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My Father George William Horlacher
George William Horlacher, was the son of George Washington Horlacher and Catherine Nolan Horlacher. George was born July 23, 1913, in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was about four years old, his family took a train to Los Angeles, California. He grew up in Redondo Beach, California. When he was a teenager he had four Model T Fords, in pieces, in his parent’s back yard! My Grandmother insisted he clean up the yard and get the cars out of there. Amazingly, he was able to get all four cars back together and running! During his teen years, he had a newspaper route, and he also set pins in a local bowling alley. He also played football in high school in 1930. He liked to fish and hunt, and some of his fishing buddies were Will Murphy, a Filipino fellow whose name I don’t remember, Pete Lerma and his brother Joe Lerma, and a fellow they called Shorty. Through the years my Father fished on many of the Southern California piers; one of his favorites was the Newport Pier in Newport Beach California. His parents used to fish there, my Father fished there, I fished there, and my son, Lance, fished there too! Four generations of Horlachers fished off that pier! As I said, my Father also loved to hunt. One of his hunting buddies was Frank Woodruff. He had another hunting friend who made and repaired guns. His wife, a school teacher, tested them! She was a very good marksman […]
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GOOD OL’ DAYS
GOOD OL’ DAYS I remember our neighbor’s 1927 Diana, made by the Moon Motor Car Company. Work or play, it made our days exciting. My Grandmother and the neighbor loaded the Diana with eggs from my Grandparents’ egg ranch in La Sierra, California, and hauled them to the market. I can remember finding a place to sit in among the dozens of eggs, very carefully finding a seat, and then having to make sure I stayed put! One little slide could mean disaster to our cargo, AND to the Diana! And when we weren’t hauling eggs, we used the Diana to pull a two-wheeled box trailer to haul hay. Hauling hay was a lot more fun than hauling eggs! We would put the Diana in low gear, point the car in the direction we needed to go, and it would just idle up and down the field while we walked along side loading the trailer. Every once in awhile, one of us would have to jump on the running board and correct the steering. We used the Diana for fun, too, playing car tag! Something we could never do, today! And actually, our car tag was more like a game of hide-and-seek. Several of my friends and I would drive up one of the small hills in our rural area, or down to the very bottom of a hill, and try to find a place that had a little bend in the road where we could hide a car. We’d […]
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MOON MOTOR CARS 1906 TO 1929
In 1871 Joseph Moon took his horse to St, Louis, Missouri and set up a business building buggies. In 1902,31 years later, he saw the potential in the budding automobile industry, so he began building cars. Within four years, he introduced his first car,the Hercules,but he changed its name to Moon, and in january, 1906 he shipped the first cars under that name to the National Automobile Show in New York City. By 1908, Moon was selling his cars to the Hol- Tan company, located in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. (The Hol- Tan company was owned by E.R. Hollander, and G.P. and H.C. Tangeman. Their combined names formed the name of their company, Hol – Tan.) Hol – Tan had previously been importing and selling Fiats and Lancias from Italy, but either Hol- Tan, or Fiat/ Lancia discontinued dealing with each other. Their relationship with Moon continue. Joseph Moon died in 1919. His son-in-law, Stewart McDonald succeeded him,and remained president of the company until 1928 when he became the chairman of the comany’s board. Carl W. Burst replaced him as president. The Moon company contiued to build cars throughout the transitions,and in 1924, it came out with its first cars with low-pressure tires, and hydraulic brakes.Moon wasn’t the first car to have hydraulic brakes. they were invented in 1918 by Malcolm Lougheed (later changed to Lockheed), and the fist car to come out with four-wheel hydraulic brakes was the Model A Dusenberg, in 1921. The new feature in the Moon’s hydraulic […]
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DIESEL CARS IN EUROPE–WHY NOT IN THE UNITED STATES?
Cars in Europe average about 52.5 miles per gallon.? Cars in the US average about 22.5 mpg.? That’s +/-30 mpg less than in Europe!? In Europe, they burn 285.7 gallons in 15,000 miles.? In the US, we burn 666.67 gallons in 15,000 miles.? That’s 380.95 gallons more than the Europeans burn.? ? If ten percent of our 290 million cars were like the European diesels, we would use 1,104.755 million less than we currently use WITHOUT changing our driving habits.? This would be in addition to savings realized in global warming and environmental damage caused by fossil fuels. General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler produce fuel efficient diesel cars in Europe and have done so for many years.? Why can’t we have the same cars here?? There’s very little tooling? change involved since GM, Ford, and Chrysler are already producing these cars for Europe.? And while the Big 3 produce these same European style diesels for Americans, they can also work on alternate fuels, and alternate fuel cars. Maybe in five to 10 years, GM, Ford, and Chrysler can get their acts together and catch up with Honda, Toyota, Citroen, Renault, Fiat, and Audi, in terms of fuel efficiency. There are many people and many views on this subject.? Personally, I have driven some of these European cars in Italy and I was favorably impressed with the way they run, their comfort, and how efficient they are.? Look up the top ten? fuel efficient cars in Europe, and then look up […]
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Why can’t we get gasoline without Ethanol?
Everyone I talk to is having problems with this fuel, people with chain saws, yard equipment, boats and cars. Ethanol disolves gas lines, primers on lawn equipment and outboard motors.(See the artical “FUELISH MISTAKES,” by Fritz Grell, in the October issue of the Florida Sportsman.) It also has reduced the gas mileage on my car. My car used to get 23 to 24 miles per gallon, now I get 21 to 22 miles per gallon. If 10 million cars have my same experience and drive 15,000 miles per year, they would have to buy 621,100,000 extra gallons of fuel! At $3.00 per gallon, thats $1,863,300,000 per year. I had to rebuild the carburetor on my boat and the cost for a rebuild kit, carburetor cleaner, and chemical resistant gloves came to $88.80. The time to remove , clean, install the kit, reinstall and adjust the carburetor, required seven and a half hours of labor. Am I the only one with these problems?
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My rules of the road for trucks
I feel Florida should adopt some new rules for trucks on our highways. 1-Trucks should use the right lane only unless passing. (This should be the rule for cars also.) 2-Trucks should be fined for spilling dirt and debris on the highways. 3-Dump trucks should be required to use tarps to cover their loads not cheese cloth.
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Price gouging by gas stations and oil companys
Why are we seeing 15 to 25 cents above reg. gas for mid grade and 35 to 40 cents for premium gas. There used to be just 10 cents jump for mid grade and 20 cents jump for premium. Are these stations gouging, if so why isn’t the state? or federal consumer affairs doing something about? it? Why does Mobile Exon refuse to build new refineries to replace the old run down ones? With over 40 bln. in profits why not ? I understand there? is a real need for new ones.
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Old suburbans
Why don’t you see old Chevrolet or GMC suburbans on car auctions like Clayton Jackson’s. I have a 1991 chev last of the old style suburbans.It’s one of the best vehicles I ever owned. The 454 runs like a clock and it is all original.