Paxton Phoenix
The Paxton Phoenix was a rear-engine coupé prototype developed in 1953 by Robert P. McCulloch's Paxton Automotive of Los Angeles, California, a division of his chainsaw business. The car was styled by Brooks Stevens and featured a cable driven mechanical hardtop that retracted and covered the trunk. Engine options that were considered included an alternative fuel steam engine, based on earlier designs by Abner Doble, or a Two-stroke engine, two-stroke gasoline engine with a McCulloch/Paxton supercharger. The prototype was powered by a Porsche 356 engine for demonstration purposes. The Phoenix never went into production. The prototype was sold at the Paxton liquidation auction in Santa Monica, California in 1977. It remained in a private collection until mechanically restored in the early 1990s, retaining the factory paint, trim, and interior. It was then sold to the Brooks Stevens (museum) shortly before Stevens died. The Stevens family sold the car to a private collector in O ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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1953 Paxton Phoenix
Events January * January 6 – The Asian Socialist Conference opens in Rangoon, Burma. * January 12 – Estonian émigrés found a Estonian government-in-exile, government-in-exile in Oslo. * January 14 ** Marshal Josip Broz Tito is chosen President of Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia. ** The Central Intelligence Agency, CIA-sponsored Robertson Panel first meets to discuss the Unidentified flying object, UFO phenomenon. * January 15 – Georg Dertinger, foreign minister of East Germany, is arrested for spying. * January 19 – 71.1% of all television sets in the United States are tuned into ''I Love Lucy'', to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky, which is more people than those who tune into Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration the next day. This record has yet to be broken. * January 20 – Dwight D. Eisenhower is First inauguration of Dwight D. Eisenhower, sworn in as the 34th President of the United States. * January 24 ** Mau Mau Upr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Coupé
A coupe or coupé (, ) is a passenger car with a sloping or truncated rear roofline and two doors. The term ''coupé'' was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. It comes from the French past participle of ''couper'', "cut". __TOC__ Etymology and pronunciation () is based on the past participle of the French verb ("to cut") and thus indicates a car which has been "cut" or made shorter than standard. It was first applied to horse-drawn carriages for two passengers without rear-facing seats. These or ("clipped carriages") were eventually clipped to .. There are two common pronunciations in English: * () – the anglicized version of the French pronunciation of ''coupé''. * () – as a spelling pronunciation when the word is written without an accent. This is the usual pronunciation and spelling in the United States, with the pronunciation entering American vernacular no later than 1936 and featuring in the Beach Boys' hi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Robert P
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honour, praise, renown" and ''berht'' "bright, light, shining"). It is the second most frequently used given name of ancient Germanic origin. It is also in use Robert (surname), as a surname. Another commonly used form of the name is Rupert (name), Rupert. After becoming widely used in Continental Europe it entered England in its Old French form ''Robert'', where an Old English cognate form (''Hrēodbēorht'', ''Hrodberht'', ''Hrēodbēorð'', ''Hrœdbœrð'', ''Hrœdberð'', ''Hrōðberχtŕ'') had existed before the Norman Conquest. The feminine version is Roberta (given name), Roberta. The Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish form is Roberto (given name), Roberto. Robert is also a common name in many Germanic languages, including English ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Paxton Automotive
{{Third-party, date=March 2021 Paxton Automotive is a United States-based manufacturer of superchargers for automotive use. The company is the major proponent of the centrifugal type supercharger. Early products were offered under the McCulloch name. Some Paxton superchargers have been factory fitted, but most units sold have been aftermarket installed. Paxton products are possibly best known for their frequent use in performance-modified Ford Mustangs. Inventor Robert Paxton McCulloch began producing superchargers to his design in 1937 for the Ford Flathead V8, a popular engine for performance modification at the time. The company estimates that around 5,000 were built before World War II stopped production. Postwar, McCulloch developed a more sophisticated supercharger and began selling it in 1953. This was factory fitted to a number of vehicles at the time, including the Kaiser Manhattan, Packard Panther, Studebaker Golden Hawk, 1957 Packard Clipper and 1958 Packard Haw ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world's most populous megacities. Los Angeles is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Southern California. With a population of roughly 3.9 million residents within the city limits , Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic and cultural diversity, being the home of the Hollywood film industry, and its sprawling metropolitan area. The city of Los Angeles lies in a basin in Southern California adjacent to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extending through the Santa Monica Mountains and north into the San Fernando Valley, with the city bordering the San Gabriel Valley to it's east. It covers about , and is the county seat of Los Angeles County, which is the most populous county in the United States with an estim ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Brooks Stevens
Clifford Brooks Stevens (June 7, 1911 – January 4, 1995) was an American industrial designer of home furnishings, appliances, automobiles, and motorcycles, as well as a graphic designer and stylist. Stevens founded Brooks Stevens, Inc., headquartered in Allenton, Wisconsin. In 1944, along with Raymond Loewy and eight others, Stevens formed the Industrial Designers Society of America. Upon his death in 1995, ''The New York Times'' called Stevens "a major force in industrial design". Background and personal life Stevens was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 7, 1911. Stricken with polio as a child, he was encouraged by his father to practice drawing while confined to his bed, perhaps motivating his career in design. He studied architecture at Cornell University from 1929 to 1933, and established his own home-furnishings design firm in 1934 in Milwaukee. His son, Kipp Stevens, ran the Brooks Stevens Design Associates until late 2008, when he stepped down. In 1959, Stevens ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alternative Fuel
