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1952 Cunningham C-3, chassis 5208. Photos by Robin Adams. courtesy RM Sotheby’s.

A picture, it’s said, is worth a thousand words, but the image of an unassembled and unpainted Cunningham C-3 coupe, once owned by the Petersen Automotive Museum but offered up for sale in August 2013 as part of its deaccession process, generated far more commentary than that. Today, just over two years later, the 1952 Cunningham C-3 coupe has been returned to its former three-tone glory, and next month it returns to the auction block as part of RM Sotheby’s Arizona sale.

Serial number 5208 was one of 25 Cunningham C-3 models (20 coupes and five cabriolets) bodied by Vignale in Italy. An early production car, likely the third or fourth assembled by Vignale, 5208 was first equipped with a Chrysler industrial engine, and was initially delivered with a single four-barrel carburetor instead of the typical four-carburetor setup used on all other C-3 models.

The coupe is significant for a few other reasons as well: It was raced in-period by a Cunningham employee, Phil Stiles, who ran it in SCCA competition at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida; it was the only C-3 delivered to an owner with 16-inch Borrani wire wheels (although it shipped to the U.S. wearing steel wheels); and it was among the most photographed examples in-period, gracing the pages of True’s Automobile Yearbook, Sports Cars in Color, Cars in Color, Sports Cars in Action, Sports & Classic Cars, and Motor Life.

Despite the photographic documentation of the car’s distinctive three-tone livery (light blue, metallic dark blue, and medium blue), 5208’s early history is rife with question marks. The first owner listed is Arthur B. Stuart, though a later update of the Cunningham Registry shows Alvin R. Jones as the car’s initial buyer. By 1955, the coupe had found its way back to the Briggs S. Cunningham Company in West Palm Beach, Florida, as it was sold (with spare parts) to Tony Oliverto in Texas when Cunningham closed shop later that same year. The Cunningham Registry shows that Oliverto installed a 1954 Chrysler 331 V-8, tuned to produce approximately 300 horsepower (and, presumably, fitted with the period-correct Cunningham intake and four-carburetor setup seen here). To save weight, Oliverto also removed the cars bumpers, instead substituting nerf bars made from rifle barrel stock.

From there, the ownership trail becomes a bit clearer. The car’s next steward was Dick Hoy, who purchased the coupe in the 1950s and sold it to the Petersen Museum in 2007. It’s believed that Hoy began the restoration process in the late 1980s, and the car was purchased by the museum in unrestored condition. Whether due to a lack of resource or a lack of funding, the Cunningham remained in this state up until the time of its 2013 sale, when a bidder paid a fee-inclusive $407,000 for the mostly complete, but unassembled C-3.

Enter Cunningham marque expert Tom Cotter, who was contacted by RM Restorations on behalf of the car’s current owner. Tom owns Cunningham C-3 coupe #5207, the car built immediately before this one, and graciously offered to loan RM his car to serve as a guide for the restoration of 5208. While much of the work (such as reassembling and painting the car) was relatively straightforward, certain pieces, such as the original bumpers and windshield, had to be recreated from scratch. Complicating matters, the objective was to complete the restoration in time for the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, giving RM Restorations just five months to complete the work.

The goal was met, and on August 16, 2015, chassis 5208 had its public reveal on the lawn at Pebble Beach, exhibited in the Postwar Cunninghams class. With the recent uptick in Cunningham prices (C-3 chassis 5206 sold for a fee-inclusive price of $869,000 at auction in 2015), the owner believes the time is right to again put the car on the market, and based upon its history and condition, RM Sotheby’s predicts a selling price between $900,000 and $1.1 million when the coupe crosses the stage next month in Phoenix.

For more information on the January 2016 Arizona sale, visit RMSothebys.com.

via Raymond Arsenault on Life and Business http://raymondarsenault.blogspot.com/2015/12/now-restored-petersen-museums-former.html

Photos courtesy Jaguar Land Rover.

In keeping with its mission to provide parts and material support for classic Jaguar models, Jaguar Heritage Parts is introducing 30 new body panels for E-type models, including a complete set of panels for Series 1 cars and select replacement panels for Series 2 and 3 E-types.

Tim Hannig, director of Jaguar Land Rover Heritage, describes the replacement parts as “the highest quality E-type panels on the market,” calling them “even better than the originals.” Chalk it up to modern technology, as the panels are double-checked against a three-dimensional digital map of a Series 1 E-type, then tested again to ensure the quality of both the part and the original tooling. Only after final adjustments are made is the part is put into production.

Jaguar’s reborn Lightweight E-Type.

Jaguar Heritage staff worked out the process in the development of the continuation Lightweight E-type, a model that resumed production in 2014 after a 50 year hiatus. The discovery of six unused chassis numbers led to the recreation of the aluminum-intensive race car, upping the total built since 1963 to 18, from the original 12. Crafting the bodies for the new Lightweight E-types gave Jaguar Heritage staff experience in reverse-engineering the car, which is now paying additional dividends in the creation of new parts.

Jaguar Heritage Parts has also announced the introduction of three new replacement exhaust systems for Series 1 and Series 2 E-type models, designed to original specifications to replicate the beloved sound of the 3.8 and 4.2-liter inline six engines. The exhaust components join an ever-expanding, 30,000-item-plus range of spare and replacement parts for heritage Jaguar vehicles, a decade or more out of production.

