SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.
The only thing better than a Hellcat is a Demon. The only thing better than a Demon is a Hellcat engine with 1,100 horsepower. The only thing better than that is when the engine is stuffed into an AMC Javelin AMX.
This 1972 AMC Javelin AMX, created by the Ringbrothers in conjunction with Prestone, was clearly created in an ultimate pursuit of perfection.
The 6.2-liter, 707-horsepower V8 out of the Dodge Challenger Hellcat has been dumped into the engine bay, but Jim and Mike, AKA the Brothers Ring, have swapped out the stock supercharger for a 4.5-liter Whipple unit
And despite the source car being a traditional muscle car, the Wisconsin-based Ring Brothers didn’t stop at the engine. Much of the body is carbon fiber. The suspension is a custom setup. Those sweet, sweet side exhausts are new. And those spiffy Baer brakes should be enough to haul your shiny golden missile down from simply unconscionable speeds.
Posted onNovember 7, 2017byJames|Comments Off on Centaur-ific: The Centaur Excavations at Volos
September 29, 2017 — I was surrounded by hordes of 19-year-olds dressed in bright orange and white. Their youth was brazen with their tan legs and fresh faces, and they spoke in accents that placed them far below the Mason-Dixon. I stroked the scraggily beard on my pale, craggy face, feeling my age, and hunkered deeper into my dark cardigan. I just wanted to find a centaur skeleton.
I was braving the sunny campus of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, slipping through alleys and over walking bridges trying to find the shortest distance between my parking garage and the John C. Hodges Library. Because it had a centaur skeleton. Did I mention that?
The very first Ford Mustang, the 1964 model, cost $2,320 and produced 210 horsepower, while coming in at 2,556 pounds. The 2018 Mustang GT produces 460 hp, weighs 3,705 pounds and costs $35,095. There have been a lot of Mustangs in between.
Posted onOctober 31, 2017byJames|Comments Off on Cruise Ship playing Seven Nation Army!
The 964-foot-long MSC Magnifica isn’t just a luxurious, $550 million cruise ship. It’s the world’s first 4,500 passenger musical instrument, and it rocked a slow, loooouuud rendition of The White Stripes’ “Seven Nation Army”.
This truck. Just look at it. Read its name, chew on it: the Ford F-150 RTR Muscle Truck Concept. Look at all its black trim. My God. I think I need chest hair just to steer it.
This Muscle Truck has a 5.0-liter V8 (five-oh!), pushing out 600 horsepower. It has RTR long-travel coilover suspension and 33-inch tires!
Johnny Bohmer has been breaking records in his 2,700 horsepower BADD GT for a while now, first taking it to 250 mph before going up to 275 mph and, then, 283.232 mph, which still stands as the Guinness World Record. On Friday, Bohmer beat that, going 292 mph at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, though coming back down to zero turned out to be the hardest part.
Bohmer’s original plan was to try and top 300 mph, but he lost some boost pressure once he got into 6th gear, so he had to settle for 292. More harrowing was stopping since, as you can see in the video below, his parachute ripped into two pieces as it deployed.
What happened next? A hard brake, which Bohmer told me, put cracks into the rear rotors.
“When I stopped I thought the car was on fire,” he said. The car was not on fire. But the wheels were very, very hot, and Bohmer said he was just happy he was on a long enough track, or things really could have gone south.
While 292 mph is faster than 283.232, Bohmer did not break the Guinness World Record for a street-legal car because the Guinness people weren’t on hand to certify it. He says they’re pretty serious, too, requiring the car to have air-conditioning that can cool to 60 degrees and the ability to drive for 15 minutes prior to the record attempt, in addition to the normal things, like valid license plates, insurance, and so on, all of which the BADD GT complies with.
In 1886, the ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticket tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.
In 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or Black Tuesday, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
In 1960, in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.
In 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.
In 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.
Posted onOctober 25, 2017byJames|Comments Off on Anniversary of the sinking of the USS Johnston
USS Johnston (DD-557) was a World War II-era Fletcher-class destroyer in the service of the United States Navy. She was the first Navy ship named after Lieutenant John V. Johnston. The ship was most famous for its bold action in the Battle off Samar. The small “tincan” destroyer armed with nothing larger than 5 inch (127mm) guns and torpedoes would lead the attack of a handful of light ships which had inadvertently been left unprotected in the path of a massive Japanese fleet led by battleships and cruisers. The sacrifices of Johnston and her little escort carrier task unit “Taffy 3” helped stop Admiral Kurita’s powerful Center Force from attacking vulnerable U.S. landing forces, and inflicted greater losses than they suffered.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.
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