more Lost and Found overflow – Take a dip, New car

Okay, that earlier Lost and Found overflow was a bust. My apologies. Then again, Lost and Found is often just an excuse to look at old photos with cars in ‘em, so to make up for that last one, here are a couple others that are already identified, making them more like stumpers than Lost and Found fodder. Both photos come from reader Bob Doss of Green Valley, Arizona. The car above seems to have stalled after fording most of an Ozark creek, giving the kids ample opportunity to play in the creek. “Was Uncle Fred’s car the first Amphicar?” Bob asks.

And here Bob’s father rides shotgun in the family’s first car (bought used, of course) in 1927. The family seems rather proud of their recent purchase.

Got an idea what these cars are? Leave your answers in the comments.

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Found: the only streamlined Seagram’s Diamond T

As Rollan Jerry wrote in the recent SIA Flashback article on coachbuilt trucks, many such vehicles were built in Canada for beer brewers because Canadian laws at the time banned them from advertising their products in print. Apparently that ban extended to spirits distillers as well, as evidenced by this recently found 1938 Diamond T, a one-off design built for Seagram’s, the famed Canadian distillers.

Yes, it looks rather horrible. According to its known history, after Seagram’s commissioned Toronto-based Smith Brothers Body Works to build the steel-bodied truck in 1938, Seagram’s used it as a delivery van and mobile billboard until 1949, then sold the truck to Holman Construction in Rockwood, Ontario, which simply painted over the door signs, then hauled building materials with it, possibly until the early 1980s, when Holman sold it to a scrap dealer. How it escaped the crusher remains unknown, but it now sits at Ron Fawcett Motors, a well-established restoration shop, in Whitby, Ontario.

I spoke with Art Carty at Fawcett, and he said the company would like to find a buyer who can fund the truck’s restoration rather than restore it themselves, though it looks to be all there, save for the wood structure underneath the steel skin. Seagram’s is in no position to buy the truck back - the company closed its museum in 1997 and has since been sold off to other beverage companies.

We searched American Beer Trucks and the two recent SIA articles on streamlined and purpose-built trucks, but saw no additional photos on the Seagram’s Diamond T, and only have the one directly above provided by the folks at Fawcett. Smith Brothers, however, did build the most famous of the Canadian streamlined beer trucks - the Labatt’s White truck and trailer, so we have to wonder whether Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky had a hand in designing the Seagram’s Diamond T as well.

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In 1950, the automotive and racing monthly “Speed Age” presented achievement ...

In 1950, the automotive and racing monthly “Speed Age” presented achievement awards to people from motorsport who’d done notable things during the just-concluded season, in keeping with annual custom. The watches that the honorees were presented were made by Univeral Geneve, one of the first Swiss watchmakers to popularize the thin-movement wrist chronograph.

Some of the recipients’ names are pretty recognizable. Henry Banks was a former Midget champion who became a founding USAC official. Clay Smith, the camshaft genius who turned a cigar-chomping woodpecker into a hot rod icon, would be killed four years later by an errant dirt car in the pits at Du Quoin, Illinois. Don Cummins, brother of Clessie, helped bring diesel power to the Indianapolis 500. Tom Marchese promoted Indianapolis-type racing at the Milwaukee Mile. Tommy Milton was the first to win the Indy 500 twice. Johnny Mantz raced at Indy, too, but had also just won the inaugural Southern 500. Lee Petty was already an established NASCAR star. Julian Buesink fielded the car that Bill Rexford drove to the 1950 NASCAR Grand National title. Briggs Cunningham and his longtime sideman, William Frick, competed against Tom Cole in post-war road races. The obscure name is that of Oscar Fraley, in the middle. Circa 1950, Fraley was a New York-based freelance sportswriter of some note. In 1957, he ghostwrote the memoirs of Prohibition-era racket-buster Eliot Ness, which were later adapted as the basis for the TV gangster drama, “The Untouchables.” True story. The photo is from an archive of former “Speed Age” editor Don O’Reilly, awaiting cataloging at the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame in Mooresville.

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