THE 2018 CCCA ANNUAL MEETING

that warrant further investigation discussed HIGH-TECH WEALTHY FOLK ALWAYS OWNED among attendees. Hold to tradition or BY ROBERT expand our scope? The pros and cons of L. “BOB” THE HOUSE WITH GAS WHEN each will be a hot topic down the road and I BURCHETT suggest proceeding cautiously and listening OTHERS WERE COOKING ON to all points of view. My solution would FEATURES WOOD STOVES, THEY HAD GAS satisfy everyone but requires heavy lifting CAME TO THE and lots of “worker bees.” LIGHTING WHEN THE REST USED The Branson Hilton is a large property KEROSENE LAMPS, THEY BROUGHT that includes the Convention Center, where Classics were displayed Saturday morning. CLASSIC CAR FIRST IN ELECTRICITY WHEN THE CREDENTIALS: NOT WELL KNOWN, BUT OWNER OF NEARLY EVERY NON-CLASSIC CAR EVER MADE Rarely seen marques included Daniels (one Classics on display at the Awards Banquet. NEIGHBORS WERE STILL LIGHTING of seven in the Club), a very original Horch (one of eight) and a Brewster (one of 12). GASLIGHTS AND SO THE STORY The cars moved to the banquet room for the dinner that evening with Steve GOES, RIGHT OUT TO THE GARAGE Plaster’s 1937 Twelve Coupe WHERE THE NEW CAR WAS Roadster winning the Warshawsky Best of Show award, scoring 99.75 pionts. Along PARKED. IF THE GUY NEXT DOOR with other car judging results, the winner of HAD AN OPEN TOP CAR THE RICH the Katie Robbins Award was Ed Gunther of San Jose, recognized for his numerous FELLOW HAD ROLL-UP WINDOWS, contributions to the Club ranging from IF HIS NEIGHBOR HAD OIL OR Annual Meeting coordinator to CARavan coordinator (on more than one occasion). CARBIDE LAMPS THE WELL OFF Ed still contributes . . . he’s co-coordinating a tour in Northern California and Oregon this HAD EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHTS AND coming September. AS TIME WENT ALONG THE LATEST- Next year, the Annual Meeting moves to Scottsdale, Arizona in mid-January, just AND-GREATEST GADGETRY AND preceding the auto auctions. Look for INVENTIONS WERE ALWAYS registration information about the 2019 event in the August Bulletin. York style Rolls Royce Phantom I PRESENT IN THE NICEST

CARS AT THE ANNUAL

AUTOMOBILE SHOWS

WORLDWIDE. THIS IS THE STORY

OF HOW TECHNOLOGY ARRIVED

IN THE CLASSICS FIRST. >>>

< EDISON AUTO LAMPS

Sixteen and eight cylinder Packard Light Eight and Darrin

24 | SIDE MOUNT MIRROR Issue Two | 2018 | www.socalccca.org www.socalccca.org | 2018 | SIDE MOUNT MIRROR Issue Two | 25 HIGH-TECH DETECTIVE DICTOGRAPH CIRCA 1908 FEATURES FOUND IN A CANADIAN HOME IN THE CAME TO ThE CLASSIC CAR FIRST ATTIC WIRED INTO THE LIVING ROOM!

