Presumably, the Battery Street Tunnel in Seattle, pictured here in a July 1954 photo from the Seattle Municipal Archives, passed the carbon monoxide test that the caption tells us the city was then conducting, otherwise we’d be looking at a rather grisly photo, something like in those post-apocalyptic movies where people attempt to flee their cities en masse. Then again, maybe this is just a photo from the beginning of the test and the Seattle Municipal Archives just chose not to upload the photos from the aftermath. Anyway, what do you see here?

Long a favorite of public works departments from coast to coast, the Dodge Power Wagon has earned a reputation for durability rivaled by few other four-wheel drive pickups. Finding reasonably clean survivors can be a challenge, since many were worked nearly to death, then sold to private owners who ran them until very little was salvageable.

This 1961 Dodge Power Wagon, for sale on Hemmings.com, may be the exception to the rule, as it appears to be in better-than-average shape, given its five-plus decade life. Partially restored and mechanically sorted according to its current owner, the truck could make an interesting off-roader or would serve well as a rolling billboard to promote a small business. From the seller’s description:

1961 Dodge Power Wagon WM 300, 4×4 Pickup, 251 cid 6-cylinder gas engine, 4-speed manual transmission. Rare, 1 of only 96,145 total civilian vehicles ever produced from 1946 to 1968. Alabama vehicle since new. Clean Florida title. Very solid, clean, runs strong, with the expected 53-year old mechanical and cosmetic wear & tear including dings & dents. Power Wagons were “work” trucks. As nearly original as possible, numbers appear matching but not guaranteed.

Partial restoration began 2012 by previous owner including rebuilt carburetor, new wheel cylinders, brake shoes, brake lines, master cylinder, fuel lines, radiator hoses, locking hubs, glass & tail lights. Rebuilt windshield crank mechanism. Headliner & seat upholstery fabric replaced. New custom rims with new tubeless BF Goodrich BAJA T/A 37×12.50 R16.5 tires. Heater and windshield wipers were removed during restoration. Painted surfaces are in primer coat. Bed floor replaced with tongue-groove hard pine. The extent of mechanical, exterior & interior repairs depends on a buyer’s desired level of restoration. Complete inspection and needed repairs suggested before operation. This original, solid, low mileage vehicle is a piece of American automotive history with great parts availability. It can be bought to complete as a reliable driver or as a platform for a detailed restoration project. All vehicle information provided by previous owner deemed reliable but not guaranted by owner. SOLD AS-IS, WHERE-IS. Selling due to too many current projects.

Find more Dodges for sale on Hemmings.com.

Photos by the author.

A thousandth of an inch at a time, using a bit that spun at 33,000 RPM, Jim Graney etched his line cuts. Thousands of them, all of different designs, all in reverse, committed to zinc and copper plates no more than a few inches square and backed with a few layers of thin wood. And of the countless engravings he produced in a 50-year career, maybe a few hundred remain, all displayed on a table at the edge of the recent AACA Hershey swap meet.

His work appeared in newspapers across the country, including the New York Times, and in many other publications, including Hemmings Motor News. All of it went uncredited, however. Graney, who grew up in Brooklyn and now lives in Warwick, New York, never really considered himself an artist, just a laborer who took on a photo engraving job in 1946, when he was 15. “I just needed an afterschool job,” Graney said. “I worked for a mail order shop to begin with and did a lot of thumbnail prints that people could order from a catalog for their business cards or whatever. There were slews of Model A’s and other old cars in there, and so, every time we got an order for an old car, I made two and set one aside.”

He would eventually take on commercial photo engraving as well and go on to work for Sterling, at the time the biggest photo engraving shop in New York City. And he became known among his colleagues as the guy who wanted duplicates of all the automotive photo engravings that came through the shop. “Everybody knew to make another one for Graney,” he said.

