Coldplugs - Not just sports cars

Most of these were taken in the fifties and sixties. I stretched things a little to fit the plane in.


Taken at Connecticut Dragway, probably during its first year of operation. It was started by a hot rodder named Frank Maratta. This picture was taken from the tower and shows a supercharged dragster, I think with a Chrysler engine. Funny how a photograph can preserve something as short lived as a paper cup of Coke. This is now the Consumer Reports car testing facility.	Fire and brimstone.

The body shop. My '58 Corvette is at the right rear.	Pioneer Volkswagen in Torrington Connecticut about 1969. I included it because it's an old dealership picture. The reason I took the photograph escapes me.

If it made noise and went fast, my father loved it. This is him in his Pabst racing boat, probably on the Connecticut river. At this time, it had a 2 cylinder Mercury outboard and was one of few raced without a "Quicksilver" lower end. Race number was CT-93 and What'll U Have? was painted near the bow. You have to be of a certain age to get the connection.	Another picture of What'll You Have? These boats had a small fin on the bottom that really dug in on turns - they could turn sharply enough to almost throw you out. You drove them in a kneeling position and the throttle was a lever operated by the left hand. This picture was not taken during a race but was staged for advertising purposes and appeared in a Pabst boat brochure. The 28-D boat was named Jake Ann and owned by a friend who I think also was the local dealer for Pabst.

In the seventies I took flying lessons in San Jose and, for some reason unknown to me, the instructor seemed more comfortable when we practiced as far from populated areas as we could get. We once used an airfield almost devoid of people and with only 3 or 4 planes in evidence. One was a tailless Cessna 150 but there were these two! A Lockheed Lodestar (I think) and an A-26 Invader. The only activity apart from ours was a fellow tearing around the place trying to get an autogiro to take off.	We found an injured cat in the user car lot and nursed him back to health. This photo was taken (in the cashiers cage) after he assumed ownership of the facility.