Case in point: by now most everyone knows Trafficators were a cool invention mounted shifter. The flashing signals about Willis Carrier inventing refrigeration common mostly in Europe and you didn’t only operated on the rear lights. in 1902 which dehumidified air and have to own an expensive car to have Power door locks which are so stopped food from spoiling, but it took them; just be able to install the cables to ubiquitous today that we don’t even Packard in 1939 to move the compressor SIMLER’S HANDMADE MULTI-FUNCTIONAL pull them with or install the pneumatic think about them started early on something they didn’t? Right on queue in to the engine compartment to make it SIGNAL. lines to activate them, so you can imagine in Detroit with the Scripps-Booth comes the Motor Dictograph to save the commercially available in automobiles for how few car owners wanted to go through Car Company in 1914 as standard day! Thomas Edison had his device called the 1940 model year. Now you practically that headache in the days before auto equipment. They were electrically Braking Alert Lights or Stop Light(s) were the Dictaphone which was an office machine can’t buy a car without it even in cold electricity. activated “door latches” and in Motor not common at all in the early years; the lack used to record and playback speech via climates. Score a big one for the Classic The author’s 1953 Mercedes-Benz Age Magazine November 1914 they of electricity to power them and kerosene wax cylinders so to escape pesky patent car owner way ahead of the outsiders. Their 170Da was supposed to have them reported the coupe, roadster and (or carbide) wasn’t able to be adapted, of issues. Kelly Munroe Turner named his the Bishop and Babcock Weather Conditioner according to the wiring diagrams but cabriolet came with them. There was Dictograph but it wasn’t originally slated for course. Thomas Edison and Henry Ford were 1930 DMV BOOK HAS ONLY 12 PAGES. was a major hit that year at the Chicago the car got cute little British-made turn a button on the outside of the car to push notorious pals and when Henry presented the automobile; it too was for the office—as Auto Show. The cooling coils (evaporator) indicator lamps instead possibly while since you no longer needed door handles Tom with a Model T along with a mechanic an intercom system. To make it work he located behind the back seat along with visiting the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth Patterned after the Royal Bavarian Railway to activate the lock since it was done to keep it running, Tom reciprocated with had to also invent a sensitive microphone the fan moved the cool air to the en route to America. signal arms from the 1890s, they claim first with a magnetic latch. Quite a remarkable electric lighting, batteries and more. In the (he called a Metrophone) and that led to its passengers first. auto use in 1902 but had to wait until 1908 advancement for that period of time. early 1920s the use in his Acousticon branded hearing aids, An early attempt at turn signals was this for Barrachini in Rome to add electric lighting They don’t elaborate on how you get in Philadelphia Storage microphones for radios, broadcasting and 1909 effort by P.S. Douglas-Hamilton. to them. Volkswagen and many other cars with a dead battery and while they stopped use Battery Company (aka; more also under the “Turner” brand. Edison’s also had them and they were the butt of jokes of them pretty quickly, that left the opportunity Philco) made good microphone was a lousy acoustic horn affair. in Hollywood escapades knocking pedestri- door open to Packard to reintroduce them to EARLY PATENT OF TURN SIGNALS. vehicle batteries and In 1907 Turner patented his Detective ans off of sidewalks and the like but fell into the market in 1956. companies like Atwater Dictograph listening device essentially disfavor with the gendarmerie over not being Kent made ignition built of the Acousticon components and in all that visible and were often supplemented Since all that stuff previously discussed and other items plus 1910 it was successfully used by the Burns with other signals to be allowed just to keep became standard equipment at some point switches that would Detective Agency to secure high-profile them on the car as “original equipment.” in time, what was left to be the exclusive permit sensing of the convictions of graft and other nefarious The fact that by 1928 only 11 states had property of the poor rich dude who paid brake pedal movement activities with the information obtained by vehicle code requirements for stop lights way more for his ride so he could have >>> so we were on the way the machine being declared admissible in made these somewhat slow to be adopted to making something but the venerable hand-signals persist to this to warn the tailgater we KELLY TURNER POSES WITH HIS OFFICE DICTOGRAPH WHICH YOU CAN SEE IN THE AUTHOR’S MUSEUM. day regardless of the weather. Who knew were slamming on the NOTE THE HORN SPEAKER. they would still be mandatory on driving tests binders. Now things started 90 years later? Cars have evolved but the to move fast and Edgar Walz patented a ORIGINAL SET OF TRICO RETROFIT-TYPE DMV apparently never did. turning signal consisting of a light with two TRAFFICATORS IN THE AUTHOR’S MUSEUM arrows and a brake light in 1925. This was PROUDLY SAY ‘BRITISH MADE.’ Buick was the first U.S. automaker to quickly followed by Oscar Simler in 1929 offer factory-installed flashing turn signals. who patented a similar device. Introduced in 1939 as a safety feature, the Joseph Bell in the late ‘30s made it flash new-fangled gadget was advertised as the and finally it was Buick who made them a “Flash-Way Directional Signal” operated from standard feature in 1939. a switch on the new “Handi-shift” column-

