How did motorists ever get anywhere before GPS units and Google Maps on every smartphone? It certainly wasn’t because they all knew where they were going, as we can see from MotorPunk’s collection of vintage navigation devices, which range in sophistication from the handmade (above, actually used for a slightly different purpose, but with similar methods) to intensely complicated machines and in-car computers.
* Karl Arnstein may not be a household name today, but the designer for the Goodyear-Zeppelin Corporation enjoyed a bit of renown in the Thirties, and the question that Hampton Wayt at The Old Motor posed this week takes his prominence into account: Did he contribute to the design of the Chrysler Airflow, or was he merely a paid spokesman in an unethical native advertising campaign to promote the Airflow?
* Toyota Supra six-cylinders tend to be hot commodities in the engine-swap scene, but what about the engine-less Supras left behind? One guy decided to fit his with a Trailblazer’s straight-six, running through a Solstice manual transmission with a Duramax turbocharger. It’s a neat bit of turnabout, with some interesting problem-solving along the way, as EngineSwapDepot detailed this week.
* For those times when you don’t have a calculator or the displacement formula handy (btw, it’s BORE x BORE x STROKE x .7854 x NO. OF CYLS), the Jalopy Journal posted up this old displacement chart from Jake’s Speed Equipment.
* Finally, this story on Detroit’s Fisher Building from Curbed might only be tangentially related to old cars, but it shows that the Motor City isn’t all doom and gloom these days and that there’s plenty worth saving in the city.
More gadget review in www.mamaktalk.com
