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Nat King Cole did a great song called “Get Your Kicks On Route 66” -
Yeah the ‘58 ‘Vette was the first of the quad headlight Corvettes - It had simulated hood louvers (left of on the ‘59 Corvettes) - Zora Arkus Duntov - the head Corvette Engineer - want actual hood louvers on the hoods to prevent front end lifting at speed, add downforce when cornering, and add mucho needed engine cooling (the factory Corvettes tended to overheat at LeMans - the quick pitcrew cure was to pack ice around the fuel injection plenum and intake manifold runners) - Duntov himself had a personal ‘58 Corvette which he kept and constantly used testbed for engine, suspension, braking, and handling modifications and inovations -
Unlike the Jaguar, Austin-Healey, Triumph TR2, MGA, and Sunbeam Alpines - the Corvette did not have factory (or even racing) front disc brakes -
I believe a ‘59 Corvette SS (”alleged” non-factory racecar) turned a zippy lap at Daytona Speedway of 180-190 miles per hour - again - still with drum (finned aluminum) brakes all around -
Tom Selleck’s car in “Magnum PI” was a (RED of course) Ferrari 308 GTS Spider (removable top section ahead of the Targa-style rollbar - as a hardtop they were called a GTB) - The car in “Goldeneye” that James Bond (Pierce Brosnan) played tag with in his vintage silver-birch highly tuned Aston Martin DB5 was a (RED of course) Ferrari 355 GTS Spider - in 1/24 hard to find (1/18 is easy to locate) - (RED of course) Ferrari 348 GTS Spider can be found - that whole series of cars started with the 246 Dino FIAT (not actually a Ferrari branded car) - the Ferrari engine size is now up to 599 and climbing -
The Ferrari model number refers to the displacement of one (1) cylinder - so a Ferrari V-12 or V-8 engine (or V-6) can be misleading if you attempt to ID the engine displace by the factory model number:
6 x 246 = 1.5 liters
8 x 599 = 4.8 liters
12 x 308 = 3.7 liters
I have not been up to Luigi Chenniti’s modest showroom/shop recently - Quite a trip to see the Ferrari 250LM (LeMans winning) on the showroom floor - great parts inventory too - I use 250LM front springs to fix an early De Tomaso “Pantera” (Ford Cleveland 351C mid-engine) and cure the bad terminal oversteer problemos encountered especially in rain, snow, ice, or rushing home on narrow country roads to a North Greenwich “cottage” from the RR parking lot
Burt Reynolds in “Hawk”?
Hmmmm - Dunno -
As Hillary said (150 plus times before a Grand Jury) “I do not recall.....”
Yeah, first thing I did was look up lyrics for Route 66 and saw Nat King Coles. It’s a jazzy car song [like a lot of the Beach Boy’s songs] and you do know your cars.
You should have started a Car Talk thread long ago because you’d be an expert at describing them in detail.
I looked up Reynolds in Hawk, it’s one of the ones in the video. He was very young then.
How can anyone look at the pictures of Magnum PI and think cars? He is one handsome fellow and a conservative to boot!
Also made famous by The Manhattan Transfer.
BTW, the song was written by Bobby Troupe, who co-starred as Dr. Joe Early on the TV show Emergency! His wife, Julie London, also co-starred on that show as Nurse Dixie McCall. London was previously married to Jack Webb, who created Emergency!
-PJ