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court as evidence. This Now that you can talk from the back to in 1940 when they offered combination seems to be the first use the front, what about music? In 1928 the electric/hydraulic window lifts on the 180 of electronic surveillance, Galvin Brothers formed a company just to and that was furiously followed by Ford to also known as bugging or a give motorcars broadcast music since by install them in 1941 on the Lincoln Custom wiretap. that time it was being transmitted in many and 7-passenger models only. By this time Turner was so major cities. This was in response to classy ran to catch up with the driver- well known that Dr. Lee DeForest used his folks taking their wind-up phonographs passenger electric divider window but not Metrophones to broadcast opera by radio and records on outings, but we wanted on the side-windows on the Model 75. The and the Dictograph Company received much more. They preferred to name the company race was on for the Classic car companies publicity over this so in the 1920s Turner “Radiola” but that was taken so they to outdo each other. PHILCO TRANSITONE, CIRCA 1932; was truly in the catbird seat to make his chose Motorola. Mercedes Benz (and others) also offered BARN-FIND 1932 MOTOROLA, products merge into the automotive world These radios were called the Golden short-wave multi-band and transmitting “88” INITIALED INSIDE BY JOE E. GALVIN. and listen to those new FM stations. The (TOP L -R) ’38 METROPHONE IN HAND; with the invention of the Motor Dictograph. Voice and they sold well at $130 as a Thunderbird factory brochure shows that type of radios plus various dealer-installed ’38 PACKARD METROPHONE; ’38 PACKARD retrofit and could be installed in any car Ford offered the auxiliary tuner as a dealer- dictating machines as options shown in DICTOGRAPH SPEAKER. The Metrophone sensitivity had been of the day; the radio went well under the up looking like this when crazy radio installers installed item and we have one in ours. brochures and ballyhoo but few seem to Photos courtesy of Dave & Dianne Reidy and their 1938 heightened by the introduction of Packard Limousine once owned by Ada E. Wrigley (of dash down on the firewall and there was (who didn’t own the car) ran rampant. While early cars had a tall pull-up antenna; exist to show them off however the ultimate chewing gum fame) with the Motor Dictograph the Detective Dictograph so that a “control head” dialed by a speedometer AM radio was king of the U.S. road in the later on they shrunk it to 31 inches favoring techno-gadget of all time still has to be the the polite voices of ladies cable to set the volume and change 1930s, ’40s and ’50s but that didn’t stop the exact quarter-wavelength of 100 MC mobile phone. (IMHO) was, of course, plated in silver. channels. Auburn and Plymouth seem Blaupunkt from introducing the first AM/FM FM paying little attention to the 1 MC AM In 1946 the Bell System and Motorola The speaker (reminiscent of an auto horn!) to be tied for first place to install the dual-band radio in 1952 followed closely band left in the long-wave shadows. Truly teamed up to make the first one and it took hiding under the dash. By the mid-1930s, PhilcoTransitone radio in their cars but by Becker with the Mexico in 1953. These “short wave” listening! up half the trunk of the car with a separate the speaker/horn had advanced but the only Plymouth included it at no extra charge were available in the German high-end cars receiver, transmitter and selector decoder >>> Metrophone had not. and there were others quickly making as you can well imagine notably Mercedes- Another item Ford offered in 1957, but The report goes on to say; “The Motor them too, including Bosch, Majestic and Benz for U.S. export only. apparently only to the Thunderbird owners, in the back seat could be distinctly heard Dictograph is a system for closed-cabin Crosley with their “Roamio”. The FM broadcast band in the U.S. was was a Remington Auto-Home DC/AC by the driver, the vehicles had the requisite driver/passenger communication and was Early car radio installers hid the ugly originally set at 42-50 MC in 1940 but saw electric shaver and this too had to be battery voltage (6 volts) to power the first displayed in the 1917 Salon and Shows”. antenna wires sewn into the soft top on fixed- it’s frequency band given to the ‘State Police’ dealer-installed as it was not (yet) a cigarette system and now only the horn speaker It comprises a carbon microphone wired into roof types with solid bows while convertible and no one wanted to make FM radios until lighter plug-in device. Talk about distracted corresponding mounting brackets had to the passenger cabin and a horn cars mounted them under the running the FCC stabilized it at 88-108 MC in 1945. driving; this was 50 years before we were be invented to accommodate the various speaker which is mounted boards on Classics. If you didn’t have TV channel 1 also lived in this spectrum talking on handheld cell phones! vehicle installations. near the driver seat. a decent Classic your car could end until April 1949 and now you know why TV I have often wondered why anyone would Later on it read like a Hollywood movie Robin is holding channels always start at 2! buy a TransVertor (6 or 12 volt DC converter poster: a Motor Dictograph was introduced the silver-plated Americans had to wait quite a while to AC) just to run your razor when you could . in the 1920s in the U.S. for communication Metrophone (right) for our AM-only radios to catch up so to pay a lot more money to have the dealer useum

