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Muntz Jet
The Muntz Jet is a two-door hardtop convertible built by the Muntz Car Company in the United States between approximately 1949 and 1954. It is sometimes credited as the first personal luxury car. Developed from the Kurtis Sport Car (KSC) that was designed by Frank Kurtis, it was produced and marketed by Earl "Madman" Muntz. The car was powered by one of two V8 engines, either a Cadillac engine or a Lincoln engine, and it was equipped with either a General Motors Hydramatic automatic transmission or a three-speed Borg-Warner manual transmission. The Jet was streamlined, featured numerous luxury appointments, and was equipped with safety features that were not standard on most cars of its day, including a padded dashboard and seat belts. Production of the Muntz Jet occurred in Glendale, California; Evanston, Illinois; and Chicago before ceasing in 1954. The car sold for $5,500 in 1953 (about $51,500 in 2017), but cost $6,500 to produce. In total, Muntz lost approximately $ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Muntz Car Company
The Muntz Car Company was an automobile manufacturer based in the United States. History The company was established in 1950 in Glendale, California by Earl "Madman" Muntz, a well known local used car dealer and electronics retailer. Muntz was assisted by Frank Kurtis, who had earlier attempted to produce a sports car under the Kurtis Kraft marque (the Kurtis Kraft Sport, which sold just 36 units by 1950). In 1951, Kurtis sold the license to manufacture the cars to Muntz, who rebadged them as the "Muntz Jet", extended the body to make it a 4-seater, and exchanged the Ford engine with a larger Cadillac V8. Later, this engine would be replaced with a less expensive Lincoln side-valve V8. The car, a sports coupe, was first built in Glendale, but manufacture soon moved to a new factory in Evanston, Illinois. It featured its own unique design, with aluminum body panels and a removable fiberglass top that were manufactured in-house. Other parts (such as the engines) were sourced from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurtis Sport Car
The Kurtis Sport Car (KSC) is a two-seat, aluminum-body sports car designed by Frank Kurtis and manufactured by Kurtis Kraft in 1949 and 1950. Built with numerous components (including the chassis and V8 engine) from a 1949 Ford, the KSC was built as both a production car and a kit car. It was sold at a base price of $3,495, and with options it could cost up to $5,000, which was approximately $1,000 more than the then-new Jaguar XK120. After Frank Kurtis realized that the car was not sustainable financially, largely due to production costs, he sold the KSC's manufacturing rights, along with its blueprints, parts, and tooling, to Earl "Madman" Muntz for $200,000 in 1950. By that time, only 18 to 36 KSCs had been produced. In August 1949, Wally Parks, founder of the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and co-founder of ''Hot Rod'' magazine, drove a modified KSC to on the Bonneville Salt Flats. In September 1949, that same KSC was featured on the cover of the first issue of ''Moto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Newspapers
A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, sports and art, and often include materials such as opinion columns, weather forecasts, reviews of local services, obituaries, birth notices, crosswords, editorial cartoons, comic strips, and advice columns. Most newspapers are businesses, and they pay their expenses with a mixture of subscription revenue, newsstand sales, and advertising revenue. The journalism organizations that publish newspapers are themselves often metonymically called newspapers. Newspapers have traditionally been published in print (usually on cheap, low-grade paper called newsprint). However, today most newspapers are also published on websites as online newspapers, and some have even abandoned their print versions entirely. Newspapers developed in the 17th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century under Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, it achieved a reputation as a crusading paper with a decidedly more American-conservative anti-New Deal outlook, and its writing reached other markets through family and corporate relationships at the ''New York Daily News'' and the ''Washington Times-Herald.'' The 1960s saw its corporate parent owner, Tribune Company, rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kaiser-Frazer
The Kaiser-Frazer Corporation (1947–1953 as Kaiser-Frazer) was the result of a partnership between industrialist Henry J. Kaiser and automobile executive Joseph W. Frazer.Kaiser Cars, 1947-1955 by Kelsey Wright at AllPar, 16 Nov 2020 In 1947, the company acquired the automotive assets of , of which Frazer had become president near the end of World War II. Kaiser-Frazer was one of a few US automakers to achieve success after , if only for a few years. Joseph W. Frazer left the company in 1949, replaced as president by Henry's son Edgar F. Kaiser. In 195 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Used-car Salesman
