Archive for the 'Automobile and Motorcycle Tin Signs' Category
The Shelby Mustang is a high performance variant of the Ford Mustang, built by Ford from 1968 through
1970. The 1965, 1966 and 1967 Shelbys were a series of Ford Mustangs which were specially modified by Carroll Shelby’s company and sold under the name Shelby GT with identification badges Shelby Cobra.[ From 1968 the model became the Shelby Cobra GT. The program was factory-sponsored by Ford to compete with the Corvette, also factory-sponsored by Chevrolet, neither of which could be built for the sales price charged. In 2007, following the introduction of the Fifth-generation Ford Mustang the Shelby nameplate was revived for new high performance versions of the Mustang.
The 1966 was differentiated in body color (non-white versions were introduced — colors included blue, red, green and black, as well as the original white) and trim. The "Le Mans" stripes were continued as an option, as in 1965. It featured special quarter-panel windows and rear air scoops on each side and an optional automatic transmission. A fold-down rear seat was now standard as well. Where early 1965 cars had black engine blocks, 1966 and later cars had the 289 engine painted blue. The first 252 GT-350s for 1966 were "carry-over" cars. They had the 1965 Ford Mustang Bodies and 1965 Ford Mustang serial numbers under their Shelby serial numbers. They had mostly 1965 features including standard Koni shocks and engines painted black. Blue engines did not occur in 1966 until after these 252 "carry-over" models were produced. 1966 production was 1373 fastbacks including two prototypes and four drag cars and 252 "carry-over" models with Ford Mustang 1965 bodies. 1001 Hertz fastbacks were produced, including two prototypes. Four convertibles were also produced, for a total of 2378 units for 1966.
Shelby struck a deal with the Hertz Corporation to produce a special line of GT350s for rent which were subsequently sold to the public after their rental-car lives were finished. These "GT350H" cars are quite rare and sought-after today, with some examples selling for more than $120,000. Shelby produced 1000 of these cars: 800 in Raven Black, and 50 each in Candy Apple Red, Wimbledon White, Sapphire Blue and Ivy Green. All Hertz cars featured gold LeMans stripes and rocker panel stripes. Early "Hertz" cars were available with four-speed manual transmissions until so many cars were returned from rental with burned and broken clutch assemblies that all of the later cars shipped to Hertz were equipped with an automatic transmission.[citation needed] Many were rented to use as production class cars at SCCA events, some were returned with different engines, holes where roll bars had been welded in, and other modifications to legally run on the track.
Production numbers: GT350 — 2,380 units (four were special order convertibles for Carroll Shelby, the rumor is that six were made, but only four VINs have been discovered). The brakes were enlarged because of the extra power. New components such as under-hood suspension bracing were used. Staggered rear shock absorbers prevented wheel hop and axle wind-up. Functional air intake scoops were added to force air to the rear brake pads, helping keep them cool.
[edit] 1967-1968
1967-1968 GT350 & GT500 Production 1967-1968
Assembly Dearborn, Michigan
Body style(s) 2-door fastback
2-door convertible (1968)
Engine(s) 289 cid V8(1967 GT350)
302 cid V8(1968 GT350)
390 cid (Early 68 GT500)
427 cid (early GT 500) 428 cid V8(GT 500)
Transmission(s) 3-speed automatic
4-speed manual
1967 was the last year for the Shelby Cobras. The GT 350 used the high performance 289 with a COBRA aluminum hi-rise and 715 cfm Holley carb, with a Paxton supercharger as an option. The GT 500 known as the Eleanor was equiped with the 428 Police Interceptor, 2 Holley 4 barrel carbs, and headers as an option. 1968 introduced the Shelby Mustang. Power steering, a single carburetor and hydraulic camshaft made this a muscle car for the masses. The Shelby GT350 Mustang sported a 302 cubic-inch V8 while the GT500 came equipped with the 428 cubic-inch Police Interceptor engine. In February 1968, the GT500KR “King of the Road” debuted; under the hood was a 428 cubic-inch Cobra Jet V8 which was conservatively rated at 335 horsepower (250 kW). Due to a production strike, some early 1968 GT500′s had a 390 cubic-inch V8. Also in 1968, production of Shelby Mustangs switched from Shelby’s shop in California to A.O. Smith Company in Michigan.
