Wes Scott’s Speed Wagon

The following is from the Autumn 2015 issue of Air Cooled News (An Official Publication of The Franklin Club)

In 1933, The Reo Automobile Company shipped 800 leftover 1933 Reo “Flying Clouds” to the Franklin Automobile Company. Franklin engines were installed and they were sold as 1933 Franklin “Olympics.”

In 1934 Reo still had unsold “Flying Clouds” so they decided to cut them off behind the front door and build pickup trucks. It is possible that at least one of these pickup trucks was shipped to Franklin where an air cooled 1934 Franklin engine was installed and it was sold as a 1934 Franklin “Speed Wagon.” If that did happen, the truck cold have looked exactly like this one.

In 2012, Wes Scott traded a Model A truck for the remains of a 1933 Franklin “Olympic.” This would provide the chassis for the Franklin “Speed Wagon.” In 2013 Wes’ son Donald found a 1934 Reo Speed Wagon in Shaniko, Oregon. This would provide the cab.

The bed for the “Speed Wagon” came from a Reo pickup in West Plains, Missouri. Richard Harry of Wisconsin provided an extra set of fenders so pickup rear fenders could be made from two sets of sedan fenders.

Another Franklin Club member, Ed Joy of Idaho provided a nice green hood that matched what was left of the original paint on the cab. The goal was to make all the pieces look like they came on the truck originally and to build a truck that could be used and enjoyed. At the Fall Midwest Region Meet in Clinton, MO the comments ranged from “When are you going to paint it?” to “Don’t touch it we like it.”

Wes is going with “Don’t touch it.”

Wes’ garage/shop/farm is just about 20 minutes from where I live and some car buddies drove me down and introduced me. Wes was kind enough to let me record a little video (5 min) of his amazing collection of Franklins and Model A Fords.

This brief video barely scratched the surface (you should forgive the expression) of Wes’s amazing collection. I hope to have another opportunity share some more.

Additional photos on Flickr »

Saturday Night at the Movies

While endlessly scrolling through the hundreds (thousands?) of movie titles in Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, HBO Max, and all the other streaming services, I flashed back to my youth (‘50s and ‘60s) when watching a movie on TV was a rare treat. Following from Wikipedia:

NBC Saturday Night at the Movies was the first TV show to broadcast relatively recent feature films from major studios. The series premiered on September 23, 1961, and ran until October 1978, spawning many imitators. Previously, television stations had been only been able to show older, low-budget, black-and-white films that wouldn’t be shown at movie theaters. In the late 1970s, competition from cable television and home video led to a decline in viewership.

It’s difficult to convey what a treat it was to watch a feature-length movie on network TV. The “late show” usually came on right after the ten o’clock news and ran into the wee hours with lots of commercials. We could never have imagined watching almost any film ever produced. Never mind on-demand streaming to a hand-held device.

YouTube isn’t just a platform. It’s infrastructure.

The excerpts below are from an article adapted from a blog post by Ryan McGrady. Ryan McGrady is a senior researcher with the Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and a researcher with Media Cloud and the Media Ecosystems Analysis Group.

There are 14 billion videos on YouTube. More than one and a half videos for every person on the planet and that’s counting those that are publicly visible.

According to McGrady, YouTube started (February 2005) as a video platform, “but it has since become the backbone of one of the 21st century’s core forms of communication.”

Videos with 10,000 or more views account for nearly 94 percent of the site’s traffic overall but less than 4 percent of total uploads. Just under 5 percent of videos have no views at all, nearly three-quarters have no comments, and even more have no likes.

I uploaded my first video to YouTube on February 12, 2006 and more than 560 videos since. Those videos have been viewed 1,171,459 times for a total watch time of 19,171 hours. Amazingly, (to me) my channel has accounted for 3,376 views in the last 28 days. From day one I have had no interest in comments or likes and I never considered trying to monetize my videos. I always saw it as a place to park my videos so I could include them in a blog post.

I cannot argue with McGrady’s view that “YouTube is now less an opportunity than a requirement—something you have to use, because basic elements of society have organized around it.” 

Public-access Television

“From about 1920 to 1945, radio developed into the first electronic mass medium, monopolizing “the airwaves” and defining, along with newspapers, magazines, and motion pictures, an entire generation of mass culture. About 1945 the appearance of television began to transform radio’s content and role.” (Britannica.com)

Someone would be considered special (cool?) if they even knew someone who had been “on television.” Today anyone with a mobile device can share video (live or recorded) with the world. Everyone is “on TV” or in a “movie.” But back around 1970 we had something called Public-access Television.

“Public-access television (sometimes called community-access television) is traditionally a form of non-commercial mass media where the general public can create content television programming which is narrowcast through cable television specialty channels.” (Wikipedia)

Not long after cable TV came to the little town where I grew up, a local church invested in some recording equipment and began producing local programming.

I was a “radio announcer” (that was the job title back then) so I made a few –very embarrassingappearances on Time for Talk.

Joshua Smith miniatures

“Working at 1:20 scale, artist Joshua Smith builds in-depth works that capture the layered existences of urban environments in cities such as Hong Kong, Sydney, and Los Angeles. His miniature buildings showcase the details and detritus left by the diverse population of each city, bringing in elements of the city’s workers, inhabitants, and street artists.” (more»)


History Report

From a brilliant essay in The New Yorker by Simon Rich:

“They met in College, which is a place people used to go to after high school to drink alcohol. […] Instead of matching with someone through a dating app and sending a series of nude photos to each other before eventually meeting up for sex, you would meet them in person, before doing anything else. This meant that when my Great-Grandparents went out for the first time, they had no idea what each other looked like naked.”

A note about the link above. Many (most) of my favorite magazines –New York Magazine, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker– are behind paywalls. So I finally gave in and subscribed to Apple News which gives me access to 300 publications for $13 a month. If you are a subscriber the link above will take you to the essay. If not? There’s no free ride. Sorry.

Talking books with ChatGPT

I prompted ChatGPT to make a list of the ten best crime fiction writers of the last fifteen years. She (I opted for the female voice called ‘Sky’) left off a few of my favorites and we discussed them. At the 5:38 mark of this 6 minute chat, she makes reference to my interest in classic vehicles, communications and blogging. Topics which came up in earlier conversations. I still have goose bumps.