between a limousine driver and his passen- tucked into a special M fill in the blank in 1957 Ford partnered install the two wires to the vehicle DC power! ar gers. The company claimed proudly that it pouch in the upholstery C with Gonset and offered an FM Tuner Moving on, Packard scored a big coup yons was “standard equipment in practically every located at the armrest side, L (or ‘converter’) that was mounted under

well-known American production of high- the speaker horn upholstered into enera l the dashboard and installers routed the G grade chauffeur-driven motor cars, including the drivers seat. Finally it all makes sense antenna through it to reach the AM radio. PACKARD DELUXE RADIO & SPEAKER, ourtesy c Pierce-Arrow, Packard, Cadillac, Hudson, why Turner had the essential components to Tuning the AM radio to 640 KC you could COURTESY DAVE & DIANE REIDY, hotos

Winton, ...” etc. The Metrophone faceplate build the office product into the car. P then hear the output from the FM tuner 1938 PACKARD TWELVE LIMOUSINE.

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to make your bell “ring” when called by the TO LEARN MORE operator. Those “decoder-under-glass” as we mithsonian S

called them prevailed into the 1970s when he ABOUT OUR T of the author was proudly installing them into the cars of those rich guys who didn’t mind REGION, VISIT ourtesy c

It’s Blue for Me! if I drilled huge holes in their cars so they hotos

P SOCALCCCA.ORG could sport the insanely large antennas we stuck on them. “The bigger the better” I was > PAST ARTICLES told by the likes of Marlon Brando… “let ’em > PHOTO GALLERIES know I have one” he said and was rewarded > A FULL LISTING OF OUR PROJECTS with great signal and clear, static-free calls. Richard Stanley #1 Agent - Los Feliz Office, 2015 and 1995-2009 RALPH TURNER AND HIS FAMOUS PATENTED “SPEED O STAT”. Estates Director Architectural and Historic Properties Specialist [email protected] 1700 KC (or KHz if you prefer) frequency Most all cars and aircraft now have 213 300-4567 cell / voice mail band didn’t move around or vary the format so electronic speed or ‘cruise control’ but a Cal BRE # 00971211 the AM car radio you have in your 1931 car sightless inventor in 1950 named Ralph will still work on the AM broadcast band that Teetor patented the first ‘SpeedoStat’ exists in the same form today. accelerator set/governor system and As technology and disposable income pioneered the entire industry stretching increased the manufacturers ran to outdo all the way to autopilots in planes. In each other with many features but few 1958 was the first to adopt it for compare in value and safety to the anti- their luxury models followed by GM soon skid or as we commonly know it; anti-lock thereafter. Teetor saw it as a fuel-saving THE AUTHOR HAS A SET OF THESE brakes (aka ABS). device and during the 1973 OPEC oil- TRUNK-EATING MONSTERS; COME SEE Hagerty tells us that aircraft in the embargo it proved to be invaluable (and THEM IN PERSON! 1940s really had it first but it was adapted famous) by saving 167,000 barrels of to the automotive world in 1966 to fit on the overpriced foreign oil per DAY. Being in the radio communications world Jensen Type FF of which only 320 were built Naturally there are lots of other gadgets since 1964 I have installed many of them and being right-hand drive never exported but have you had enough of this? Yeah, me into cars, but never seen one actually built in to the U.S. Not having front-wheel disc too, so if you really want to see some of by the factory into cars until late models like brakes made it hard for the early year U.S. them ‘up close & personal like’ then please the Mercedes-Benz SL600 having a power cars to do four-wheel ABS so the first real consider visiting our Museum in Torrance, antenna designed for AM/FM/cell phone commercial use of it seems to be Ford in the California where many of the items in this provided us with a way to hook up your own Thunderbird and Mark III article are on display. Call Bob at 310-534- phone to the car. This is most likely due to the in late 1969 and in 1971 4456 to arrange for a private visit or tour. fact that by the time they were small enough was full four-wheel ABS. The Sure-Trak Robert L. “Bob” Burchett whose only to put into most every car we had multiple Anti-skid system built by Kelsey-Hayes was serious claim to fame is a really distant formats and carriers so one phone would not electronically controlled and actually ahead relationship to Bill Burchett and I bet you know him too, but don’t try and further serve everyone. This was unlike the radios of of Bosch in 1978 for Euro-delivery only your career by knowing him; it never the 1930s which being on the stable 540- despite their protests. helped me out either!

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