Dog Days at Boulder Coffee and Classics

The Coffee and Classics event on the last Sunday in July arrived in the middle of a heat wave, during the real dog days of summer...

There had been some refreshing rain the previous Friday, but only enough to cool things down briefly.  And with no prediction of hailstorms Sunday, car buffs brought some good specimens to ogle, including this '66 E-Type Jaguar with a factory-installed Webasto sunroof. 

The 4.2 liter DOHC six makes an alleged 265 hp with help from 3 SU carbs...

There were plenty of other Britishers including these original (that is, BMC rather than BMW) Minis.  The bright green one has a non-original Honda 16-valve DOHC four, and we've featured it before.

The modern dash on the light green one indicates it was brought in after BMC stopped importing Minis in response to changes in safety and emissions standards.

Near the Minis, an Austin-Healey Sprite and Morris Minor 1000 were guarded by an attentive pooch.  Both cars originally featured versions of the same 948cc inline four.

The Minor, unlike the light green Mini, had right hand drive. 

At the other end of the size scale was this Rolls-Royce Phantom.  We couldn't tell whether it was a Phantom V (made 1959-68) or VI (made 1968-90) as both have the same upright body design and are nearly 20 feet long on a 12-foot wheelbase.  By contrast, those classic Minis are 10 feet long overall...

At the Italian end of Pearl Street we found this delightful Alfa Romeo Type 916 Spider, a front-drive 2-seater made from 1993 to 2004, but never imported into the US. We've featured this Twin-Spark 16 valve twincam four-powered specimen from my neighborhood before.  The 916 was also offered as a GTV coupe, and with 12 and 24-valve versions of Alfa's Busso V6...

Lamborghini's mid-engined Diablo was offered only with a V12, and built from 1992 through 2001.  Behind it is the rare Lancia Fulvia 1600 HF brought by Frank Barrett of Toad Hall Motorbooks.  The rally-bred front driver would be a bit more practical in Boulder as daily transport, especially if winter ever decides to come back...

Perhaps not practical, but a surprise visitor and another classic Lancia, was this 1975 Lancia Stratos rally car brought by Jonathan Nelson, who purchased it in non-running condition from a 90 year-old man in Japan. Nelson must have done plenty of work in the year since he removed the Stratos from the collector's living room.  It was missing some parts then, but won Best of Show at Denver's recent Automezzi... 

The mid-engined Stratos was powered by a 2.4 liter Ferrari Dino V6 making 280 to 320 hp, and won the World Rally Championship in 1974, '75 and '76.  The wedge-shaped body was designed by Marcello Gandini and built by Bertone.

Lancia's Stratos also won the 1974 Targa Florio road race, and the Tour de France Automobile five times...

The July event was a diverse show, with enough surprise participants on both car and pooch fronts, that we wonder what we'll encounter in the dog days of August...

Event schedule note: 

For more info on Boulder Coffee & Classics, you might contact event founder Mike Burroughs by way of fuelfedboulder@gmail.com.

Photo Credits:

All photos are by the author.

Forgotten Classic: Nash Cooper Airflyte Spied on California Highway

Just when a suddenly busy day job combined with a heat wave to produce a certain blogospherical languor around here, reader Daniel Lu sent some photos of a car we'd featured 9 summers ago, still serving its owner with style on a California highway.

It's Dennis Varni's Nash Cooper Airflyte, a stock-looking '51 Nash Rambler Airflyte wagon hiding a modern (as in BMW) Mini Cooper chassis. The Cooper wheels behind Nash hubcaps are a clue, but you'd need to get close to the car to see that, just as we did back in June 2017, when Dennis gave us a tour of his garage*…  

Here's that front-drive Mini Cooper powertrain, for anyone who missed our 2017 post...

The bathtub shape of early Fifties Nash styling somehow became friendlier when it was scaled down by stylist Theo Ulrich for the 100-inch wheelbase Rambler series, which first appeared in 1950...

…but that was as a single model, a convertible here shown serving Lois Lane in an episode of TV's Adventures of Superman series that ran from '52 to '58.

The convertible coupe with roof side rails, B and C pillars in place to provide rigidity with Nash's innovative unit body-chassis, was joined by the wagon and Country Club hardtop without the B pillar (below) in 1951.  As part of Nash chief George Mason's strategy to avoid associating small size with cheapness, the Ramblers were well-equipped, with standard heaters and radios, and the ragtop came with a power-operated top. Body styles were unchanged for '52.

Nash offered a new Pinin Farina Rambler design in '53 for the same 3 models. In keeping with the "well-equipped" theme, the '53s came with a continental kit, an external metal-covered spare tire to save trunk space. The cars echoed Farina's design for the big '52 Nash line, and lost a bit of their cheery bathtub character, but kept their skirted front wheels, which weren't exposed until '55, after George Mason died.  This resulted in a useful decrease in turning circle...

For 1954, Nash launched Rambler 4-door sedans and wagons on a 108" wheelbase to go with the 2-door body styles, and merged with Hudson to form American Motors in May of that year. Hudson-badged Ramblers were offered by Hudson dealers, an early example of what the British called "badge engineering." A prospering US, recently emerged from the Korean War, enjoyed an economic boom that would drive record car sales in 1955, the year of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott. President Eisenhower would sign the Federal-Aid Highway Act in '56, promoting the Interstate highway system. The winds of change were blowing, and compact cars were just part of those changes...

