A Dan and Phil divorce, a nun and a whole lot of inflating bum. We look back at the dystopian nightmare of this last year.. in memes ☆.。.:*
The Top Dan Memes of 2022
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1968 Kershaw Cruiseaire
The Kershaw Cruiseaire was developed in the late 1960s as a new kind of luxury limousine and office on wheels for well-to-do businessmen. Inside it was equipped with a TV, intercom, 8 track player, a fridge, couches and armchairs, drinks cabinets, and even a stove.
The design of the Cruiseaire is said to have been the brainchild of Royce Kershaw Sr, who hired Glenn Pray to do the styling. Pray is perhaps best-known for his Cord 8/10 replicas, but interestingly he also worked with Gordon Buehrig on the Cruiseaire design. Buehrig is one of the most significant American car designers of the mid-20th century.
The Cruiseaire is based on the chassis, running gear, and drivetrain of a 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado. The project started with a brand new Toronado onto which the new body was fitted, and it’s still powered by the Toronado’s 425 cubic inch V8, sending power through an automatic transmission to the front wheels.
The Kershaw Cruiseaire concept vehicle was developed in the late 1960s by Royce Kershaw Sr as a completely new form of vehicle – a cross between an RV and a luxury limousine targeted at wealthy businessmen and celebrities who wanted something more than your standard, run-of-the-mill limo.
Images courtesy of Auction by Pearce and the Kershaw Estate
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1937 Cadillac V-16 Series 90 Imperial Limousine
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Oldsmobile’s Experimental ’66 Toronado Station Wagon
What if Oldsmobile produced a Toronado station wagon? General Motors was intrigued enough by the idea to build a prototype or two.
It’s only natural that General Motors and its Oldsmobile division would seek out additional applications for the advanced front-wheel drive unit designed for the 1966 Toronado. Known internally at GM as the Unitized Power Package or UPP, the powertrain module was a tidy, versatile package, and surely a bundle had been invested in its development. The next application following the Toronado, of course, was the 1967 Cadillac Eldorado. And since one great benefit of the UPP front-drive system was that it allowed a low, flat floor, another use that easily came to mind was a station wagon.
By March of 1966, the GM design had a full-sized studio model ready for display at the Tech Center’s styling court (above). As we can see, this was essentially a European-style shooting brake adaptation of the production Toronado coupe. Sporty, yes, but the two-door wagon didn’t offer much more in the way of useful interior volume over the standard Toronado.
Taking a more practical approach, GM built a full-sized, four-door wagon prototype using the Toronado drive unit and front-end sheet metal. But at the time, Oldsmobile didn’t offer a full-size wagon—its largest wagon was the Vista Cruiser, based on a stretched A-body intermediate platform. So a Pontiac full-sized wagon body shell, from the firewall back, was merged with the Toronado front clip. As the photos show, the Olds/Pontiac mashup was more of a basic proof-of-concept rather than a finished prototype. The tail lamps fit oddly and the front and rear wheel openings don’t match at all.
Leading automotive historian Michael Lamm, writing in the late, great magazine Special Interest Autos (July-Aug 1978) reported that in fact, several of these experimental front-drive wagons were constructed. Mr. Lamm also noted that GM styling vice president Bill Mitchell raved about the flat, unobtructed floors, and he included this awesome Mitchell quote: “With the tailgate down, you could run a motorscooter into it.” But as we now know, the front-drive, Toronado-derived station wagon was never sent into production—though the UPP was later used to power the 1973-78 GMC Motor Home.
There was another Toronado station wagon, not that Oldsmobile had any direct involvement. In 1968-70, American Quality Coach of Blytheville, Arkansas produced the AQC Jetway 707 airport limousine. A Toronado with its wheelbase extended five and a half feet, it sported tandem rear axles, five doors per side, and a Vista Cruiser-ish station wagon roof. Somewhere between 52 and 150 of these behemoths were reportedly built, various sources say, and a number of them are still around.
1968-70, American Quality Coach
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College Book Co. of California offers limousine rides to UCLA students buying their textbooks
(Grey Villet. 1959)
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