The line cuts that came about, largely genericized depictions of popular cars, tended to illustrate classified ads when classified editors didn’t have a photo of a particular car for sale, but still needed an illustration that was close enough to it. “They were ersatz when it was okay not to be specific,” said Graney’s daughter, Jen Graney O’Connor, who said she grew up learning to identify collectible cars through her father’s line cuts. “He just happened to get the job and stayed with it for 50 years. He loved the art and loved printing and gadgets.”

His love for gadgets also led him to a love for older automobiles, and that in turn led him to start Obsolete Fleet, a company that specialized in renting out older cars to film productions in New York City. If he didn’t own the vehicle himself, he’d consult the member list of the Greater New York region of the AACA, for which he served as treasurer, to see if a fellow club member had a car that would work. And he’d often pull out his automotive lithographs to help movie producers narrow down what sort of vehicles they wanted to cast. Through Obsolete Fleet, he provided cars to Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather movies, among many others.

Then in the early 1980s, the printing industry completed its move away from the letterpress technology—which dated back to Gutenberg and relied on millions of engravings like Graney’s—toward offset printing. The shop that Graney worked for, the last offering such photo engravings for commercial use, closed in 1983. “I was the last man standing, more or less,” he said. Graney, however, had seen the end coming years before, when he came across a photo engraving machine like the one he worked with every day during a visit to the Smithsonian. In the meantime, he persuaded the shop’s owner to let him engrave as many different automobiles as he could before he eventually made the switch to offset printing.

Starting in 1982, he and his family made the annual trek to the AACA’s Eastern Fall Meet at Hershey to sell the small engravings to enthusiasts for a buck apiece. Among them, logos and scripts abound—for Ford, Packard, Oldsmobile, and for lesser-known marques such as Kline Kar, Orient, Elgin and Tourist, all rendered about as accurately as if they came from the auto manufacturers themselves—but the majority remains reliefs of collector cars in profile or nearly so, somewhat generic but still readily identifiable as a 1958 Cadillac or a 1969 AMX or a mid-year Corvette or a Curved-Dash Oldsmobile.

The Graney family still makes it out to Hershey every year, even though their inventory’s down to the three or four boxes and trays of engravings that the family had for sale on a folding table for $8 apiece. “What you see here, this is all that’s left,” O’Connor said. She had her pitch down pat, grabbing swap meet attendees as they headed toward the car show on Saturday morning, and had even enlisted her son into relating parts of his grandfather’s story.

Graney prefers to sit back and play it low-key while his daughter and grandson work, while his own life’s work slips away in ones and twos to other auto enthusiasts scanning the jumble for a car or a logo they identify with, something to keep on a shelf as a unique piece of memorabilia.

“They’re disappearing pretty fast,” he said, without much reluctance. “I’d say we have another five to eight years before they’re all gone.”

Rendering of the proposed second floor hot rod and custom gallery. Images courtesy Petersen Museum.

Last August, the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles detailed its plans for a complete interior renovation to go with the exterior redesign announced in 2013. On Sunday, October 19, the museum welcomed its last visitors until the renovation is completed, with a hard reopening deadline of December 1, 2015, imposed by Peter Mullin, chairman of the Petersen.

That’s not to say that visitors to Southern California will be unable to see any of the museum’s impressive collection for the full 13 months. Opening on October 28 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, Amazing Automobiles: The Ultimate Car Exhibit will feature key selections from the Petersen Museum’s collection, updated on a regular basis to ensure fresh content for frequent visitors. The exhibit is scheduled to run through May 1, 2015, at which time the newly refurbished vault of the Petersen Museum should once again be open for tours.

First floor Mullin Gallery rendering.

During Saturday’s annual Bold Moves fundraising gala, Mullin disclosed that the museum’s ongoing capital campaign has so far raised $80 million towards the $125 million needed to fund the interior and exterior renovations. A few key corporate partnerships are expected to be announced in the coming months to further close this gap, but two announcements regarding the renovated museum were made Saturday evening.

Microsoft’s Xbox gaming system will sponsor the Forza Motorsports Experience, a 1,500-square-foot gallery that will allow visitors to drive storied racetracks in the latest Forza Motorsports simulators, or to get an up-close view of select automobiles via Forza Vista.