Photo Credits:

All recent photos of the Nash Cooper in action were generously donated by Daniel Lu.  Engine and wheel photos are by the author.  Other photos were sourced as follows:

Monochrome convertible:  Smith & Wesson Forum.

Country Club in color:  GAA Classic Cars.

Yellow '53 convertible:  Consumer Reports.

Monochrome '54 wagon:  American Motors

*Footnote:

Our original post on the Nash Cooper Airflyte was posted June 5, 2017 as "Your Grandpa's Nash Reimagined".  Later that year, we posted photo essays on Dennis Varni's other cars, including a Jaguar D-Type, Lamborghini Miura, Graber-bodied Alfa Romeo 2500, Maserati 200S, and a unique Bulletnose Studebaker woody wagon.

Sunday Morning Dog Show Offers a Quick History of British Cars

Boulder's June 28 Coffee and Classics provided some surprises, including this 1931 Bentley, which stalwarts of the marque would consider a "real Bentley", designed by engineer William O. Bentley and built by his firm before its bankruptcy and takeover by Rolls-Royce after the summer of that same year.

One reason Bentley fans were so loyal was that Bentleys proved themselves in road racing, winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1924, '27, '29 and '30.  The cars were big and burly, leading Ettore Bugatti to compare these British competitors to trucks...

But there was some innovative engineering behind those tall radiators, and a crowd gathered when the owner opened the bonnet...

This turned out to be one of four 4.5 liter four-cylinder Bentleys modified to receive the 8.0 liter inline six. Like the fours, the Bentley sixes featured a single overhead cam, with 4 valves and twin spark plugs per cylinder.  Ironically, the 4.5 liter four originally in this car had been developed from the 6.5 liter six.

This 1938 SS Jaguar 1.5 liter got plenty of attention for its immaculate condition and traditional styling. 

It was also a reminder that Jaguars were not always notable for power. This one was powered by a 1.5 liter Standard engine from the company that bought Triumph after World War 2.

The famous XK engine was hatched during an air raid over the Coventry Jaguar factory, when founder William Lyons, on the rooftop with engineers William Heynes and Walter Hassan, brainstormed engine concepts with his team.  After the war, the "SS" letters on Jaguar badges were deleted. They had originally stood for Swallow Sidecar (the company started making sidecars for motorcycles), but after the war those initials had unpleasant associations.

This race-modified MG TC was designed in the same period as the '38 Jag, appearing pre-war as the TB.  Though the TC was the first MG to be imported in noticeable numbers Stateside, all TCs were right-hand drive.

Because the organizers weren't able to get cars parked in chronological order, we'll take a break like this napping pup, to consider the lines of Jaguar's XK150 (1957-'61), the third roadster from the Coventry firm with the twin-cam XK inline six. 

There were coupes, too, like this XK150.  Jaguar pioneered 4-wheel disc brakes on their race cars in 1953, and on production cars in 1957 with the XK150.

Jaguar followed the XK150 in April of 1961 with the E-Type, known in the US as the XKE.  Thin-shell bucket seats are a sign that this is an early Series 1, originally supplied with 3.8 liter engine and non-synchro first gear on the 4 speed gearbox.  

The alloy center instrument panel shown below changed to vinyl when the 4.2 liter engine came along for the 1965 model year...

The Series 3 E-Type came along a decade after the original, in April 1971, with a new 5.3 liter V12, but the same inboard disc brakes and independent rear suspension as the Series 1 and 2, so sturdy they were used by hot rodders.  A photo of that rear end assembly is under that silver Jag, parked next to an MG TD (1949-'53) and a Triumph TR4-A (1965-'68).

Out of chronological order but not out of style, we find an Austin-Healey 100M, first seen as an eye-catching prototype Healey Hundred at the '52 Earls Court show, and adopted for production from specialist maker Healey by BMC starting in 1953.  Body design by Gerry Coker still gets attention.  Engine was a 2.6 liter inline four...

Replaced by a 2.6 liter inline 6 in the 100-6, and a 3 liter version in the blue and green examples below.  By the end of the 3000 line in 1967, there were amenities like wind-up windows and wood dash panels, but still a bit of cowl shake from chassis flex.

This visitor seemed to approve of those Healeys as much as the photographer did...

Yeah, we know the focus here is on British stuff, not Porsches.  But the Golden Retriever came out of the Scottish Highlands over a century and a half ago, so those Porsches are just background scenery...

This '67 MGB-GT shows off Pininfarina's redesign of the original roadster introduced in late '62 as a sort of sports wagon hatchback coupe.  This one has received a Ford Zetec twin-cam engine transplant.

The 2nd-generation Lotus Elise below brings us into the 21st century. Produced from 2002-'10, the 2nd generation featured a fiberglass body over a bonded-aluminum chassis like the early Elise, but in the US version, substituted a 1.8 liter Toyota  twin-cam four for the original Rover K-Series.  The Elise was the first Lotus designed on a computer, but managed to look like fun anyway.

Maybe as much fun as AC's Ace from 1954-'63, built from a prototype by John Tojeiro with a tubular chassis and 4-wheel independent suspension to go with AC's old SOHC 2-liter six and a Bristol six option after 1956.  This car became famous as the chassis and body for the AC Shelby Cobra...

But this example has been owned by the same guy since 1962, the year Shelby built his first Cobra.  For this owner, the car was not an investment, but evidence of some deeper dedication.  We just managed to capture it on the way out, but it's our nominee for best of show.

Photo Credits:

All photos are by the author, except for the shot of the Jaguar E-Type differential and rear suspension assembly, taken at the Revs Institute by Paul Anderson.