Popular Mechanics and Popular Science had their auto writers, too, so it is easy to get them confused. Uncle Tom is the only one I can keep straight. PS and PM had such old timers as Floyd Clymer, Wilbur Shaw, Devon Francis, Arthur Railton, Art Whipple, etc. Not sure off the top of my head which one was with which magazine, though, (I think I got Whipple's name wrong, too. - No time to check it all right now) Tom McCahill was married four times and had no children of his own. His stepson, Brooks Bender, was the son of his fourth wife, Jeannie. So you will need to check on the "Bender" family. Bill Vancouver, BC ----- Original Message ----- From: John To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 4:26 AM Subject: Re: [FWDLK] Forward look resale...+Tom McCahill Thanks for the corrections, Bill. My Dad always had subscriptions to P.M. & M.I. magazines, and I'd always get 'em mixed up. There are a few McCahills listed in the telephone directory in the surrounding area of his former Daytona Beach, Florida home - I wonder if any of them are his stepson? He might have a couple of interesting stories, eh? John Spiers Bill Watson <wwatson6@xxxxxxx> wrote: Actually "Uncle Tom" wrote for Mechanix Illustrated magazine. MI never announced his death, instead keeping on his stepson for a few years to ghostwrite car tests, etc. (One of the very few times that word really meant it!) He wrote his first road tests in 1946, Ford and Buick, and the response was so great MI hired him. He took the magazine to great heights as far as circulation went, but after his death it was all down hill. MI changed its name but that did nothing to prevent the demise of the magazine. Uncle Tom was a great fan of Chrysler products, especially after the adoption of torsion bars, and owned a few Imperials over the years. He loved them for their handling abilities, which during the late 1950's and early 1960's put GM and Ford to shame, and felt they were great cars on the highway for long trips. He did the 1958 auto comparison for Chrysler, which I believe was the only time he actually did promo work for Chrysler. By 1970 he was not so enamoured with Chrysler and felt their cars had become mainstream.. Bill Vancouver, BC ----- Original Message ----- From: John To: L-FORWARDLOOK@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Friday, September 28, 2007 7:38 AM Subject: Re: [FWDLK] Forward look resale...+Tom McCahill As a six-year-old in 1968, I can recall the elderly Mr. & Mrs. Wyncoop who lived next door and their battleship-gray four-door 1959 Plymouth Savoy. It looked really old-fashioned to me then, but that's why I would always peek into it when I got the chance. They weren't too concerned about a newer car - they still had it when we moved away in 1972. I recall that it was in darn good condition, surprising since it was in upstate NY all its life. By 1972, It probably wasn't worth $100 even in the shape it was in. In 1978, I bought my first car, a '63 Chrysler Newport four-door sedan. With 39,000 original miles, it was a whopping $650, a lot of money for an ordinary old car - I can recall seeing an average of a half-dozen clunkers for sale every day in the paper for $50 or less. My Dad also drove the Chrysler thru the winter to save wear & tear on his car. Between the two of us, we added 101,000 miles to the odometer in 5 years, which included a lot of 120 MPH runs and towing other old cars home, including a '64 300K hardtop, a '74 Datsun 260Z and a 1962 Morgan +4. One alternator, front brake shoes, brake hoses, and replacing the differential were the only mechanical repairs it ever needed, and the drivers' floor needed a patch due to rust. The pushbutton Torqueflite worked perfectly, and we never changed the fluid. It was sold for $500 with 140,000 miles, and I recall seeing it going down the road a few years later. I can imagine the Forwardlook cars would have given the same service, maybe with a bit more rust. If you haven't seen this video on You Tube with Tom McCahill, you ought to. Tom was the automotive writer for Popular Mechanics magazine for years. was seriously biased towards Chrysler products. It has been said that he was likely on their payroll. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBNWBHYp41w and there's a part 2 also. Tom compares a few 1958 models, but who knows at this point if some the drama was rigged. John Spiers Lake Worth, Florida "Garland, Andy" wrote: My Mom's first car was a 1957 Plymouth, which she bought in 1965. She paid a whopping 50 bucks for it. At the time she said she hated it because it was too big. She doesn't remember much about it, except that it was gray, and at some point while she had it, someone slammed a door too hard and it shattered a window. She doesn't remember the engine, body style, or trim level though. Oddly, within a year she bought a brand-new '66 Pontiac Catalina convertible, a car that's actually considerably bigger than a '57 Plymouth. Still, maybe it didn't "feel" as big. I think sometimes, the things that are the trendiest at one moment in time, become the very things that we deride a few years later, once a new style comes along. A '57 Plymouth, in my opinion, is light-years ahead, style-wise, from a '57 Chevy or Ford. However, a '57 Chevy, which was actually pretty outdated looking when it was new (after all, it was a 3rd year facelift going against an all new Ford and Plymouth), may have seemed to wear better in the eyes of the public. I'd imagine that something like a '57 Plymouth, with those soaring tailfins, might have been seen as an embarrassment by the mid 60's, especially to a teen driver. Also, being a "big" car, it might have been viewed as something your parents drove, whereas a '57 Chevy is more midsized, by 60's standards. When I was in college in the late 80's, I worked at a Denny's restaurant. The store manager was telling me about some of the cars he had when he was a teen. The first was a 1957 DeSoto Fireflite 4-door hardtop that he paid $500 for, in 1965. He said it handled great and was a strong enough performer that it would embarrass many "cool" cars in a drag race. But it just had that loser image, partly from being a big 4-door and partly from being an orphan. So he sold it and got a '57 Chevy convertible, also $500. The DeSoto would blow its doors off, but the Chevy was just a "cooler" car. Just out of curiosity, how have big Fords from the '55-62 era held up over the years? It seems like just about every '55-57 Chevy known to man survived, and the '58, '59 and later models had a good survival rate, but I've noticed that Fords seem as rare as Plymouths. Especially the '57. I've heard the '57 Ford described as all the quality of a Plymouth, but none of the style. And while Plymouths were horrible rusters, I've heard that Fords were all that and more. In addition to the rust, you had a flexi-flyer body. Supposedly if the road was rough enough, the doors could pop open on hardtop models. They stamped creases in the roof for '58, and did other band-aid fixes to make it sturdier. Plus, I've heard the engines and transmissions on the Fords weren't as sturdy as the Plymouth. Andy Garland 1957 DeSoto Firedome hardtop coupe ************************************************************* To unsubscribe or set your subscription options, please go to http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=l-forwardlook&A=1 Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. 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