The Bad Blonde | Automotive History

Today we are going to be talking about the man to built the first slingshot dragster, the first American to go over 400mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, and a man who was murdered in cold blood in his driveway.. Famed motorsports promoter Mickey Thompson.

Today we discuss one of the world’s leading manufacturers that all started with experimental rubber bouncy balls in a tiny workshop. A company that changed the world of tires repeatedly. Today we discuss the fascinating history of Michelin Tires.

LIVE radio show recorded in South Texas with guest Porter Felton of Function Drives Form & Board Member of the National Automobile Museum.

What does the 24 hour of Le Mans, drug smuggling, and Texas have in common? The Whittington brothers. Today we tell the wild tale of the Don and Bill Whittington and how they went from humble Lubbock, Texas to the highest echelons of racing and funded it all by drug smuggling.

Today we discuss one of the wildest car races ever in the history of motorsport, a race that lasted 5 months and had half the cars drop out, a race that traversed Siberia, today we discuss the nearly impossible 1908 New York to Paris Race.Let’s paint a little picture of the times, in 1908 the automobile is still an oddity. They were loud, temperamental and unreliable. The horseless carriage was still just a play thing for wealthy eccentrics.It was a two newspapers, Le Matin in Paris and the New York Times, that came up with the wild idea of an automobile race to span from New York all the way to Paris.The whole idea behind this wild feat was to prove what the automobile could do. Cars of the day were more like tractors than modern vehicles we know today. They were chain-driven, hand-cranked, snapping axles, and blowing gaskets.Drivers were to maneuver from New York, across the United States, then cross the frozen Bering Strait into Siberia, in which no one had ever traversed by car at this time, then cross through Russia into Europe, and THEN finish in Paris. If you are thinking that sounds tricky, you are right. The drivers would encounter obstacles and also the discovery that the Bering Strait doesn’t exactly freeze over enough to drive over.Plus, I want you to think about doing all this WITHOUT ROADS! Asphalt wasn’t even invented till two years after this race. Many spectators didn’t even think the cars would get out of New Jersey let alone get through Siberia!

LIVE @ Coastal A's & Rod's Car Show | Bad Blonde Automotive History

Today we discuss a car company that could have been the 1960s F1 rival to Ferrari, a car company that should have stolen the grand touring seat from the prancing pony, a car company that helped pioneer mid-engine placement in grand touring cars, and car company that couldn’t quite get it together. Today we discuss Automobili Turismo e Sport aka ATS.To understand ATS, you have to start in Maranello in 1961 with the famous “Palace Revolt.”Alright it is the ’60s, Ferrari is successful but chaotic. Enzo Ferrari is running the place like a personal kingdom and he and his are fighting like there is no tomorrow.Ferrari staff tensions are boiling over when several senior staff clash with Enzo and, most importantly, with his wife Laura, who was increasingly involved in business matters. The result was a mass walkout (and a few firings for good measure) of some of Ferrari’s brightest technical minds, including chief engineer Carlo Chiti and development engineer Giotto Bizzarrini, one of the brains behind the 250 GTO.These “Ferrari runaways” were angry, ambitious, and very aware that Enzo’s dominance in both racing and road cars wasn’t inevitable. So they went to wealthy industrialists such as Giorgio Billi and Bolivian mining heir Jaime Ortiz-Patiño, and with a few other rich backers they decided to create a rival of Enzo Ferrari.And that was the dramatic start to Automobili Turismo e Sport aka ATS. TheATS was founded in 1962 in the Bologna area and their goal was simple. BEAT FERRARI.

Today we discuss the close competition between steam, electric, and combustion, during the birth of the automobile and The Battle to Build the First CarIn the middle of the 19th century, the world ran on steam. Giant iron locomotives thundered across continents, steamships across wide oceans, and in the cities, the hiss of boilers and the clang of pistons were the soundtrack of progress. The future, it seemed, would always be built upon water and fire.But beneath the soot and steam, a few restless inventors began to wonder: could motion be made smaller? Could power belong not to railways or ships — but to people? The idea was radical — a carriage that moved without horses, a machine that could carry a man down any road, under his own command.It was an era before gasoline had even found its purpose. As we mentioned a few shows ago, Chemists still treated it as a junk by-product of kerosene lamps — often burned off as waste.

