best caption I've read in a long time, "She's a good girl, crazy 'bout Elvis"

Ann Margaret, if you aren't familiar with who she is, once a long time ago, she dated Elvis, had a Vegas act, and more recently, was the love interest in the movie "Grumpy Old Men" with Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon.. Trivia, she had a billboard top ten song at age 20, it reached #4, she was discovered by George Burns, starred with Elvis at age 23, invented the phrase "Sex Kitten" and was nominated for an Oscar at age 30 after starring opposite Jack Nicholson, Steve McQueen, and got her 2nd Oscar nom after starring with John Wayne and Anthony Hopkins, and was in the Who's rock opera "Tommy" and toured with the USO through Vietnam. Hellava career.

who is Tura Santana?

found on http://tiberiusloft.tumblr.com/

Tura was the daughter of a Japanese dad, and Cheyanne Scot-Irish mom. Had puberty at 8, and was a target of male hormones the rest of her life, silent film star Harold Lloyd didn't know she was only 13 when he was photographing her nude, and told her she was a natural beauty that would make it in Hollywood films.

 This image is from the movie "Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill" and she also was in a variety of TV and movies, more famous of them The Man From UNCLE, and Irma LaDuce (Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine)

Buffalo Bill drove a White steamer in 1908

Buffalo Bill, (1846-1917) one of the few legends of the wild west to have a lot of photos taken of him.

Among other incredible life achievements, he was a Pony Express rider, recieved the Congreessional Medal Of Honor while in the Army as a scout, and got the nickname Buffalo for killing more than his competition when the govt wanted buffalo meet to feed the Army and the Kansas Pacific Railroad
Read more about him at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Bill

Amazing life story, Robert Fulton Jr (from Steampunkvehicles.tumblr, source of lots of incredible good stuff)

Born in Manhattan, New York on April 15, 1909 and named for Thomas Edison, who was a friend of his father, Robert Fulton, Sr.

His father was also a president of Mack Trucks. His maternal grandfather, Ezra Johnson Travis, ran stagecoach lines across the old west after the Civil War and his uncle, Elgin Travis, who took them over from his father, eventually converted the stagecoach routes into bus lines, which became Greyhound Bus Line.

As a teenager he was in the elite when he traveled by commercial aircraft from Miami, Florida, to Havana, Cuba, in 1921. And then to Egypt when Tutankhamun’s tomb was opened in 1923.

Then, at age 23, he traveled 25,000 miles (from London to Tokyo through 32 countries in 18 months) on a twin-cylinder Douglas motorcycle, to study architecture around the world. His customized bike contained an extra large fuel tank, a secret hiding place for his .32-caliber Smith & Wesson revolver and enough room to carry his motion picture camera and 40,000 feet of film.

Upon his return he detailed his adventures in a book, One Man Caravan, In 1983 he produced, edited, and released, with his filmmaking sons, a 90 minute film compiled from his home movies, The One Man Caravan of Robert E. Fulton, Jr. An Autofilmography

Following the outbreak of World War II, Fulton taught himself to fly then designed the Gunairstructor, a aerial combat gunnery training simulator that was used to train Navy pilots which increased the kill ratio for ww2 US pilots by a huge factor

In 1946, he invented the flying car. Known as the Airphibian, the vehicle flew over 100,000 miles and received an endorsement from Charles Lindbergh

Fulton then developed the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system, also called the Skyhook for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United States Navy, and the United States Air Force. It was a system that was used to pick up people from the ground with an aircraft

Her also owned and flew a P51d Mustang that the govt had sold as surplus for $755, he would fly his P51 from one Air Force base to another as he had clearance resulting from his top secret invention work

