A Quick Trip to Flint MI, the Birthplace of General Motors

 Hi folks-- just back from an SAH trip to get information so I can better arrange the future board meeting, slated for April 25-27, 2013.

 One glimpse of the Scharchburg Archives, Kettering University

The home of Charles Nash

The second floor was where Durant had his sales office and where carriages were on display for sales

 The surviving section of the carriage factory

The office of J. Dallas Dort, now a meeting room

Statues of Billy Durant and J. Dallas Dort by the river

Flint has some attractive scenes

Hip Hop, Rap and Cool Rides

In part taken from Automobile, December 2012, p. 20.

Some show and prove rhythms about rides:

"I got bodyguards, I got two big cars
That definitely ain't the whack
I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac."

Sugarhill Gang, "Rappers' Delight," -- 1979

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"I got a big long Caddy, not like a Seville
And written right on the side it reads:
'Dressed to Kill."
Run-DMC, "Sucker MCs," -- 1984

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"Hit the boulevard in my AMG
Ladies catchin' whiplash tryin' to glimpse the T"

Ice T, "6 'N the Mornin," -- 1987.

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F***the past, let's dwell on the 500SL
the E&J and ginger ale

Notorious B.I.G., "One More Chance" -- 1994

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Picture me rollin'in my 500 Benz

2Pac, "Picture Me Rollin" -- 1996

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No matter how you try you can't stop it
I catch ya stuntin' in the
Bentley coupe cockpit

50Cent, "Like My Style" -- 2003

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Church's chicken in my Lambo

Gucci Mane, Stupid Wild" -- 2009

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Lambo-mercy-lago
She go wherever I go
whereever we go, we do it pronto

Kayne West. "Mercy" -- 2012

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What goes around comes around
in the form of karma
Nah, that's probably just me
ridin' around your town in a Fisker

Slaughterhouse, "Weight Scale" -- 2012

Syllabus "Automobile and American Life" Spring 2013

   

 HST 344  -- Science, Technology and the Modern Corporation: The Automobile and American Life

            Class Meeting: MWF 1-1:50 p.m., HM 125

            Instructor: John A. Heitmann

            Office: 435HM (x92803).

            Office Hours: 2:00-2:50 MW or by appointment

            E-Mail: Jheitmann1@udayton.edu

            Blog page: http://www.automobileandamericanlife.blogspot.com

            Texts:  John Heitmann, The Automobile and American Life.

                        Jack Keroauc, On the Road.

                        Ben Hamper, Rivethead.

Jason Vuic, The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History

                        Grades: The final grade for this course will be based on two hour exams, (60%), occasional quizzes, and final exam (30%). The grade scale is as follows: A  94 to 100; A-  90 to 93; B+  87-89; B 84-86; B-  80 - 83; C+ 77-79; C 74-76; C- 70-73.  A similar pattern applies to lower grades.  Letter grades are assigned a mid-point numerical grade. Additionally, attendance can influence your final grade: if you miss more than 3 classes, one letter grade will be deducted from your grade; if you miss more than 6 classes, a two letter grade reduction will take place.  A good grade for this course is a C+.  Grade averages may be influenced by such factors as trends over the time of the course; for example, how you finish is far more important than how you start. Policies for exams strictly follows History Department Guidelines, and make-ups will only be offered with a valid, documented excuse.

            Attendance at lectures is crucial if you are to expect a good grade in the course, and I want you to be at every class if that is at all possible. On many occasions material presented is not covered in the readings, and so many of the ideas discussed central to the development of modern science are complex and often confusing. Your attitude and what you bring in to the classroom can make the difference between a mediocre offering and a most positive educational experience. 

            Cheating and plagiarism will not be tolerated and offenses will be punished accordingly. A first offense will result in a failing grade for the exam or paper in question; a second offense will result in a failing grade for the course.

           

Course Purpose:  It has been said that the automobile is the perfect technological symbol of American culture, a tangible expression of our quest to level space, time and class, and a reflection of our restless mobility, social and otherwise. In this course we will explore together the place of the automobile in American life, and how it transformed business, life on the farm and in the city, the nature and organization of work, leisure time, and the arts. This is a most complex transition that we will study, as the automobile transformed everyday life and the environment in which we operate.  It influenced the foods we eat; music we listen to; risks we take; places we visit; errands we run; emotions we feel; movies we watch; stress we endure; and, the air we breathe.

SCHEDULE OF LECTURES AND ASSIGNMENTS

            The week of:

Week 1/January 14                  Introduction; What our cars tell us about ourselves. The car in everyday life: the automobile age and its contradictions.  Automotive Pioneers

                                                            Reading: Heitmann, Introduction, Chapter 1.

Films: “Wild Wheels”; “Horatio’s Drive.”

January 21 -- MLK Day -- No Class

                                                                  

           

Week 2/January 23                  Putting America on the Road; Henry Ford and the Model T

                                                            Reading: Heitmann, Chapter 2.

                                                            Film: “Automobile Parade;” “Gussle’s Day of Rest.”

                       

            Week 3/January 28                  Stealing Cars; The Rise of General Motors

                                                            Reading: Heitmann, pp. 54-63.

                                                            Film: “Master Hands;” "Roger and Me."

Week 4/February 4                  Advertising, Styling, Design and the Art of the Automobile

                                                            Reading: Heitmann, pp. 64-71.

                                                            Film: “Automobile Advertising 1910-1940.”  

            Week 5/February 11               On the Road

            Reading: Heitmann, Chapter 4.