Today we discuss some of the most rakish daredevils in racing history, a group that charged their own era in Le Mans racing, some British privateers that not only grabbed headlines but also trophies. Today we discuss the Bentley Boys, their antics and their victories.Between 1923 and 1931, a loose fraternity of British gentlemen drivers—the “Bentley Boys”—won Le Mans five times and stamped a rakish, champagne-and-castor-oil identity onto motor racing. Their success flowed from a simple formula: W.O. Bentley’s mechanically conservative but brutally durable cars, coupled with drivers who could push them at an unflinching pace for a full day and night.

Today we discuss the birth and history of something that literally makes the world go round. A volatile fraction that was considered a waste product in the mid 1800s. A thing that has caused crisis and war. Today we discuss the birth of gasoline.To start we need to go way back in time to when we were using kerosene lamps. You see kerosene was what they were after when Edwin Drake dug the first crude oil well in Titusville Pennsylvania in 1859. You see he distilled the oil to produce the kerosene.A handful of other petroleum products, including what we would come to know as gasoline, was produced in the process and they had NO use for gasoline. They literally burned it off or discarded it.So you see, gasoline wasn’t technically invented it was just what you would call a volatile fraction obtained by distilling crude oil.

Henry "Smokey" Yunick was an influential American mechanic, engine builder, and car designer renowned for his ingenuity and controversial rule-bending in the world of auto racing. A legendary figure, he was known for his "Best Damn Garage in Town" in Daytona Beach, Florida, and is often credited with shaping the early years of NASCAR.

The "Collier brothers" of the Revs Institute are Miles C. Collier, the institute's founder, and his father and uncle, C. Miles and Sam Collier. They were members of a prominent family of racers and automotive enthusiasts who were instrumental in the formation of American sports-car racing.

Buick was founded in 1903 by David Dunbar Buick and became a key component in the founding of General Motors by Billy Durant in 1908, known for early innovations like the overhead valve engine and popularizing the luxury car market, especially as the highest-selling GM brand for a period after Chevrolet's entry into GM. The company's tri-shield emblem, adopted in 1960, is still in use today, symbolizing the brand's enduring legacy of quality, performance, and elegance, which continues to define Buick as a premier luxury marque within GM.

Walter P. Chrysler was a railroad machinist who became one of America's most influential automotive pioneers, founding the Chrysler Corporation and building it into a major player in the "Big Three" of US automakers. His career was defined by mechanical talent, a knack for production efficiency, and an ambitious drive that led him to turn around ailing companies and challenge his industry's biggest players.

HISTORY OF RACE DRIVER & FLYGIN ACE EDDIE RICKENBACKER | BAD BLONDE AUTOMOTIVE HISTORY

Today we discuss a high school drop out that would become one of racing’s most influential pioneers, a man who’s cars won the Indianapolis 500 ten times, a man who’s engines dominated oval-track racing for almost half a century, today we talk about race and engineering pioneer Harry Miller.

A car considered one of the most notorious failures in automotive history, car who’s styling has lost more battles than it won, a car that Ford gave up on within 2 years, the Edsel.It is 1955 and ford has begun research and development for an all new line code named the “E Car”. Which stood for experimental car and would become the Edsel.

A car that became the symbol of speed, style, and rebellion for the baby boom era, a car exploded onto the scene at the 1964 New York fair, a record breaking sales for Ford Motor CompanyIt’s the early 1960s, the American auto industry is booming, but it was also predictable. Big, heavy sedans dominated the highways, and car companies fought mostly on size and horsepower. But you see the mood of the country was shifting. The postwar baby boom generation—millions of teenagers and young adults—were coming of age. They didn’t want their parents’ cars. They wanted something exciting, affordable, good on gas, and stylish that reflected their own independence.

Today we discuss a creator of one of most beautiful cars of the 1930s, an early America luxury carmaker, one of E.L. Cord’s trifecta of manufacturers, and a car company was taken down by the great depression.

Join us for our yearly radio show with the Corpus Christi Car Show judges!