Linksys will be providing the Petersen with state-of-the-art networking, Wi-Fi and security for the newly renovated museum. Connectivity will play an ever-increasing role at the “new” Petersen, and the goal is to eventually deliver an “augmented reality” experience to visitors via mobile device. Enhanced connectivity will also ensure that visitors can share their museum experience with friends and relatives via social media.

For the latest information on the museum, visit Petersen.org.

Raymond Beadle. Photos courtesy NHRA.

One of professional drag racing’s honest-to-nitro immortals has left us. Raymond Beadle, famed for his exploits with the Blue Max series of Funny Cars, died Monday in his hometown of Dallas at the age of 70.

Beadle achieved legend status in Funny Car competition in the most difficult way imaginable. In 1975, Beadle shocked the NHRA circuit by stopping Don Prudhomme in the final round at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. It was the only race that Prudhomme, piloting the dominant Army-backed Funny Car, would lose that entire season. That would launch Beadle into orbit as a Funny Car star; he won three straight NHRA Funny Car world titles between 1979 and 1981.

Starting out in the Texas ranks of Top Fuel, Beadle transitioned into Funny Cars during the 1970s, eventually teaming with Blue Max team owner Harry Schmidt. After upending Prudhomme at Indy, Beadle bought out Schmidt and stormed along the national event and match racing circuits with the Blue Max before winning his NHRA titles.

He was also hugely active in other branches of racing, having established Chaparral Trailers, which was the gold standard for traveling race teams in the 1980s. That same decade saw Beadle also establish a NASCAR Winston Cup team, first with the late Tim Richmond as his driver, and then achieving its best success with a young Rusty Wallace, out of the Late Model wars in the Midwest. Additionally, Beadle founded a Sprint car team which achieved marked success in the World of Outlaws, with the now-retired Sammy Swindell as its driver.

Beadle folded his teams shortly after he retired as an active driver in 1987. Wallace subsequently went on to co-found Penske Racing South. Beadle was later placed number 20 on the NHRA’s list of its 50 greatest drivers.

Prudhomme, his erstwhile arch-rival, told the NHRA, “I was very sad to hear that Raymond Beadle had passed. I really, really liked the guy and admired him. We always remained close, even during the days when we were racing against each other. He did so much in drag racing and in NASCAR. He led a life that most people could only dream of, like a high-stakes gambler, and was a cool guy to be around. When our rat pack of a group got together, he was at the top of the heap. I was glad to be a buddy of his, and he is going to be missed.”

1930 Morgan Super Aero with custom van body. Photos by author unless otherwise indicated.

Ron Garner has a taste for the unusual, as demonstrated by his four-plus decades of Morgan ownership. While his current collection includes both three- and four-wheelers, none stands out in a crowd quite like his restored 1930 Morgan Super Aero trike with a custom-built van body, affectionately dubbed the Porta-Pub for its built-in beverage-dispensing apparatus. Ron brought his one-of-a-kind Morgan to the 2014 Hemmings Motor News Concours d’Elegance (where he took second place in the Prewar European class), and his rig proved to be among the most popular cars on the show field.

Ron, starting the Matchless V-Twin to the delight of the crowd.

In the early 1970s, while still a graduate student in Los Angeles, Ron acquired his first Morgan. Fortunately, the car was not a pillar of reliability, which introduced Ron to a cast of characters in the Southern California Morgan community, including Gerry Willburn. It also showed him the diversity of Morgan vehicles, but one in particular stuck with him: A British auto parts delivery van built upon a 1930 Morgan Super Aero, powered by a 42-hp, 1,000 cc Matchless V-Twin, shifted through a two-speed transmission.

42 horsepower to move 850 pounds sounds reasonable enough.

The van body was the creation of Alexander Fraser, who started an auto parts business in Purton, Wiltshire, England, during the 1960s. To handle the Morgan’s increased weight, Fraser replaced the original AJS engine with a 42-horsepower Matchless MX4 V-Twin, added stouter front wheels and hubs from a later-production three-speed Morgan and fitted hydraulic brakes to the front wheels.

