HVA President Mark Gessler relates the story of Amos Northup, the Graham Blue Streak and the integral role both played in the next phase of the Historic Vehicle Association’s move to preserve automotive history and heritage.
Everybody knows that success is often the result of being in the right place at the right time with the right idea. The Graham brothers of Evansville, Indiana, are a perfect example. Read on to learn more about how their ingenuity at the dawn of the automotive revolution led to the creation of icon and the latest vehicle to be documented and added to the National Historic Vehicle Register.
Amos Northup and the Graham Blue Streak Seminar presented by Hagerty With special guests: Mark Gessler, Historic Vehicle Association President, and Bill Rothermel.
The HVA will display five influential Amos E. Northup automobile designs at Concours d’Elegance of America on Sunday July 30th at The Inn at St. John’s in Plymouth, Michigan.
You’ve heard about National Historic Vehicle Register, the stringent criteria for entry and the lengthy documentation process required. Now, you can see all this glorious research for yourself as the Library of Congress as added four of the now 19 vehicles on the Register to their website for your perusal. Read on to learn more.
What’s your idea of the ultimate muscle car? If you had free access to any high performance, emotion inducing car part or platform, what would you assemble? That was the opportunity given the guys at Car and Driver in the late 1960s, and what they put together might be considered the ultimate Camaro. Read on to learn more about this one-of-a-kind creation dubbed “Blue Maxi” – Car and Driver’s once abused, “Company Car.”
Sixty years ago this month, one of automotive history’s most radical looking factory experimental vehicles appeared on the cover of Hot Rod magazine. Looking as though the entire top had been shorn off save a single, shark-like fin directly behind the driver, the “Mermaid Merc” was unlike anything else ever conceived or designed up to that point. Built specifically for the 1957 Daytona Speed Trials by Bill Stroppe and other Mercury crew/team members, the Mermaid was created for one reason—speed.
While old car photos hold a certain level of fascination, there’s nothing like some old film footage to really make automotive history come alive. Check out this short film edited by Joe Santacroce showing a shipment of Buicks being unloaded on August 1, 1928 at the New York Central Rail Road Freight yard on their way to New York’s Broadway Garage.
This article originally appeared in Hemmings, written by Daniel Strohl, on July 21, 2017. Graham Blue Streak photographed in front of Amos Northup’s house. Photo courtesy Historic Vehicle Association. “Too radical,” they said. Indeed, Amos Northup’s design for the 1933…
More than 80 years ago this month, America’s first drive-in movie theater opened in Camden, New Jersey, ushering in an era of pure Americana as millions gathered in their cars to watch the latest blockbusters, horror and sci-fi B-movies and grindhouse classics. Read on.
