Day: September 5, 2018

Nethercutt Cadillacs!

When I was a kid (and that’s reaching back into the 1950s), there was no finer automobile than a Cadillac.  That’s the way it was back then, and even though I’ve never owned a Cadillac, I’d like to someday.  The thought that a Cadillac is the best stuck in my mind.

Today if you’re snooty it’s all about BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Infiniti, and maybe one or two others.  All foreign stuff.  I don’t know if foreign cars are really better or if tastes just changed, but back in the day, a sure sign of success was driving a Cadillac.   Mercedes was a weird one in the 1950s, and nobody in America had heard of BMW.   Lexus and Infiniti were way in the distant future, and if you were to tell somebody you had a Lexus back then, they would most likely assume it was a medical problem.

I still think the 1959 Coupe de Ville was one of the best-looking cars ever made (anywhere, at any time), but that might be because it’s what I knew as a kid.   Let’s see, I would have been 8 years old in 1959.   Yeah, those big fins and bullet tail lights were cool.

So I grew up knowing that Cadillac meant the best something could be (as in “the Cadillac of…”).   Cameras, guns, bicycles, whatever…fill in the blanks, and if it was really, really good, it was “the Cadillac” of that product line.

Sooooo…….when I saw a series of early Caddies at the Nethercutt last Saturday, I was all over them.  The Nethercutt had fabulous cars of all kinds, but the Caddies really did it for me.

I had been there just a few weeks earlier, we had company in from out of town who wanted to see the Nethercutt, and I was prepared.  I had my Nikon D3300 walking-around camera, I had my 16-35 lens (it’s bigger than the camera), and I had enough light to dial in ISO 1600 and get me some Caddy photos.

Wow, a very classy 1930 Cadillac, the Model 452A Imperial Cabriolet, with Caddy’s 452-cubic-inch V-16. The colors work. I want one.
A 1938 Series 90 Convertible Sedan.  These cars are amazing.
Something slightly more modern…a 1984 Cadillac Fleetwood limousine. This car belonged to a Merle Norman executive who gave it to the Nethercutt Collection when he retired. The Nethercutts were the founders and owners of the Merle Norman Cosmetics firm.
A 1935 Model 452D 5-passenger convertible.   Cadillac only made two of these, and here’s one of them.  Wowee!
A 1937 Series 90 Aero-Dynamic Coupe (yep, that’s how they spelled it). It also had the 452-cubic-inch V-16 engine.
The 1933 Model 542-C Imperial Limousine. Sweet. It’s got the 452-cubic-inch V-16, too.
The 1932 Model 452B Deluxe Sport Phaeton, with the same big V-16.  Stunning.

So there you have it.    The Nethercutt Museum has about 250 vintage automobiles, of which 150 are on display at any time.  I’m guessing they have a few more Caddies stashed away, and that gives me a reason to go there again (and I will).   If you’re ever in So Cal, you don’t want to miss the Nethercutt.  It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.  You might even say it’s the Cadillac of vintage auto collections.

Time Travel

The Husky…a machine for compressing time.

When I was 13 years old in Florida you could get a restricted permit at age 14. The restricted permit was a driver’s license that allowed you to drive as long as an adult was in the car with you. Assuming he/she wasn’t suicidal, the adult was supposed to keep an eye on your driving and coach you. An adult would help you pick up the nuances of parallel parking, rude hand gestures, and, in Dade County, gun fighting after minor traffic accidents. Needless to say, having an aged, creaking burnout sitting in the car fouling the air with the smell of stale urine cut down on motoring fun quite a bit.

There was a motorcycle loophole in the restricted permit system. If a motorcycle was less than 5 horsepower, and if you stayed off the major highways and didn’t ride at night, you could ride solo without adults helicoptering over your ride. It was wonderful. Obey these few rules and a kid could ride his motorcycle anywhere he pleased.

Motorcycles between 50cc and 90cc were right in the 5-horsepower wheelhouse but your average traffic cop couldn’t tell a 175 from a 50. Many bikes were rebadged to appear smaller displacement than they were. I never knew anyone in my circle of friends that got busted for riding a bike too big. Of course, you had to be reasonable about the subterfuge. A 50cc badge on a Kawasaki 750 wouldn’t fly.

Two months before I turned 14 the state upped the age for a restricted permit to 15 years old. The world ended that day. Massive volcanic eruptions, cataclysmic earthquakes, a steady rain of nuclear weapons bombarding the United States, nothing was as devastating to me as Florida’s stupid statute change.

I would have to wait an additional 365 days and I’d only lived 5000 days in total. The year dragged by. Endless days were followed by endless nights only to be repeated one after another. I had to attend yet another grade in school. I couldn’t wait to be done with public conformitouriums anyway and this stolen year of motorcycle riding made it all the more aggravating. The drip, drip, drip of time counted my heartbeats, counted my life ebbing away. I was inconsolable, miserable and the experience placed a chip on my shoulder for government that I have not shaken off.

There are 9 years hidden in there somewhere!

Begrudging the failed clutch on my Husqvarna the other day I came to the jarring realization that I have owned the bike 9 years. I swear, I bought this thing not more than a couple days ago. I degreased the countershaft sprocket area to gain access and removed the clutch slave cylinder. From the inside of the slave I pulled out an aged, creaking o-ring that smelled of stale urine. The leak had allowed the clutch fluid to escape into the crankcase. Except for the missing 9 years the clutch repair went well.

Einstein was right; time is relative. From my 14-year-old perspective a year was an eternity. Now, as an adult I’m scared to close my eyes for fear that another decade will have passed by at light speed. Or worse yet, I won’t be able to re-open them at all.