Equipped with many parts from his own catalog, the Morgan served as a rolling billboard for Fraser’s vintage parts business. Not content, or perhaps financially unable, to sell from a high street shop, Fraser fitted a trailer hitch to the Morgan and took his wares on the road throughout England, bravely towing a four-wheel gypsy caravan behind his distinctive trike.

An in-period image of the Morgan towing the gypsy caravan. Photo courtesy MadAboutMorgans.

Fraser and the Morgan parted ways in 1970, and by 1972 the van had hopped the Atlantic and crossed the continent, winding up in Southern California. Fast-forward to 2006, when Ron and his wife Kathi, now living in Hull, Massachusetts, ran into old friend Gerry Willburn at a Morgan gathering in Maine.

Somewhere along the line, Willburn, still in Southern California, had become the third American owner of the Super Aero van, which lay disassembled in the midst of a long-forgotten restoration project. Despite this obvious obstacle, Kathi knew how much her husband still wanted the Morgan, and wasted no time brokering a deal with Gerry to buy the boxes of parts that made up the van.

The Morgan during its years with Alexander Fraser. Photo courtesy MadAboutMorgans.

After shipping the crated Morgan from California to Massachusetts, a serious restoration effort began in 2007. Lost over the years was the Morgan’s radiator, which necessitated the laborious task of building one from scratch, complete with a newly fabricated radiator surround. The bonnet had to be recreated as well, as did the trike’s ash wood body frame, long since damaged by insects and wood rot. The effort would take four years to complete, and the initial end result was a conventional “beetle back” 1930 Morgan three-wheeler.

The van body, which remained in remarkably good shape over the decades, was repainted and fitted to the Morgan circa 2012. With no need to peddle auto parts, and with a daughter and son-in-law who brew beer, the choice of what to do with the van seemed obvious: Mount a few five-gallon kegs, cool them with dry ice, install taps below the suitably appropriate portrait of Queen Victoria and turn the van into a “Porta Pub” for friends, relatives and concours-goers to enjoy. (Editor’s note: On the day of the 2014 Hemmings Concours d’Elegance, the taps were dispensing apple cider and iced tea. At least that’s what Ron told us.)

Queen Victoria, looking less than amused.

Ron admits to driving the Morgan on a regular basis, though he hasn’t tested its claimed top speed of 85 MPH and won’t tow a trailer, despite the existing hitch. As Ron said to us, “Even without the trailer, it barely stops,” and Ron’s not one to press his luck. It took him more than three decades to land this particular Morgan in his garage, and another four years to get it restored; rebuilding it again isn’t on Ron’s bucket list.

For more on the 1930 Morgan Super Aero van, visit Ron’s website, MadAboutMorgans.com.

About all we know of the Foodliner IGA in Caseville, Michigan, other than what we see in this August 1965 photo that we came across on GrayFlannelSuit, is that it’s no longer there, replaced by a parking lot. Of note: While we’ve become accustomed to four-doors and station wagons far outnumbering two-doors in most depictions of everyday life across America in the Fifties and Sixties, two-doors seem to dominate the photo. What do you see here?

The Chevrolet Corvair was, perhaps, the most misunderstood vehicle ever launched from a Big-Three automaker. Its styling was bold, its engine placement (and cooling) unconventional and its handling impressive for the day, as long as owners paid attention to the differing inflation pressures for front and rear tires. Given that the Corvair beat the Porsche 911 to market, it could well have become America’s sports car, but it proved to be a bit too different for America’s tastes. Among first-generation Corvair models, few are more desirable than the Monza Spyders, which came in coupe and convertible body styles and were powered by a turbocharged 145-cu.in., flat-six, air-cooled engine rated at 150 horsepower. This 1962 Chevrolet Corvair Monza 900 Spyder, for sale on Hemmings.com, sports an older restoration and appears to be cosmetically and mechanically well-sorted, at a price that wouldn’t buy a basket-case muscle car. From the seller’s description:

This classic 1962 Corvair Monza 900 Spyder was restored in 2001/2002, which included completely rebuilding the engine and replacing the heads, pistons, valves (with hardened seats), rods, camshaft, and regrinding the crankshaft. The engine rebuild kit was purchased through Corvair Underground Inc. in Oregon, and the carburetor and turbo were rebuilt by Clark’s Corvair Parts, Inc. in Massachusetts. The reassembly was done locally by a reputable auto shop.

