A Special Cruise Night - Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Written by SAHAdmin
Monday, 20 May 2013 14:57

*RSVP by June 1, 2013 to: Victoria Mobley*
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 586.246.0312

SOCIETY OF AUTOMOTIVE HISTORIANS
Henry M Leland Chapter
www.autohistory.org

presents

A Special Cruise Night
*Open by Invitation & Reservation Only*
Special Parking for Collector Cars

DATE: Tuesday, June 4, 2013
TIME: 5pm – 8pm
Doors open at 4:30pm

PLACE: The Roush Automotive Collection
www.roushcollection.com
11851 Market Street
Livonia, MI 48150
(734) 779-7290

FEE: $10/PER PERSON
Includes Tour, Food, Dessert, Soda
Door Prize Raffle Ticket (must be present to win)

Dear SAH Members and friends,

Join us for this rare opportunity to see this unique, significant collection. An evening of meet & greet with automotive authors, educators, racers, friends & fellow collectors. John Vermeersch legendary FRT & Motorsport Performance Advisor will also be available to talk cars, engines, racing and more.

John Jos. Jendza III/Top Hat John …Director/SAH Leland
Jim Petersen …… Associate Director/SAH Leland
Victoria Mobley … Secretary/Treasurer/SAH Leland

The Roush Automotive Collection, located in the Detroit Metropolitan area, is a 30,000 sq. ft. private facility. Housed within the collection are a wide variety of displays, multi-media exhibits, artifacts, memorabilia and 110+ vehicles.

The collection contains educational exhibits of products and processes from Roush Enterprises as a supplier of technological services to the automotive industry, aviation industry and other manufactured goods businesses.

Roush Racing is represented in the collection through the preservation of race cars, trophies, team equipment, photographs and other artifacts signifying over 40 years of motor sports achievements.

*RSVP by June 1, 2013 to: Victoria Mobley*
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 586.246.0312

Last Updated on Monday, 20 May 2013 15:06

Schedule, SAH Board Meeting, April 25-27, 2013, updated March 21, 2012

Written by SAHAdmin
Monday, 25 March 2013 23:17

Preferred Housing: Holiday Inn Express located on 1150 Robert T. Longway Blvd. it is close to our meeting site and the Sloan Museum complex. And you get a free breakfast.

Contacts: Phone 810-238-7744. Call hotel directly and make reservation under group code SAH or book on line at www.hiexpress.com/fnt-campusarea. Note: rooms released to public on Thursday April 10, 2013!!!

If you are flying in either the Flint airport or Detroit works. Flint is easy to get in and out, Detroit has many long-distance arrivals. If you are flying in to the Flint Airport, the Holiday Inn Express has an airport shuttle service. Call them after you land.

Thursday, April 25 Board Meeting, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Dort-Durant Building. Coffee, water and soda available at building. Temple Dining Room for lunch. The best home made food and pies and the best hot beef sandwich ever for $4.95. 5 blocks from the Durant Dort.

Within the walls of the Durant-Dort office building is the history behind Genesee County's only National Landmark Historic Structure and the beginnings of Flint's automotive industry.

The Durant-Dort office building, 316 Water St., was built in 1895-96 and was the home of the Durant-Dort Carriage Co. It served as a focal point for Durant and J. Dallas Dort's promotional activities in the carriage and automobile business.

We will meet in what was originally J.Dallas Dort's office and now a meeting room.

Dinner: Blackstones Pub & Grill. See blackstonesgrill.com. Downtown Flint. Shuttle from Hotel will take you there and to Saturday morning Museum Cultural Campus.

Friday, April 26

10-12 A visit to the GM Heritage Center, Sterling Heights, MI

Lunch at GM Powertrain Facility in Pontiac, MI

2-4 Tour of the GM Powertrain Facility

5 p.m. Reception at the Scharchburg Archives, Kettering University, Flint, MI

6 p.m. Banquet in the Gold Room at Kettering University. Members of the Leland Chapter are encouraged to attend. Note: Final Count is needed by April 24! Also you need to indicate chicken and beef entrée choices! Cost to individuals -- $30.

Post-Banquet 30 minute presentation by Kevin Kirbitz on Flint and the early auto industry

Saturday

10 a.m. Visit to the Flint Cultural Center: Sloan Museum, Buick Gallery and perhaps the Art Museum if you wish. The Buick Gallery displays five concept vehicles from the Sloan Collection: 1951 Buick XP-300, 1954 Buick Wildcat II, 1956 Buick Centurion, 1963 Buick Riviera Silver Arrow I, and the 1977 GM Phantom.

Noon -- Lunch on your own and departure.

The SAH announces the 2012 Awards

Friday, 26 October 2012 14:39

The SAH announces the 2012 Awards at the annual banquet Friday October 12. Click here.

We would like to see you in Hershey! SAH at the AACA Eastern Fall Meet October 10 to October 13, 2012

For over 40 years we have welcomed members and friends to our hospitality tent in Hershey. We will be open Wednesday October 10th through Saturday October 13th. We will share our cider and donuts and other refreshments, distribute publications and initiate new members on the spot! We are a venue to start informal conversations and join new friends in long established auto history social networks. We are also accustomed to serving as a rendezvous point for old friends to meet up, too. If you are an author and want to sign books at Hershey, drop us a line and we can discuss scheduling a time for you to reach your readers. WE ARE IN THE ORANGE FIELD OBB-17-19

Join us at The Society of Automotive Historians Awards Banquet ! A Hershey tradition!