In the mid 1970's he was a film teacher at the Chicago Art Institute

http://steampunkvehicles.tumblr.com/post/7896756928/this-is-robert-edison-fulton-jr-from-the-wiki started me looking into this and a lot more info was pulled from the comments at http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/000970.html and looking for the movie I found http://manions.blogspot.com/2009/01/dvd-review-robert-fulton-one-man.html 

http://www.searchlightfilms.com/projects/ lists these films

ONE MAN CARAVAN, 3 part series, 30 minutes each. The life, travels and inventions of my father, Robert E. Fulton, Jr., who in 1932 rode a Douglas motorcycle around the world, then invented the Gunairstructor (the first-ever fighter pilot fixed aerial gunnery trainer), the Airphibian (the first flying car ever approved as airworthy by the FAA, now in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum) and Skyhook (an air-rescue system to pick up a man with an airplane in flight). Independently produced with Antenne 2, France. Broadcast in France and French territories worldwide. Also available in english. Director, Cinematographer, Editor.

TWICE UPON A CARAVAN, 53 minutes. 1932-33 solo around-the-world motorcycle trip filmed by my father, Robert E. Fulton, Jr. Original 35mm footage taken by him at age 23 has been edited with his reflections about the trip from his perspective as an older man. A rare look at countries, landscapes, monuments and civilizations that no longer exist. It is primary source material for anthropological, cultural and history studies. Music by Steven Schoenberg. Distributed by Whitehorse Press. Winner: Telluride Indie Festival. Producer, Editor.

There is nothing in Netflix. The book is available on Amazon http://www.amazon.com/One-Caravan-Incredible-Journeys-Books/dp/1884313051 or http://www.whitehorsegear.com/one-man-caravan 

But the only way I can find the DVD of Twice Upon A Caravan is http://www.whitehorsegear.com/twice-upon-a-caravan-dvd and for the one hour movie, they want 30 dollars. Anyone want to resell their copy at a "Used" price? I don't want to see a one hour movie at 3 hours income price.

Ed Winfield, the father of hot rodding and inventor of the 3/4 race cam, is being inducted in the Motorsports Hall Of Fame

image from http://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2011/06/17/a-hobbs-ian-choice-david-hobbs-to-host-motorsports-hall-of-fame-induction-ceremony/

above photo from http://theoldmotor.com/

According to the recollections of Harvey Crane Jr., Winfield began experimenting with his own camshaft designs in 1919, when he built his first camshaft grinder. Soon after, his mother gave him the money to purchase a used grinding machine that he then converted into a camshaft grinder and set up in his mother's garage to regrind Model T camshafts.
"Ed told me he first made only two masters, a semi race grind and a full race grind," Crane wrote. "He later made a third master that was more duration and lift than the semi but less than the full. He then used the full race master as an intake and the new master as an exhaust. He called this new reground camshaft a three-quarter race cam. Ed said, 'It was three-quarters of the way to a full race cam.' "
Winfield found his largest degree of success in carburetor designs for the aftermarket. Thus, the Winfield Carburetor Company formed in 1924 to build, market and sell the carburetor designs, and Winfield carburetors soon dominated Indianapolis 500 racing. Pete DePaolo's Duesenberg won the race in 1925 using two of the carburetors, and by 1930, all but one entry in the race used a Winfield carburetor.
About this time, Winfield built another Model T with a revolutionary 180-degree crankshaft, which made the best use of the two siamesed intake ports of the Model T engine. Winfield called it the two-up, two-down engine, increased its compression ratio to 6:1, fitted it with a roller camshaft and proceeded to dominate the Southern California dirt track and dry lake racing scenes.
That is, until he retired from racing in 1927 and became a recluse.

Winfield continued to experiment with fuel systems and engines, developing what's widely regarded as the first harmonic balancer, new carburetor designs, a continuous-flow fuel injection unit in 1934, along with overhead-valve heads and high-compression heads for Model T four-cylinders. He also continued to grind camshafts, mostly for race engines, until not long before he died in 1982.

information from, and read about his life and accomplishments at http://www.hemmings.com/mus/stories/2008/02/01/hmn_feature17.html

Betty Skelton, Duntov's test driver

found on http://corvettebrasil.blogspot.com/2011/04/test-driver-de-zora-arkus-duntov.html

But as Paul Harvey told us, you haven't heard the rest of the story!

