Originally published at: Now that's a real doozy! | Boing Boing
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Those were the days.
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If anyone is a fan of this era of cars up to about the 60s or so, this car museum in Southwestern Michigan is amazing.
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Been there and was blown away, I’d wash & wax every auto in that place for free.
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Our old LaSalle ran great.
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Another must-visit is the Auburn Cord Duesenberg near Ft Wayne Indiana. It’s in the original gorgeous deco company building
My then-8-year-old daughter wandered around in a joyous daze for hours in this place. Some of those Cords are just badass -
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One of these showed up at a parking lot car show in Tucson in the seventies. I remember that the engine was huge compared to anything else I’d seen. There really is no substitute for cubic inches (in this case, supercharged cubic inches).
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Here’s a Model J, which had belonged to Doris Duke’s fam - a slideshow:
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That story when told usually exchanges the Amilcar for a Bugatti for some reason
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I had a ride in one of these, bodied as a speedster, in the 1960s. It was a beautiful car, seemed to be from a strange and distant time. Now, I don’t think a ride in a thirty year old car would attract too much attention 
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I’m sure the manual will indicate which lever is the velocitator and which the deceleratrix.
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Glamour factor, possibly. And Bugatti is more widely known than Amilcar. I’ve also heard versions where it was a Mercedes or a Rolls-Royce motorcar.
(The first time I came across the name Amilcar was in Peter Ustinov’s memoirs. Apparently young Peter had a phase where he pretended to be an Amilcar all day long from getting up to going to sleep. Now that’s showing style from early on.)
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Ha, that explains “The Grand Prix of Gibraltar” I guess. Listened to that more than once when I was a boy; we also had an LP record of sports cars revving their engines at Riverside. There was a low bar for entertainment in those days 
( I don’t mean the Ustinov piece, although I haven’t listened to it since the sixties; maybe it would be hard to listen to now. I do, however, when confronted by an unusual car at a car show, still ask if it has the “Fanfani V-16” in it. )
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Oh that dropped me into a rabbit hole… but one of the things I found is this:
(cued)
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I heard him telling this in an interview. Thank you for reminding me. It made my day back then. Made me smile now.
I’m getting old.
Oh, great. Thanks. Downside: Now I long for YT premium to listen to Sir Peter without having to have my screen on.
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Jay Leno owns a couple of Duesenbergs, and has done some nice videos explaining the cars, their various accoutrements, features and quirks:
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It was recently being read on BBC Radio 4 Extra, but does not appear to be available on Sounds.
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Is that waxing lyrical?
I had this book as a youngster:
I think that’s a doozy on the upper left?
Around that same age, I had a Hot Wheels Duesenberg, and also noticed during Wacky Races & Perils of Penelope Pitstop re-runs that the Ant Hill Mob’s car looked a lot like a Duesenberg.