It was equipped with new tires, brake pads, springs, shocks and tie rods. Rear axle bearings and seals have been replaced. The master cylinder was also changed to dual chambers, and electronic ignition has been added.

The fuel tank has been removed and boiled. The interior is beautiful, with new seat covers (rear not installed yet), carpet, headliner, and door panels. All weatherstripping has been replaced, and there are no leaks. All glass is in excellent shape, with no cracks or chips. The exterior has been repainted Roman Red, and both bumpers re-chromed.

All documentation from Clark’s Corvair Parts, Inc. is available, including 40 pages of invoices accounting for over 190 parts totaling over $5,300.00. Documentation from engine rebuild is available, totaling over $1,500.00.

All other chrome, including door/window handles, exterior window trim, etc., are original and do have minor scratching and some pitting as would be expected with original chrome.

Both the mechanicals and electricals are excellent. It starts, runs, and drives like new.

Since the restoration, it has always been garaged, and only driven occasionally. This car was purchased from a family friend in California in 2000 and brought to Idaho where it is today. It was strictly a family-use car in California, driven daily until it wouldn’t run anymore. It was then garaged, and sat for many years until we purchased it in 2000.

If you are looking for a little older restoration that has been well maintained and very driveable, this sharp classic is for you.

Find more Chevrolets for sale on Hemmings.com.

Captain America chopper. Photos courtesy Profiles in History.

Lot 1121 was wheeled onto the stage of the Profiles in History auction at around 10:00 p.m. Pacific time, and the bidding was opened at $1 million. Just over seven minutes later, the gavel dropped on the star-spangled Harley-Davidson panhead chopper, and its hammer price of $1.35 million made it both the most expensive motorcycle ever sold at auction (beating a 1910 Winchester, sold last October for $580,000) and the most expensive motorcycle sold (beating a private transaction that saw Rollie Free’s 1948 Vincent Black Lightning acquired for $1 million in 2011).

That’s where the certainty around this particular motorcycle more or less ends. This much is known: Four motorcycles were built for the filming of the 1969 cult classic road movie, Easy Rider. Two of these were near-identical Captain America choppers, identified by their stars-and-stripes gas tanks and ridden by Peter Fonda’s character (and the actor’s stunt double) in the movie. Two were near-identical Billy Bikes, ridden by Dennis Hopper’s character (and a stunt double). In the movie’s final scene, Fonda and Hopper are killed by shotgun blasts, and one of the Captain America choppers is nearly destroyed in the ensuing crash.

Shortly after production wrapped, the three surviving motorcycles (including the Captain America ridden by Fonda and the two Billy Bikes) were stolen at gunpoint from stuntman Tex Hall, and never recovered. The remains of the crashed Captain America were reportedly given to actor Dan Haggerty, who had a cameo role in the movie and also acted as a set mechanic, keeping all four bikes in working order. Haggerty reportedly resurrected the chopper, and the Los Angeles Times reports that it was sold to Texan Gordon Granger for $63,500 in 1996. Haggerty authenticated the bike in writing at the time of sale, and again in 2005.

Enter a second Captain America bike, also built by Haggerty and sold in 2002 to John Parham, with a second certificate of authenticity signed by Haggerty. Parham kept the bike until 2014, when it was sold to memorabilia collector Michael Eisenberg, with Haggerty’s certificate of authenticity and a note from Peter Fonda further identifying the motorcycle as “the only, last, original, authentic, ‘Captain America’ motorcycle from the 1969 movie Easy Rider.”