Betty was fascinated with flying since childhood, and strove with incredible focus to be a pilot since age 12, getting her Civilian Air Authority private pilots license at age 16. In the next two years she was certified single and multi engine, land and sea, and at 18 got her Commercial Pilots License and in the next year was an instructor and the year after that, at age 20 was a major in the Civil Air Patrol and began her professional acrobatic career, also as a test pilot, and flew blimps, gliders, jets, and helicopters.

In '48, 49 and '50 she was the US Female aerobatic champion, and retired because there was no longer any challenge and she was exhausted from the constant touring, her plane "Li'l Stinker" is now part of the Smithsonian.

She set the high altitude record in 1950, and the speed record in a racing p51 Mustang.

In 1953 she was flying people around, and met Bill France who was having some racers flown to Daytona Beach, they became friends, and she drove a pace car in Feb 1954, then climbed into a Dodge and set the stock car speed record, which must not have been hard, she is likely the only woman at that time to drive one, and AAA certified her the first race drivers license for a woman

The National Aviation Hall of Fame reports that "Betty earned a total of four Feminine World Land Speed Records and set a transcontinental speed record."She competed in races across the Andes mountains in South America and drove the length of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico. Betty set records at the Chelsea Proving Grounds and was the first woman to drive a jet car over 300 mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats. She also set three women’s land speed records at the Daytona Beach Road Course, the last one being 156.99 mph in 1956. That same year, she broke Cannonball Baker's 40-year record for the Transcontinental Auto Race from New York to Los Angeles.

In 1956, she became an advertising executive with Campbell-Ewald and worked with General Motors on and in their TV and print ads. She was GM's first woman technical narrator at major auto shows, where she would talk about and demonstrate automobile features, later becoming official spokeswoman for Chevrolet. While Skelton was working with Chevrolet, she set numerous records with Corvettes, and owned a total of 10 models.

Between 1956 and 1957, Harley Earl and Bill Mitchell designed a special, translucent gold Corvette for Betty, which she drove to Daytona in 1957 to serve as the NASCAR pace car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betty_Skelton_Erde

Jackie Coogan's first car

Coogan, you may not have known, married Betty Grable, flew gliders for the Air Force in WW2 in Burma, and was Uncle Fester.

As a child star, Coogan earned an estimated $3 to $4 million, but the money was taken by his mother, Lilian, and stepfather, Arthur Bernstein, for extravagances such as fur coats, diamonds, and cars. Coogan sued them in 1938 (aged 23), but after legal expenses, he only received $126,000 of the approximately $250,000 remaining. When Coogan fell on hard times, Charlie Chaplin gave him some financial support.

The legal battle brought attention to child actors and resulted in the state of California enacting the California Child Actor's Bill, sometimes known as the Coogan Bill or the Coogan Act. This requires that the child's employer set aside 15% of the child's earnings in a trust, and codifies such issues as schooling, work hours and time-off. Coogan's mother and stepfather claimed the child was having fun and thought he was playing. However, virtually every child star from Baby Peggy on has stated that they were keenly aware that what they were doing was work.

Coogan took up the cause of the Armenians, Greeks, and others made destitute during the horrors of the First World War, working along with Near East Relief. He toured across the United States and Europe in 1924 on a "Children's Crusade" as part of a fundraising drive, which ended up providing more than $1,000,000 in clothing, food, and other contributions (worth more than $13 million adjusted for 2010 dollars). Coogan was honored by officials in the US, Greece, and Rome, where he met with the Pope. info from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jackie_Coogan

Photo from http://caughtatthecurb.blogspot.com/2011/04/movie-stars-and-their-cars.html#more