For all the musle car fans here is a Shelby Mustang tin sign for you to hang up or give as a gift to some musle car fan.
Cornerstone of the B&O, laid July 4, 1828 by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, now displayed at the B&O
Railroad MuseumConstruction began on July 4, 1828, when Charles Carroll of Carrollton did the groundbreaking, and the first section, from Baltimore west to Ellicott’s Mills (now known as Ellicott City), opened on May 24, 1830. It was decided to follow the Patapsco River to a point near Parr’s Ridge (now known as Mount Airy) where the railroad would cross a height of land and descend into the valley of the Monocacy and Potomac rivers. Further extensions opened to Frederick (including the short Frederick Branch) December 1, 1831, Point of Rocks April 2, 1832, Sandy Hook December 1, 1834 (the connection to the Winchester and Potomac Railroad at Harpers Ferry opening in 1837), Martinsburg May 1842, Hancock June 1842, Cumberland November 5, 1842, Piedmont July 21, 1851, Fairmont June 22, 1852, and its terminus at Wheeling, West Virginia (then part of Virginia) on January 1, 1853. The narrow strip of available land along the Potomac River from Point of Rocks to Harpers Ferry caused a legal battle between the B&O and the Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) Canal as both sought to exclude the other from its use.A later compromise allowed the two companies to share the right of way.
The state of Maryland granted the B&O a charter to build a line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C., in 1831, and the Washington Branch was opened in 1835. This line joined to the original mainline at Relay, Maryland, crossing the Patapsco on the Thomas Viaduct, which remains one of the B&O’s signature structures. This line was partially funded by the state, and was operated separately until the 1870s, with the state taking a 25% cut of gross passenger receipts. This line was built in stone, much like the original mainline; by this time, however, strap rail was no longer used for new construction. Most of the stone bridges on the Old Main Line did not last long, being washed out by the periodic flooding of the Patapsco River and replaced at first by Bollman Truss bridges. The Annapolis and Elk Ridge Railroad to Annapolis connected to this line at Annapolis Junction in 1840. As an unwritten condition for the charter, it was understood that the state would not charter any competing line between Baltimore and Washington.
This railroad tin sign is a must for any railroad collector’s collection.
The Union Pacific Railroad was incorporated on July 1, 1862 in the wake of the Pacific Railroad Act of
1862. Under the guidance of its dominant stockholder Dr. Thomas Clark Durant, the namesake of the city of Durant, Iowa, the first rails were laid in Omaha, Nebraska. They were part of the railroads that came together at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869 as the first transcontinental railroad in North America. Subsequently, UP took over three Mormon-built roads: the Utah Central Rail Road extending south from Ogden, Utah, to Salt Lake City, the Utah Southern Railroad extending south from Salt Lake City into the Utah Valley, and the Utah Northern Railroad extending north from Ogden into Idaho; and it built or absorbed local lines that gave it access to Denver and to Portland, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest. It acquired the Kansas Pacific (originally called the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, though in essence a separate railroad). It also owned narrow gauge trackage into the heart of the Colorado Rockies and a standard gauge line south from Denver across New Mexico into Texas (both parts of the Union Pacific, Denver and Gulf Railway).
Directors of the Union Pacific Railroad gather on the 100th meridian, which later became Cozad, Nebraska, approximately 250 miles (400km) west of Omaha, Nebraska Territory, in October 1866. The train in the background awaits the party of Eastern capitalists, newspapermen, and other prominent figures invited by the railroad executives.UP was entangled in the Crédit Mobilier scandal of 1872. Its early troubles led to bankruptcy during the 1870s, the result of which was reorganization of the Union Pacific Railroad as the Union Pacific Railway on January 24, 1880, with its dominant stockholder being Jay Gould. The new company also declared bankruptcy, in 1893, but emerged on July 1, 1897, reverting to the original name, Union Pacific Railroad. Such minor changes in corporate titles were a common result of reorganization after bankruptcy among American railroads. This period saw the UP sell off some of its holdings; the Union Pacific Railway, Central Branch became the Central Branch of the Missouri Pacific Railroad and the Southern Branch was acquired by the newly-incorporated Missouri Kansas Texas Railroad in 1870. However, the UP soon recovered, and was strong enough to take control of Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) in 1901 and then was ordered in 1913 by the U.S. Supreme Court to surrender control of the same. UP also founded the Sun Valley resort in Idaho in 1936, the UP engineering department in Omaha designed the first ski chairlift that summer. The Missouri Pacific and Missouri Kansas Texas both came back into the UP fold in the 1980s. In 1996, UP finally acquired SP in a transaction envisioned nearly a century earlier.
