Cool Rides

San Antonio, Christmas season 1939.  1940 Plymouth facing camera, 1936 Dodge near garage, 1934 Ford near gas pumps on right.

New Cannonball Record

On November 10 and 11 of this year, Arne Toman, Doug Tabutt, and Berkeley Chadwick set a new cross country Cannonball Run record of 27 hours and 25 minutes, driving from Manhattan to Los Angeles, achieving an average speed of 103mph, with a peak speed of 193mph.

The first Cannonball was run in 1971 and many times since.  It is, of course, highly illegal but it sure sounds like fun!  The trio drove a specially modified Mercedes-Benz E63 AMG.  Running the Cannonball doesn't just require modifying the engine, it also means changing the fuel system (they only stopped twice for fuel), as well as state of the art radar detection systems.  They also used a team of volunteer spotters across their route to spot law enforcement.

You can learn more from watching this highly entertaining video, at least entertaining for those of us who enjoy cars, speed, and thwarting law enforcement.

Barrett Jackson

Every January the largest classic auto auction in the U.S. is held here in Scottsdale.  We made our first visit this year, accompanied by the THC Daughter and the soon to be THC Son-In-Law.  The Barrett Jackson Auto Auction covers a one million square feet under solid or tent roof.  Hundreds of classic cars, huge areas for related (sometime very loosely related) paraphernalia.  The center of the event is the auction arena which seats several thousand.  Cars sell for up to, and over, a million dollars.  We saw a refurbished 1965 VW microbus sell for $82K.  We'll be back next year.