There’s just one problem with Fonda’s certification; he’s since recanted it, saying that he relied on Haggerty’s word for the certification and only gave the motorcycle a brief visual inspection before signing the tank and the letter of authenticity.

As for Dan Haggerty’s take on the two-bike problem, the Los Angeles Times reports that Haggerty doesn’t deny signing the authenticating documents on Granger’s Captain America, but now says he signed an incorrect statement. Ahead of Saturday’s sale, Haggerty was quoted by the newspaper as saying, “That was my mistake. It’s not the real bike… The bike with me here (at the weekend auction) is the bike Tex Hall gave me.”

It was that bike, the second bike in this story, owned by Michael Eisenberg, which set a new record on Saturday night. Granger, who still owns the Captain America chopper sold to him by Haggerty in 1996, is clearly unhappy with the turn of events and the potential devaluation of his investment. “There are only three possibilities,” Granger told the Los Angeles Times, “Either my bike is the real one, or the other one is the real one, or neither one is the real one.”

Photo courtesy Omix-ADA.

Sure, anybody can throw a set of decals and white steelies on a 1973 Jeep CJ-5 and call it a Super Jeep, but authentic examples of one of Jeep-dom’s least-known four-wheel-drive vehicles have become few and far between today, making the appearance of one at the upcoming SEMA show noteworthy.

While civilian Jeep owners began using their vehicles for recreational purposes—in addition to commercial and agricultural ones—during the 1950s, it wasn’t until the late 1960s that Toledo released a model (the 462) aimed at off-road enthusiasts. Even then, it seems that the demand for the 462′s successors, the limited-production Renegade I of 1970 and the Renegade II of 1971, along with the series production Renegade of 1972-on, caught Jeep by surprise. The company could keep up on most component production, but according to Patrick Foster’s The Story of Jeep, it fell behind on the special Renegade alloy wheels, forcing Jeep to scramble.

As the story goes, rather than halt production of the popular Renegade, Jeep officials decided to try to divert some of the demand to a new model, one just as exciting as the Renegade, but with regular-production eight-inch-wide Jeep steel wheels. According to Dave Logan, product manager at Jeep reproduction parts house Omix-ADA, that new model, the CJ-5-based Super Jeep, came in one of six colors—Champagne White, Jetset Blue, Butterscotch Gold, Daisy Yellow, Copper Tan, and Fairway Green—accentuated by stripes flowing from the hood down the body sides and around to the tailgate.

The Super Jeep was more than just a stripe package, though. It also came with two-tone seats, a white soft top, white dash pad and white sunvisors; rubber fender extensions, a roll bar and a curved chrome front bumper; and the 258-cu.in., six-cylinder, standard with the 304-cu.in. V-8 optional, both backed by a heavy-duty four-speed transmission.

However, Logan said, nothing in the VIN of the Super Jeeps identified them as such, so with reproduction stripe sets available, anybody could easily replicate one of the few hundred Super Jeeps built. “The only way to positively identify one is through documentation,” Logan said. “Fortunately for us, we were able to trace the history of ours and we have pre-restoration pictures of it with the stripes.”

Photo courtesy Omix-ADA.

The staff at Omix-ADA found the restored and 304-powered Super Jeep earlier this year in Massachusetts, though it had originally sold in South Carolina, and has spent the last few months replacing items here and there to make it more authentic. Next month, as part of Omix-ADA’s presence at SEMA in Las Vegas, the company plans to unveil the Super Jeep alongside a number of other CJs from its collection, including a 1948 CJ-2A, a 1960 DJ-3A Surrey, a 1964 CJ-3B, an all-original 1967 CJ-6, a 1971 Hurst Jeepster Commando, and a 1982 CJ-7 brush fire truck.

For more information on the Omix-ADA collection, visit JeepCollection.com. This year’s SEMA Show takes place November 4-7; for more information on it, visit SEMAShow.com.