcountryclub

If you want any help retreiving newspaper articles about the airport let me know.  I’m a Levittown resident and enjoy local history, especially right around the corner (almost).

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

Thanks Frank.As I said,we went for it,gave downpaymemt,move in is June2nd. This move will be well worth in the end as you said and I do need lots of luck

From Mystery Foto #12 Solved: A Memorable Moment at Krug's Corner at the 1906 American Elimination Trial

Don’t know the event but this could be one of the Mustang prototype sisters (a lost one, haven’t been able to find anything on this sibling). It has some similarities to the Mustang II prototype but not quite. The oval headlights and the missing horse on the grille possibly dates it pre Aug 1962, when it was not yet decided which way the horse should face. Its cuter younger sister Mustang III Shorty is sitting behind on the left, and way in the back center could be a Richard Petty racer #43, but not the Superbird as it’s missing the rear spoiler.

From Mystery Foto #13 Solved: Mustang Pegasus and Mustang III on Display at the 1965 Autorama in Detroit

I remain saddened that this intensely historic site seems deemed unworthy of future preservation but energized that research such as this might actually and eventually reverse that before all is lost. Spent some wondrous years strolling this area with my son Gram a few years back and not a year goes by without him asking if we can visit the grandstands once again!
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From Howard Kroplick:

James, at one point Nassau County was looking into purchasing the property as a park. However, when many of the surrounding residents opposed having a park in their backyards, the plan was dropped.

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

Ted, sounds like an irresistible deal. A location near the shore may be important for you. If this place is, GO FOR IT! Lots of moving but I think it’s worth it in the end. GOOD LUCK.

From Mystery Foto #12 Solved: A Memorable Moment at Krug's Corner at the 1906 American Elimination Trial

I agree with Frank, that’s an excellent photo.

From Alco Black Beast Highlights from the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance Updated 3/18/16

Yeeks!  I’m supposed to know a LITTLE about the LIMP, I’ve visited the grandstand site many, many times, and I know quite a lot about the LIACC, but I somehow never noticed they were adjacent!  Thanks, Howard and Frank!  Sam, III

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

P. S. - It was Popular Science in the June 1953 issue, red side-walls (on chrome wires) and all!  It is variously described as a 1951 Coupe Aerodinamica Cúpula and as a 1952 BS 2.5 Cupula Coupe, but always as Cupula, NOT Cupola.  It was shown at the 1953 NYC Auto Show.  I particularly like the BS designation!

From Hemmings Blog: 1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola takes Best in Show Concours de Sport at Amelia Island

There were some very hairy Pegasos built but the Cupola sure as HELL ain’t one of ‘em!  I can’t believe Ed Jurist ever gave that hideosity house room!  Nash tub - YES!  ‘49-50 Mercs and Hudsons weren’t much better.  You Lawn Guylanders may enjoy my yarn about my neighbor’s Pegaso at <http://sbiii.com/automot2.html#clasicar> and scroll way down. or at <http://sbiii.com/automot2.html#woodlite> and scroll up two paragraphs, to “Another great ‘modern’ marque was the Spanish Pegaso”.  That event occurred around 1975 in North Shore Acres in Glen Head.

From Hemmings Blog: 1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola takes Best in Show Concours de Sport at Amelia Island

Identfy the event for this display and its approximate date. Provide a rationale.

1965 Ford Custom Car Caravan - Mustang ‘Pegasus’ was built in ‘65

Identify the custom car being looked and its designer

“Mustang Pegasus was designed by Jack Florence from Fostoria Styling and Warren Veurink from Holland Auto Trim (upholsterer supreme) created this unique custom Mustang back in 1965 for Gerald Taggart based on a brand new Mustang. Shown at the Cobo Hall, it caught the interest of Ford representatives and subsequently whisked from its appointed display position and made a part of Ford’s impressive Custom Car Caravan display.” It looks like the car is currently being restored.  http://www.ponysite.de/pegasus.htm

Can you identify anything else in the photo?

The rear quarter of your shorty Mustang III on the left!

From Mystery Foto #13 Solved: Mustang Pegasus and Mustang III on Display at the 1965 Autorama in Detroit

Good luck on your move!

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

Hi Howard:
Here are my answers and some additional information:

1).  The photo was taken in January 1965 at a display of the Ford Custom Car Caravan—then in its third and final year—at the 13th Annual Autorama in Detroit’s Cobo Hall.  There are plenty of historic photos found in vintage custom car magazines in the early Sixties that show the car.  Cars in all of the three years of the Ford Caravans were regularly covered in custom car magazines—so it’s no surprise that this radically restyled Mustang shows up in the custom car media of the time.