Jaguar’s Heritage workshop in Coventry, England, also offers servicing on and restoration of heritage models. For more information, visit JaguarHeritage.com.

via Raymond Arsenault on Life and Business http://raymondarsenault.blogspot.com/2015/12/jaguar-heritage-introduces-body-panel.html

The gauges are lit by their own bulbs, and the rear sail panel-mounted interior courtesy lamps were employed so that you could actually see the instrument panel details that aren’t normally lit. The under-dash courtesy lamps were left off, so as not to draw attention away from the gauges by lighting up the pedals. Photos by author.

Recollections from when we were young of how the instrument panel lights glowed and the courtesy lamps reflected off of the interior surfaces at night remain vivid to this day for many of us. From riding in the backseat of our parent’s cars to reaching driving age and finally being able to borrow the family hauler, or better, buying a car of our own to cruise in and take on dates, many warm memories are derived from the vehicles of our childhood and adolescence.

I have those remembrances as well of the 1960s GTO, LeMans, 4-4-2 and Cutlasses my parents owned and later, the various models that I had. Now that I photograph and write about many of the cars of that era, some photo shoots bring back those memories even while I’m trying to overcome a shooting challenge or refine a technique.

In my opinion, interiors are rarely easy to photograph well, as they are an enclosed space to begin with that has a habit of swallowing all the available light and there are many surfaces, textures, protrusions and depressions that can drive a photographer crazy by producing unwanted shadows even in natural light, but especially when trying to add fill light via flashes.

During the photo shoot that produced the interior photos in this blog, I had an interesting conversation with Kurt Shubert of the Automotive History Preservation Society and the owner of this 1965, 425-cu.-in., four-speed, Oldsmobile Jetstar I. After completing the body photos, it was time to shoot the interior and engine, and it was getting dark. The contrast of the black instrument panel, pad and carpet with white seats and side panels would make proper exposure more of a challenge than in a monotone interior. Too much exposure and the seats blow out, too little and the dash and floor look like a black hole.

In this overall photo, the under-dash courtesy lamps are also lit, highlighting details of the tach, shifter and console, as well as the pedals.

Instead of the diminishing outside ambient light being a hindrance, it instead afforded me the opportunity to take some artsy/moody shots using the dash lights and interior lights combined with slow shutter speeds. My rational was that by having the dash gauges lit by their instrument panel bulbs and the overall dash and the footwells by the interior courtesy lamps, the areas that normally remain dark will come up and though the white seats and side panels will also be somewhat lit by the fairly soft interior lamps, they won’t blow out. (Even though I shoot interiors and engine compartments in the shade to avoid harsh shadows, it’s still not usually dark enough for the instrument lamps and interior courtesy lamps to be really visible during the day, so this technique works best for me at dawn, dusk or at night).

I explained to Kurt what I was doing, saying that though I sometimes like to use some off-camera fill flash on interiors in the daytime because they are usually still a little too dark, when in this situation, I like to use the effect that the car’s interior lights provide.

After seeing it, he commented that he liked this effect better as well because that’s the way he remembers the dash and interior appearing at night back in his youth. It’s exactly what I had always thought when doing this, but no one else has ever actually acknowledged that it elicited specific memories for them.

Though a perspective of the instrument panel from the rear seat would really hit home for many of us, it was not possible because the shutter speed was so slow—30-seconds (at F5.6 aperture) in this case—that a tripod would be needed in the backseat and there simply wasn’t room.

The specific panel design aside, since not all of you had families who owned a 1965 Oldsmobile, does this lighting evoke memories for you of spending time in vintage cars at night?

via Raymond Arsenault on Life and Business http://raymondarsenault.blogspot.com/2015/12/dash-lamp-memories.html

Check out my new podcast series, the Toyota Kata Podcast, or “KataCast” for short, now with 5 episodes.

Now back to our usual podcast series…

Today’s guest is Sam MacPherson (@LeanLeaderWay), the co-founder of the Lean Leadership Academy and the founder of The Summit on Lean Leadership, a partnership with Lean Frontiers. As I mentioned the other day, Sam helped introduce me to the Blab.im streaming video platform. So, since he was good with the technology, we did a live streaming conversation that I recorded as this podcast. An experiment… a small test of change. If you’d rather watch the conversation instead of listening, click here for a YouTube recording or scroll down on this page.

I’ve recently met Sam and I think his background is just fascinating… alternating time between industry and the Army, serving in the special forces (Green Berets), going back to industry and practicing Lean, and then going back into the military after 9/11. He has a very unique perspective on the overlap and similarities between military leadership and decision making processes and Lean thinking.

Streaming Player (Run Time 34:37)

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For a link to this episode, refer people to www.leanblog.org/235.

For earlier episodes of my podcast, visit the main Podcast page, which includes information on how to subscribe via RSS, through Android apps, or via Apple iTunes. You can also subscribe and listen via Stitcher.

In this episode, we discussed topics including:

Some photos I haven't seen before, which is amazing, as the 50th anniversary brought so many photos to the news papers and magazines, and I was stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time, and collected them all.



From a big gallery of photos I haven't seen before https://www.facebook.com/SFRProductions/?fref=photo via https://www.facebook.com/groups/103715686627022/

Found on https://www.facebook.com/vintagecampertrailers/

Found on https://www.facebook.com/groups/111664952275098/?fref=nf



At the Triumph Grill and motorcycle museum in St Louis

http://4-corner-idle.tumblr.com/ via http://callmejumber.tumblr.com/

Found on http://jackharley.tumblr.com/post/96149980111/1971-pymouth-hemicuda

Found on https://www.facebook.com/napa.mathis via http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/cto/5345690680.html



I have a tank out back behind my barn. I don't know anything about it really other than I haven't been able to get inside it and its been sitting for over twenty five years. It came with the property. I'm trying to do a little cleaning up around the place and its too heavy for me to move. I don't think it runs. You will need a flat bed.