Alternative fuel, known as non-conventional and advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used as fuels, other than conventional fuels like; '' fossil fuels'' (petroleum (oil), coal, and natural gas), as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels that are made in nuclear reactors. Some well-known alternative fuels include bio-diesel, bio-alcohol ( methanol, ethanol, butane), refuse-derived fuel, chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossil methane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil, propane and other biomass sources. Background A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as heat energy or to be used for work. The main purpose of fuel is to store energy, which should be in a stable form and can be easily transported to the place of use. Almost all fuels are chemical fuels. The user employs this fuel to gener ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Abner Doble
Abner Doble (March 26, 1890 – July 16, 1961) was an American mechanical engineer who built and sold steam-powered automobiles as Doble Steam Cars. His steam engine design was used in various automobiles from the early 1900s, including a 1969 General Motors prototype and the first successful steam-powered aeroplane. Family history Doble was born on March 26, 1890, in San Francisco, one of four brothers. His father was William Ashton Doble, son of the inventor of the Doble water wheel. Doble's forebears had migrated from England to the US in the mid-1700s. William's father Abner was born in Indiana. He had been a sailor, a smith, and a lumberman, who became a journeyman blacksmith and subsequently became partner in Nelson and Doble. The company became one of the biggest manufacturers of miner's and blacksmith's tools on the US Pacific coast during the California Gold Rush. The company became famous manufacturing Abner Doble's water wheel turbines for mining applications. Th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Two-stroke Engine
A two-stroke (or two-stroke cycle) engine is a type of internal combustion engine that completes a power cycle with two strokes (up and down movements) of the piston during one power cycle, this power cycle being completed in one revolution of the crankshaft. A four-stroke engine requires four strokes of the piston to complete a power cycle during two crankshaft revolutions. In a two-stroke engine, the end of the combustion stroke and the beginning of the compression stroke happen simultaneously, with the intake and exhaust (or scavenging) functions occurring at the same time. Two-stroke engines often have a high power-to-weight ratio, power being available in a narrow range of rotational speeds called the power band. Two-stroke engines have fewer moving parts than four-stroke engines. History The first commercial two-stroke engine involving cylinder compression is attributed to Scottish engineer Dugald Clerk, who patented his design in 1881. However, unlike most later two-s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Porsche 356
The Porsche 356 is a sports car that was first produced by Austrian company Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH (1948–1949), and then by German company Dr. Ing. h. c. F. Porsche GmbH (1950–1965). It was Porsche's first production automobile. Earlier cars designed by the Austrian company include Cisitalia Grand Prix race car, the Volkswagen Beetle, and Auto Union Grand Prix cars. The 356 is a lightweight and nimble-handling, rear-engine, rear-wheel drive, two-door available both in hardtop coupé and open configurations. Engineering innovations continued during the years of manufacture, contributing to its motorsports success and popularity. Production started in 1948 at Gmünd, Austria, where Porsche built approximately 50 cars. In 1950 the factory relocated to Zuffenhausen, Germany, and general production of the 356 continued until April 1965, well after the replacement model 911 made its September 1964 debut. Of the 76,000 originally produced, approximately half survive. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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One-off Cars
In the field of vehicles authorized to drive, a one-off vehicle is a vehicle that was manufactured only once. The production of unique vehicles is reduced to one unit in each case. The easiest cases to analyze are those of cars and motorcycles. Unique automobiles and unique motorcycles are usually kept and displayed in museums. Aeronautical vehicles, with notable exceptions, are not preserved in the same way (due to accidents and disappearances). Naval vehicles feature a myriad of unique models. A non-exclusive base of examples could be the field of sailing and motor yachts. Some cases of non-legalized vehicles may be included in this article if they have particularly noticeable characteristics (engine, chassis, body, etc..). Origin of one-off A one-off is something made or occurring only once, independent of any pattern. First used in 1934, this term is employed to differentiate singular items from those in a series: e.g. "the Lincoln Futura was a one-off". It has been suggested ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cars Of The United States
A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as the birth year of the car, when German inventor Carl Benz patented his Benz Patent-Motorwagen. Cars became widely available during the 20th century. One of the first cars affordable by the masses was the 1908 Model T, an American car manufactured by the Ford Motor Company. Cars were rapidly adopted in the US, where they replaced animal-drawn carriages and carts. In Europe and other parts of the world, demand for automobiles did not increase until after World War II. The car is considered an essential part of the developed economy. Cars have controls for driving, parking, passenger comfort, and a variety of lights. Over the decades, additional features and controls have been added to vehicles, making them progressively more complex. These i ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |