Category: Wheel Tracks Academy

John D. Parker III is pictured at the August 2026 Vermont Antique and Classic Car Meet in his 1921 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost Tourer. He has attended the show a number of times with this vehicle. John has been a VAE member since 1954 and resides in North Stonington, Connecticut. This Rolls-Royce has been driven over 200,000…

As long as automobiles have used electricity to power anything other than ignition, they have required a means of generating DC power to replenish the battery. In 1912, Cadillac introduced the first DC generator (dynamo) for this purpose. It served that function for nearly six decades. In 1960, Chrysler introduced the first alternator as an…

The power for a car’s electrical system comes from the battery, but it must be constantly replenished by a generator. Up until the early 1960s, a DC generator, which is technically called a dynamo, was the standard. The physical principle by which any electrical generator works is called the Lorentz force. You’ll probably never need to…

Manufacturing the things and stuff needed for everyday life was once the job of artisans who used tools and skill to make things one at a time. This started to change abruptly in mid-18th Century Great Britain, kicking off what has come to be called the Industrial Revolution. It started in the textile industry with…

It occurred to me recently that my common slang vocabulary has diminished over the years. Many of those colorful words or expressions were used as well-directed insults or derogatory references. Others were just colorfully descriptive. I didn’t coin any of these. I learned them from my long-gone elders. When I was just a “little squirt,” I…

I trust that many of us are old enough to remember who Rube Goldberg was. He was, among other things, an engineer and a cartoonist. He is best known for his humorous cartoons depicting complicated mechanisms to perform simple tasks. His designs were fictitious, but I’ve encountered some real-life examples that have gotten into production…

Among the names on the long list of people I had never heard of was Jim Moylan. From what I have read recently, he was well known in certain circles. He invented the Moylan Arrow, which I also had not heard of. While working for Ford in the ‘80s, he had the same experience most…

I think I can speak for us all in saying that what makes our vintage cars appealing to us are the ways in which they differ from the modern everyday drivers that we all own. By comparison to my prewar collection of cars, modern cars are more powerful, reliable, comfortable, fuel efficient, and full of…

Will all those who have heard of the Lexington automobile please raise their hands. Hmm … I see but one. That’s the hand of VAE member Hamilton Hayes. There’s one in his family tree.  The Lexington Motor Company was established in 1909 in Lexington, Kentucky. That’s Kentucky, not Massachusetts, although the connection was not lost on…