Hans,great pics,i thought the Finland gov. took the pics from you,i see you have a pic of my kit car it has 1847 miles on it now and time to put it away for the year.Hope to see you at the muscle car show at the end of the month!

Great pics

I know where there is one of these

Its pretty nice ( non-running)

Great pics Hans, real nice meeting you at Belvedere. Hope you can get over here again soon!

Mark

Maybe Roy will see this thread and feel guilty for buying the ugly, brown GSS and sell that pile to me.

Got a few good deals at the swap in addition to the usual inside trading;




King size hand made ice cream....mmmmmm



Show is over, time to load up and drive towards Chicago;



Cool to see an old style dealer sign...





The Dart had experienced some carb trouble so we picked it up too;

Thanks for the kind words guys, was nice meeting you too! Maybe I should put more descriptions with the pics? But I have to admit that I fell asleep while posting so the alert level was going down fast

Volo Auto Museum ( www.volocars.com )has also a huge antique mall where people can leave their stuff for sale. I was sure that there would be something interesting.



The place is huge, there is stuff in several buildings and one of them has four floors.



Want to do a 1950:s kitchen with mint appliances? You'll find that here;



Once I saw this 1947 Sun Tester complete with a cart and the instruction manual I had to contact my friend in Finland who is building a traditional Hot Rod with vintage speed parts. Yup, it is on its way over now.



Once again to Bosak, we had to return the Challenger.



This guy was cruisin in style. I didn't see a gearshift extension but it was probably there as the fellow had taken the Peterbilt position inside the cab.







Utility beds don't exist in Europe so I always get a kick out of them...doesn't hurt to have a nice chassie either...





A black fellow cruised in with this conversion van. It was insanely clean, even the salespeople came out to look. Vogues too.





Here's what the Packard plant in Detroit should be. The Stutz Business Center in Indianapolis. Stunning. I have to get to see this one up close one day... http://www.thestutz.com/





We moved Jim's ramp truck from the dealer to a diesel shop.



Cool Harley-Davidson dealership looked like a riverboat;







We picked up this 426 Wedge car for a transport to the new owner. Very neat project!





Got to meet AeroMonte and he kindly showed us some of the cool stuff he has;





I could use quite a few parts from this car for my Nebraska State Patrol Fury but it is really too clean to part out...



Passing St Louis and the Gateway Arch designed by a Finn, Eero Saarinen. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eero_Saarinen




Another thing related to Finland was this Futuro house beside the road. They have become a bit of a cult item in some circles.

http://www.futurohouse.net/photos.htm

I needed to be in Detroit the coming weekend and since Jim had things to attend it worked perfectly. We still hadn't picked up my NY from Kansas so I dropped Jim off in downtown Chicago and continued towards Flint in the V10 truck. Thanks man!



This one was a bit far from home...



BigBlockHead from Finland studies at Kettering in Flint so I took him to the weekend activities in lower Michigan and he showed me the local stuff in Flint. Good deal. No furrin cars for us. He drives a Cadillac but wants a C-body...



BBH does some volunteer work at the Buick Gallery and Research Center so that was our first stop.

http://www.sloanlongway.org/buick-gallery



During my visit they had a Corvette display going.



There was some neat old signs displayed;







It doesn't hurt to be able to go to the storage area. The best stuff was definitely here;

OK. just got the word from BigBlockHead that for some reason or another I can't post any pics of the stuff in storage. I'll delete these. Sorry guys!

Yup, that is the 1951 Buick XP-300 concept!










This Wildcat had been donated to the museum;



Some restoration work is also performed on premises;

The Buick Gallery is under the wings of the Sloan Museum which is next door. A lot of cool stuff to see here.



But we didn't go in that way, a lot of stuff to see down below too. Jacob was the friendly tour guide, thank you Sir!;

Sorry, pics removed.













Somebody had contacted the museum regarding restoring a similar travel trailer and the museum was going to send some paint chips to help out.



The Flint sit down strike did start the UAW stronghold of the automotive industry;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Sit-Down_Strike



No 1904 Buicks are known to have survived but the museum had this reconstruction made using an original 1904 Buick engine;



An interesting variety of Packards were on display;





In another part of Flint GM had just bought what is considered to be the first GM factory. It is in nice shape but no definite plans about the usage were yet set. The barriers were put in place after the deal.

OK, enough of the GM stuff! We were supposed to meet three merry men in a Charger and a Super Coupe at the Chelsea, MI car show. Pretty good turnout for a small town and a really pleasant atmosphere. But sigh, I didn't get to the Chrysler Proving Grounds this time either!? Gotta focus, focus...











If I would have to name one favorite none Mopar it could very well be a 1963 Pontiac Catalina Ventura Super Duty.







The local funeral home had some pretty cool stuff and opened the doors for anyone to come in;



















Let's roll forward to Jackson, MI which also had a similar event but on a larger scale. Taking the scenic route of course;

This place was packed!

After catching some Z:s in Kalamazoo it was time to head towards the Gilmore Car Museum and Mopars at the Red Barns! This bad boy was parked at a burger joint;



This is going to be good;



The Gilmore is a big place. This building was replicating a Ford dealership and was full of 30:s Fords;



On the other side was a Franklin dealership modeled after one in Los Angeles;



But we'll go in later! It was on the brink of raining and the smart move would be to leave most of the inside exhibits for last. And who knows, somebody might have something cheap at the swap;



New buildings are coming up, this place has a lot of style!













This barn featured Cadillacs;







Beautiful Shell station;

Hans you are the man This is better than any men's magazine

Real Auto erotica!

Hmmm, mid-70:s dealer displays can't be in Hemi territory yet price-wise? "Hi, how much are you asking for these? - 20 bucks. - Each? - No, for the set. - Ummm, OK, I'll take them!"

This has been my favorite summer vacation story in years !!