The Society of Automotive Historians, Inc - Annual Meeting of Members & Gala Awards Banquet

SAH will present our service, publication and Friend of Automotive History awards at our annual Awards Banquet Friday evening October 12, 2012 at the Hershey Country Club.

When: Friday, October 12, 2012
Where: Hershey Country Club, 1000 East Derry Road, Hershey Pennsylvania
Cost: $50.00 per person, including tax & gratuity

Click here for more information on how to attend and register.

Register and Pay Online?

Pay using PayPal or your Credit Card by completing the below:

SAH Conference in - Automotive Geek Fest

Bob Merlis, a writer for Automobile Magazine covers the 2012 Ninth Biennial SAH Conference in the September 2012 issue of Automobile. The feature article is not posted on their website so you will have to visit your nearest new stand and buy a copy of the magazine. It's title is Automotive Geek Fest and in addition to being informative it is also filled with levity.

Sale of Vintage Automotive Sales Literature

Saturday, 07 July 2012 18:59

We've lost our storage!

announcement_apr_2012 Sale of 28 boxes of recent vintage automotive sales literature to benefit the Society of Automotive Historians

The Society of Automotive Historians is soliciting offers to purchase a collection of automotive sales brochures and related ephemera dating from approximately 1970 to the present. This material was collected by the late Taylor Vinson, long-time editor of the Automotive History Review, who bequeathed it to SAH to benefit the society. The collection offered is unsorted and uninventoried in ites entirety in "as is, where is" condition.

Read more

Ninth Biennial Automotive History Conference April 12 - 14, 2012

Thursday, 24 May 2012 19:20

REPORT FROM PHILADELPHIA:

Now that the 50 attendees and all of our international roster of speakers have returned home from the Society of Automotive Historians Conference on Globalization that convened a few weeks ago in Philadelphia, we thought we would sum up some of our impressions. Overall, the conference was a smash hit. The papers were insightful and cogent. Each presenter was peppered with questions from the audience and even though the focus of the conference was the global automotive industry, there was something in the conference for nearly all interests and perspectives. Naturally, some papers had the tone of an academic lecture and the presenters backed up their facts with impressive historiography. Other papers had a “cultural heritage” direction and, frankly, this led to some surprising discovery and fun!

Simeone Foundation

Universitat de Barcelona scholar, Jordi Catalan, kicked off the Friday morning sessions with a study of the Barcelona auto industry—which he revealed has had an international connection since 1902. The Swiss and Spanish-owned Hispano-Suiza company set up shop in Barcelona and Ford set up its first foreign operations there in 1904. He also discussed the impact the Spanish Civil War had on the industry and how the industry fared under the extended Franco dictatorship.

South African professor, Hans Heese, spoke about the complex history of the auto industry and, indeed, automobility in South Africa. He presented an historical time-line of motor vehicles and production, including military vehicles, and he brought us through to the present with a report on Toyota and Lexus in the South African Republic.

Three graduate student papers by RWTH Aachen University degree candidates provided historical and contemporary perspectives on the German auto industry in the global arena. Their papers touched on spatial perspectives on the German industry. They explored questions as to why innovations took place when and where they did.

Independent historian John Busch looked beyond the history of the automobile. His review of steamboat development offered an approach as to how advances in motive power presaged changes in societal notions about technology.

Racemaker Press Reception

SAH at Hagley

Two frequent SAH contributors, Pat Yongue and Judith Endelman, gave contrasting presentations from their particular areas of expertise. Pat spoke as to how the 1903 Gordon Bennett Race came at one of the important junctures in motorsports history when questions were raised as to the activity’s long-term viability. Judith had updated previous research on Ford’s presence in China during the industry’s earlier cycles of global operations.

Another international guest at the Conference, Englishman Michael Wynn-Williams from the University of Greenwich gave a detailed analysis of the relationship between the automotive industry and broader economic trends. Michael’s study illustrated how the health of companies at various stages of horizontal and vertical integration is in part dependent upon choices about economies of scale in the production process.

SAH Board Meeting

Bill Porter, the retired General Motors Designer, captivated the conference with his study of the “biomorphic” influences in auto design. His graphic study illuminated features present in modern automobiles like the human face, emotions like smiles and grins, arachnids, coral reefs, and sharks. So intriguing was his study that the New York Times reported his discoveries and you can read it on our news links on the SAH main page. How many history conferences can boast international media coverage like that?

Dr. John Heitmann, a professor at the University of Dayton, has studied an unseemly side of automobiles. He gave the conference insight into the shady big-business of professional car theft. It was a quite unexpected presentation but aside from being completely appalled by the audacity of international car thieves, we found some amusement in Dr. Heitmann’s reflections about how Hollywood associated the car thief as an anti-hero, or rebel without a cause. He used the motion picture, Gone in Sixty Seconds, as an example.