The headquarters of UP has been in Omaha, Nebraska, since its inception. Currently they are housed in the Union Pacific Center, completed in 2003. Other important UP facilities in Omaha have included the Union Pacific Railroad Omaha Shops Facility and the Harriman Dispatch Center.
This railroad tin sign is a must for any railroad collector’s collection.
The Union Pacific Railroad (reporting mark UP) (NYSE: UNP), headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the
largest and oldest operating railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman.
UP’s route map covers most of the central and western United States west of Chicago and New Orleans. As of 2005, UP operates on 32,426 miles (52,185 km) of track, of which it owns outright 26,949 miles (43,370 km), both numbers representing the highest amount of any railroad currently operating in the United States. It has achieved this size as a result of purchasing a large number of other railroads, notably the Missouri Pacific, Chicago and North Western, Western Pacific, Missouri-Kansas-Texas, and the Rio Grande (including the Southern Pacific). Currently, Union Pacific owns 26% of Ferromex while Grupo Mexico owns the remaining 74%.
For all railroad collecters here’s the perfect tin sign for you.
Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. In 1901, he
fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, powered by a battery on 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born. The first Lionel train was designed to attract window-shopping New Yorkers using the power of animated display. Since its humble beginning Lionel has sold more than 50 million train sets and today produces more than 300 miles of track each year.
1999 Lionel trains were selected as one of the top 10 toys of the 20th century.
Joshua Lionel Cowen was an inventive guy and had always been very interested in trains. When he was seven, he whittled a miniature locomotive from wood. It exploded, however, when he tried to fit it with a tiny steam engine. Joshua had never forgotten his childhood experiment. In 1901, he fitted a small motor under a model of a railroad flatcar, a battery and 30 inches of track and the Lionel electric train was born.
I remember playing with electric trains when I was a kid, this tin sign brings back a lot of memories.

Are you sick of the way that your current décor looks? Don’t worry, it happens to the best of us. For people who’ve just moved out on their own or aren’t in the know when it comes to how to decorate the home, a good place to start is with the wall art.
Personally, I’ve found that diner signs work really well. They go with most décor, save an Asian aesthetic, and brings a bit of Americana to the home front. It’s definitely one of the best investments that someone could make in terms of getting their first piece of wall art.
U.S. Route 66 (also known as the Will Rogers Highway after the humorist, and colloquially known as the “Main Street of America” or the “Mother Road”) was a highway in the U.S. Highway System. One of the original U.S. highways, Route 66, US Highway 66, was established on November 11, 1926. However, road signs did not go up until the following year.[1] The famous highway originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km)[2]. It was recognized in popular culture by both a hit song and a television show in the 1950s and 1960s. More recently, U.S. Route 66 was referenced in the 2006 Pixar animated film Cars.
Route 66 underwent many improvements and realignments over its lifetime, changing its path and overall length. Many of the realignments gave travelers faster or safer routes, or detoured around city congestion. One realignment moved the western endpoint further west from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.
Route 66 was a major path of the migrants who went west, especially during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, and supported the economies of the communities through which the road passed. People doing business along the route became prosperous due to the growing popularity of the highway, and those same people later fought to keep the highway alive even with the growing threat of being bypassed by the new Interstate Highway System.
US 66 was officially removed from the United States Highway System on June 27, 1985[3] after it was decided the route was no longer relevant and had been replaced by the Interstate Highway System. Portions of the road that passed through Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, and Arizona have been designated a National Scenic Byway of the name “Historic Route 66″. It has begun to return to maps in this form. Some portions of the road in southern California have been redesignated “State Route 66″, and others bear “Historic Route 66″ signs and relevant historic information. You can still find all the old route 66 reproduction tin signs still around.