Films: “Grapes of Wrath;” “Route 66;"            “Detour;” Keroauc: On           the Road"

February 15:  Exam 1 -- on this exam you will be tested on the Keroauc book.

           

Week 6/ February 18               Religion, Courtship and Sex

                                                            Readings: Heitmann, Chapter 5.

Films: “Thelma and Louise”; “Motorcycle Diaries”

                                                           

                                                           

Week 7/ February 25               The Interwar Years: The Great Depression, Aerodynamics, and Cars of the Olympian Age            

                                                            Readings:  Heitmann, Chapter 6.

                                                            Films: “The Crowd Roars;”  “Burn Em’Up Barnes.”

           

            Mid-Term Break: Holiday March 1

                       

Week 8/March 4                      World War II:  Detroit, the Arsenal of Democracy

                                                Readings:  Heitmann, Chapter 7

Film: “Jitterbugs.”       

Week 9/ March 11                   The Post War Industry and Technological Suppression

Readings: Heitmann, pp. 133-154.

                                                            Film: “Tucker”

           

            Week 10/ March 18                 Chrome Dreams of the 1950s

                                                            Jan & Dean and  the Beach Boys          

                                                            Readings: Heitmann, pp.154-163.

                                                            Film:  “American Graffiti”

           

Week 11/ March 25                 The Rise of the American Muscle Car

                                                            Readings: Heitmann, pp.164-178.

                                                            Films: “Goldfinger;” “Thunderball” “Bullitt.”

            Test 2 March 27 -- Exam #2 -- you will be tested on the Vuic  book at this time

           

            Easter Recess, March 28-April 1

           

            Week 12/ April 3         Oil Shock I: Japan, James Bond, and Mobile Lovemaking

                                                            Readings: Heitmann, pp. 178-184.

                                                            Film: “Easy Rider;” Toby Halicki's "Gone in Sixty Seconds"

           

            Week 13/ April 8         The Automobile World Upside Down, 1980s to the Present.

                                                Readings: Heitmann, pp.185-194.

                                                Film:  “Fast and Furious; Tokyo Drift;”  "The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant"

Week 14/ April 15/19   The Automobile Industry and the Future; Sum Up

Reading:  Heitmann, pp.194-206.

Film:  “The Revenge of the Electric Car”

                                               

April 17  Stander Symposium

           

Week 15/April 22        Last Day of Classes

                                    Heitmann, Epilogue.

           

FINAL EXAM, Tuesday, April 30, 2:30 --4:200 p.m. On this exam you will be tested on the Ben Hamper Book.

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his M47 Patton tank

Arnold Schwarzenegger and his M47 Patton tank (Photo: Matt McDaniel)

Arnold Schwarzenegger owns his own tank. Because of course he would.

If any private citizen was going to possess their own tank, obviously it would be Arnold Schwarzenegger. But it’s not just for joy rides and smashing cars – though he did drive me around on it, and he did roll over and flatten an old clunker with it. It’s a tank that does have personal meaning to him, and he uses it for an altruistic purpose.

The tank in question in an M47 Patton. Produced between 1951 and 1953, the 50-ton behemoths are still in service across the globe 60 years later. And Schwarzenegger told me and an assembled group of around 15 journalists on Friday that this was “exactly the very tank that I drove in the Austrian Army when I was 18 years old.”

Schwarzenegger was required to serve at least a year in the military, and he told us he went in right after finishing trade school. He said, “I learned how to drive the tank, which was always my fascination, I think, because I grew up after the war, and I saw the British troops that occupied our area. So I always wanted to be a tank driver.”

Schwarzenegger recounted how they would go off on maneuvers for weeks at a time. In the evenings, they would dig out a trench that he would roll the tank over, and he and his crew would sleep on the dirt underneath. He also revealed that the side of the tank featured a large tool box, but he used his to house his weightlifting equipment. He kept his barbells and dumbbells on hand so he could train every night while they were away from base. That way he was able to stay in shape so that a few months after leaving the service, he was able to compete in his first Mr. Universe competition in 1966. He came in second that year, and then won the amateur title the next (and the pro title the three following years).

Salt Walther Dies at 65

Hi folks -- I never met the man, but play tennis at a park that is named for his father.  His obituary in the Dayton Daily News yesterday was only 4 lines or so. Ho could I have missed looking up and talking to this Iconic racing figure from my generation, not the fastest driver but certainly a survivor of one of the most horrific crashes of the 1970s or for that matter any decade.It was said that addiction to pain killers dominated his life after 1973 until the recent past. It was said that he lived life on the edge, at least part of it. He drove the Dayton Steel Wheel special, a car owned by his father and made possible by the wealth accrued from the Dayton-Walther Corporation. He was a generational legacy of a Dayton that is no more -- a medium sized city filled with metalworking and foundry firms, a prosperous city that is now the shell of its once proud self.

I am sure the stories he could have told me would have been one great book, a reflection of one fast-burning life that took no hostages.

More Donks Photos

The older I get, the more I like Donks! Actually, I need to get with friend Ed Garten and go down to Nashville to visit the Donks Bar & Grill! Seriously, these cars seem to me to be a silly waste of money. But the neat thing about contemporary car culture is that there are so many varieties of the hobby.

Merry Christmas -- A Becker Europa Radio for the Porsche!

And it works,as I bench tested it on Christmas Eve.  Snow storm today, so I'll have to wait a while to install it. I have had several Becker radios that did not work, but this is the first that does.