Dr. Robert Ebert discussed the fading years of the Studebaker Corporation in his paper—The Champion of the Lark: Harold Churchill and the Presidency of the Studebaker-Packard Corporation. His conclusion: Churchill was a pragmatist, a conciliator and a motivator. And on the Lark he indicates: both a success in early sales and a failure in that the model didn’t pull Studebaker through.

An upbeat Edwin Benson has studied Cadillac advertising and he presented a thoughtful and highly graphic study. Titled Creating an American Icon: Theodore F. MacManus, James R. Adams, and the Coming of Cadillac 1909-1956, his paper is a trenchant study on the importance of clever, practical advertising in the rise of the Cadillac brand. It was also a delightful stroll through automotive ad art.

Dr. Blaszczyk

Dr. Regina Blaszczyk, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, discussed the two chapters from her forthcoming book, The Color Revolution, which concerns the painting of early automobiles. She discussed the history of paint chemistry and Duco lacquer, a revolutionary finish developed jointly by General Motors and DuPont. Dr. Blaszczyk then discussed how a talented American artist, H. Ledyard Towle, became an automotive color pallet innovator, worked with Harley Earl, navigated testy corporate politics—and in the process delivered a fantastic spectrum of color options to car buyers.

Tom Adamich presented a study of the minivan as an export vehicle and how it was embraced in Europe as taxis and delivery vehicles.

Jordi Catalan and Patricia Yongue

Rapt Attendees

To wrap up our stimulating conference we boarded a charter bus and set off to Delaware to visit the Hagley Museum to examine the Z. Taylor Vinson Transportation Collection. Emily Cottle, the archivist who works with Mr. Vinson’s ephemera collection gave our group a behind the scenes tour of the Hagley research library. She writes a blog for the Hagley website about her experiences working in the Vinson Collection. That evening, we all shared a convivial reception and dinner with Dr. Fred Simeone at the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum and marveled at his studied collection of significant sports cars. For the keynote speech, we listened to a candid, no holds barred address by the economic history professor Dr. Mira Wilkins on foreign investment in the U.S. auto industry from an historical perspective. All in all we had a very eye-opening conference and came away informed and recharged.

We are thankful to our generous sponsors, Racemaker Press, McFarland Publishing, and the Simeone Foundation Automotive Museum, for helping to make this event so enjoyable.

Last Updated on Tuesday, 05 June 2012 17:48

Phil Patton Writes in the NYT about Designer Bill Porter and the 2012 SAH Conference

Monday, 30 April 2012 15:47

Bill Porter, the former General Motors designer credited with the 1968 Pontiac GTO, has become something of a trend spotter in retirement. On April 13, at a meeting of the Society of Automotive Historians, he explained in the lecture, "The New Biomorphs: An Emergent Trend on the Automotive Design Scene," what had caught his eye in recent years.

Click here to read the full article.

Getting Started

Written by Dave Duricy
Monday, 26 December 2011 00:00

Welcome to the new AutoHistory. Please pardon our dust; we're still moving in and getting used to the place. Now you can read The Journal and The Review online as well as chat in the message forums, but you must do two things first.

AutoHistory isn't the only thing new at the SAH, we also have a new online membership system designed and run by Cornerstone Registration. We call this new system the SAH Membership Center and it is very important that you renew your SAH membership and register at the SAH Membership Center FIRST. Clicking “Join / Renew” at the top-right of the AutoHistory front page takes you directly to the SAH Membership Center.

Only after you have renewed and registered at the SAH Membership Center can you register for access to the members-only areas of AutoHistory.

To register for access to the members-only areas of AutoHistory, click “Member Login / Logout” at the top-right of the AutoHistory front page. On the Login page, click “register here”. You will be prompted for your SAH Member Number and Last Name.

Once these two steps are completed, simply click Member “Login / Logout” at the top-right of the AutoHistory front page and enter your user name and password. A new members-only menu will appear. Enjoy.

Last Updated on Saturday, 21 January 2012 19:17

Finding a Home for Your Automotive History Collection

Written by Dave Duricy
Friday, 16 December 2011 00:00

BY THE SAH ARCHIVES COMMITTE Your goal in choosing a home for your automotive materials is two-fold: first, to preserve a collection which you have carefully assembled, perhaps over many years, and second to make it available for the edification and pleasure of those who, like yourself, see the motor vehicle as a preeminent technical achievement and art object of the twentieth century. Two quite different groups will be drawn to the collection. Enthusiasts and restorers whose interests focus on a single make or model may have little knowledge or concern for automotive history as a whole. Automotive historians may be conducting research with the goal of contributing to published knowledge on the industry and its products. The two are different but joined by a common passion for the automobile.
Last Updated on Saturday, 21 January 2012 19:16
Read more...

A Special Cruise Night - Tuesday, June 4, 2013 Written by SAHAdmin Monday, 20 May 2013 14:57

Schedule, SAH Board Meeting, April 25-27, 2013, updated March 21, 2012 Written by SAHAdmin Monday, 25 March 2013 23:17

The SAH announces the 2012 Awards Friday, 26 October 2012 14:39