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Paul Teutul Jr., a.k.a. – Junior or Paulie – was born with sheet metal in his
blood. From the age of 12, he spent his summers at his father’s steel business, learning all the skills of fabrication that he would later use building motorcycles. While in high school, Junior also took part in a Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCE) program, which allowed him to further hone his craft.
Soon after graduation, Paul Jr. went to work for his father’s business, becoming head of the railing shop. As his father began to spend more time building motorcycles for pleasure, he approached his son to assist. It was then that Paul Snr. recognised his son’s design and fabrication talent, and with his blessing, Junior left the rail shop to help establish Orange County Choppers as a business in 1999.
That year, the father-and-son team gave their bikes their debut in Daytona to massive interest, and they’ve never looked back, With Paul Jr. as the chief designer and fabricator, and with Paul Snr. lending his considerable business acumen, OCC is unstoppable.
He was going to give it away.
Or maybe “give it back” is a better way of putting it.
Chalk up an outfield assist “It just seems strange to have the car companies in trouble,” he told me this past week. “The Big Three, where would this city be without them? I mean, my father came from the old country and got a job at Ford’s. It put food on our table. “It’s scary to think that any of those carmakers could go away.”
So Ilitch told his people to thank the potential paying customers, but to say that the centerfield fountain this year was spoken for. It would be the feature site for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.
For free.
No charge.
Not one penny.
“It’s just a small opportunity to respond to what’s happening,” Ilitch said, embarrassed by the attention.
There’s nothing small about it. Every business has been affected by the collapsing economy; baseball teams are no exception. Walking away from a couple million dollars is not considered a wise financial move. Who turns away paying customers? In this case, Ilitch did. Because sometimes it’s about the where and the who, not just the how much.
A message from the ballclub “I thought for a few weeks before deciding,” Ilitch admitted. “I didn’t want to offend anybody. I didn’t want to put off the foreign carmakers. And I didn’t want people to think we couldn’t sell the fountain. As a businessman, you do worry about those things. “But I finally said, ‘The heck with it.’ I want to do something to help.” So starting with the home opener this Friday afternoon, the Chrysler, General Motors and Ford logos will be on an equal plane above the fountain. And beneath those logos will be a few new words: “The Detroit Tigers support our automakers.” It may be as close to a social statement as centerfield has ever made.
Visitors in Detroit for this weekend’s Final Four may think our small, thriving downtown looks a lot like other cities’ downtowns. But there is something different beneath the surface. Here, we construct in the face of adversity. We build on hope. Pure investors will tell you a city with rampant unemployment, enormous budget shortfalls, a troubled school system and a laughable city council is not a place to put your money. We do it anyhow. We do it because we love our past and we believe in our future. We do it because the alternative would be to close shop altogether. We do it because last week there were stories about the gleaming new Yankee Stadium, which cost $1.5 billion and has seats as high as $2,625 a game — and here is Ilitch giving away his fountain for free.
Detroit may be the new home of the bumpy ride, but as the Three Musketeers once discovered, it’s a little smoother when you grab hands with others. Think about that the next time a home run sends that fountain shooting up to those logos. Sometimes it really is all for one and one for all.
In THE RIDE OF A LIFETIME, Paul Teutul Sr. tells his story of how he overcame extremely tough
challenges both in his personal life and during his 28 years in the iron business to create a successful family business that is predicated on dedication, devotion, passion, hard work, love and honesty.
Since founding Orange County Choppers in Upstate New York in 1999, Teutul has grown the family business from a hobby into a 70-person-plus operation that produces and sells 150 custom bikes a year at retail prices starting at $30,000 and quickly escalating to six figures. Paul Sr. and his hard working, dedicated team not only sell their custom designed choppers from their world headquarters in Newburgh, New York, but throughout a dealership network in the U. S. and abroad. With unrelentless passion, creativity, and dedication to excellence, Paul Teutul Sr. and his sons build some of the best custom-made choppers in the world. Since 2002, he and his business have been the subject of the hit TLC show “American Chopper.” One of the newest tin signs out for the American Chopper fans.
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