The automobile salesperson is one of many sales professions. The automobile salesman is a retail salesperson, who sells new or used cars. Unlike traditional retail sales, car sales are sometimes negotiable. Salesmen are employed by new car dealerships or used car dealerships. Car negotiation The price of a car, unlike many retail sales, is often negotiable. New cars will often have a factory window sticker (Monroney sticker in the US) listing equipment and options, and the suggested retail price or MSRP. The salesman is traditionally paid a commission rather than a fixed salary, usually based on a combination of profit margin and unit volume. Popular culture The automobile salesman, particularly the used car salesman, has often been a source of characters, often negative, in movies, television shows, and cartoons. History and fairy tales often characterize peddlers (people selling goods) as negative influences, or outsiders out to take advantage of people. Such salesmen are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television Set
A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using it as a computer monitor. Introduced in the late 1920s in Mechanical television, mechanical form, television sets became a popular consumer product after World War II in electronic form, using cathode ray tube (CRT) technology. The addition of color to broadcast television after 1953 further increased the popularity of television sets in the 1960s, and an outdoor antenna became a common feature of suburban homes. The ubiquitous television set became the display device for the first recorded media in the 1970s, such as , VHS and later DVD. It has been used as a display device since the first generation of (e.g. Timex Sinclair 1000) and dedicated video game consoles (e.g. Atari) in the 1980s. By the early 2010s, flat-panel television incorp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elgin High School (Illinois)
Elgin High School, or EHS, is a public four-year high school located in Elgin, Illinois, an American city 40 mi. (63.5 km) northwest of Chicago. It is part of Elgin Area School District U46, which also includes Bartlett High School, Larkin High School, South Elgin High School, and Streamwood High School. History Elgin High School is one of the oldest public high schools in the state. Its first graduation ceremony was held in 1872 and its accreditation dates back to 1904. It was formerly housed on Gifford Street adjacent to Gifford Park in a building that now serves as the Gifford Street High School. A new campus was constructed on the eastern edge of Elgin adjacent to Poplar Creek, which is its present location. Elgin High was first established in 1869 in Illinois and has changed locations 3 times so far. The school, however, is not represented by any mascot, as the previous mascot "The Maroon" (a Native American) was considered to be racist and was removed in 200 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elgin, Illinois
Elgin ( ) is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Elgin is located northwest of Chicago, along the Fox River. As of the 2020 Census, the city had a population of 114,797, the seventh-largest city in Illinois. History The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Black Hawk Indian War of 1832 led to the expulsion of the Native Americans who had settlements and burial mounds in the area and set the stage for the founding of Elgin. Thousands of militiamen and soldiers of Gen. Winfield Scott's army marched through the Fox River valley during the war, and accounts of the area's fertile soils and flowing springs soon filtered east. In New York, James T. Gifford and his brother Hezekiah Gifford heard tales of this area ripe for settlement, and they traveled west. Looking for a site on the stagecoach route from Chicago to Galena, Illinois, they eventually settled on a spot where the Fox River could be bridged. In April 1835, they e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ford Thunderbird (second Generation)
The second generation Ford Thunderbird (also called Square Bird) was produced by Ford for the 1958 to 1960 model years as a successor to the popular 1955–1957 two-seater. In response to Ford-conducted surveys two major changes were made to attract potential buyers: two rear seats were added and the level of luxury and features of a full-sized car were incorporated into a mid-size platform. As a result, sales soared and the new model dramatically expanded the personal luxury car market, winning the Motor Trend Car of the Year in 1958. Sales totalled 198,191 over three model years, approximately four times that of the earlier two seat model. Along with the 1958 Lincolns, the 1958 Thunderbird was the first Ford Motor Company vehicle designed with unibody construction. Design Although the 1955-1957 Ford Thunderbird had proved successful (in comparison to the Chevrolet Corvette), Ford executives—particularly Robert McNamara—still felt its overall sales volume had room to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Streamliner
A streamliner is a vehicle incorporating wikt:streamline, streamlining in a shape providing reduced air resistance. The term is applied to high-speed railway trainsets of the 1930s to 1950s, and to their successor "High-speed rail, bullet trains". Less commonly, the term is applied to fully Bicycle fairing, faired upright and recumbent bicycles. As part of the Streamline Moderne trend, the term was applied to passenger cars, trucks, and other types of light-, medium-, or heavy-duty vehicles, but now vehicle streamlining is so prevalent that it is not an outstanding characteristic. In Land speed record, land speed racing, it is a term applied to the long, slender, custom built, high-speed vehicles with enclosed wheels. Trains Before World War II Europe The first high-speed streamliner in Germany was the "Schienenzeppelin", an experimental propeller driven single car, built in 1930. On 21 June 1931, the car set a speed record of on a run between Berlin and Hamburg. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