2).  The custom car is the Mustang Pegasus, built and designed by Jack Florence of Fostoria Customs for owner Gerald Taggart.  The interior to the car was designed and built by Warren Veurink of Holland Auto Trim.  ‘

3).  On the left side, some distance from the Pegasus, is seen the Mustang III concept car basically designed at Ford (and refined by Vince Gardner who then worked for Dearborn Steel Tubing). 

The Pegasus was covered in a feature article in Customs Craft and in the October 1965 issue of Rod and Custom.

The car was NOT originally intended for the Ford Caravan, but was “adopted” by Ford when company executives saw the car at the Cobo Hall show. 

I’ll send you, Howard, the images referenced here.

The car survives and is now being restored in California.

Great question about the history of custom cars.

Mark S. Gustavson
Utah

From Mystery Foto #13 Solved: Mustang Pegasus and Mustang III on Display at the 1965 Autorama in Detroit

Good morning and a Happy Eeaster to all. Great finding Frank. Going to be pretty busy the next two months,making the move to Florida,but it’s going to be well worth it in the long run once we’re settled in. I’ll keep in touch whenever I can

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

A thousand thanx to Howard and Frank for helping me pinpoint the footprint of the L.I. Country Club Airport clubhouse and double hangar.  Before Frank entered the picture, I had zeroed in on it laterally east and west with the help of a couple of 1950 aerial photos taken slightly from the west of the site.  (It turned out that I was off by between twenty five and forty feet!)  I still had trouble determining the north and south spot, because I wasn’t sure about where the old Motor Parkway had been there and how wide it was.  That would be the logical starting point for my N/S calculations. Howard told me it had been twenty-two feet wide, and with the help of two old close-ups of the hangars taken around 1939,  I was able to calculate that the distance between the south side of the hangar and the north edge of the Parkway as exactly 88 feet.  But I still needed to know the precise location of the north edge of the Parkway!  (88 feet from where today?!)  Some have previously claim that the row of (now somewhat rounded) squares in the lawn between Blacksmith Rd. and Orchid Lane is the Parkway’s footprint.  However, a Google aerial view shows a beat up strip of grass about thirty five feet wide that runs parallel to those squares and continued west on the other side of Crocus Lane.  (By the way, that western strip is gone now, the recent housing construction having wiped it away.)  I wondered if the beat up grass was the result of dirt having been placed atop the old parkway roadway and was then seeded.  If so, there wasn’t a sufficient thickness of good soil for lawn for it to “take” as well as it is everywhere else in that large fenced-in plot.  I didn’t want to simply assume that the center of that strip was the center of the Parkway, and there were other factors and measurements I took that made me skeptical.  (For one thing, why is the beat up grass over thirty feet wide if the Parkway beneath it is only twenty-two feet wide?)  When Howard furnished the almost head-on 1950 aerial photo he found in an estate sale (shown above), Frank and I were on our way.  Frank then performed his overlay magic, as you can also see above.  Again, thanks Howard and Frank!  Now I’ll send the Town of Hempstead my application for an historical marker, which will be accompanied by photos and a write-up of the airport’s history and its significance.  I would like that marker to be the sturdy blue and yellow type, but that will be up to the Landmark Preservation Commission—if they approve the sign in the first place.  If anyone has any tips about making my application, please let me know.  By the way, Charles Lindbergh—a charter member of the airport club—taught his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, how to fly there.  Jackie Kennedy’s father was also a member, according to a membership list shown to me by Paul Manton, Pres. of the Levittown Museum.  (Others who have assisted me thus far are Julia Blum at the Cradle of Aviation Museum and librarian Virginia Carew of the Levittown Public Library.) Thanx again, guys!

From Searching for the Site of the Long Island Aviation Country Club & the Grandstands Updated 5/3/16

The children have complained! - BUT one saw a lot of “innovations” after WWII.  Somewhere in my Archives I think is a Popular Science or Science & Mechanics or Mechanix Illustrated where this car was on the cover. Pegaso had little distribution in the US, the only place then with money, so it couldn’t succeed. As to the restoration - KUDOS of the highest order! A well-deserved award. In fact, if I find my magazine, I will give it to the museum!

From Hemmings Blog: 1952 Pegaso Z-102 Cupola takes Best in Show Concours de Sport at Amelia Island

That’s a Ford Mustang “Pegasus” customized by Jack Florence of Fostoria Styling and Warren Veurink of Holland Auto Trim. It was built for Gerald Taggart in 1965 and as shown in the photo was part of the Ford Custom Car Caravan. Since the car was built in 1965 and the only customizer to participate in the Caravan in 1966 (its last year) was George Barris, the photo must be from 1965, probably around September at the start of the model year. Could that be the rear end of your Mustang III in the left background?

From Mystery Foto #13 Solved: Mustang Pegasus and Mustang III on Display at the 1965 Autorama in Detroit