So…we hit 500 Facebook Likes! Someone has won our coolest sign – the Stromberg 97 Sales & Service rusty lazer-cut sign. $99.95 worth to be exact. And the winner is….Nick Hooks from New York. Please contact us so we can get it to you. PLUS, if your name is Stefan Hokuf you just won a Stromberg License Plate Frame. Tell us your address, guys and stay tuned for more Prize Draws.
Golly, what a week. We launched our www.facebook.com/stromberg97 Monster Give-away expecting a few more Likes on our Facebook page, but didn’t honestly expect the avalanche of Likes we saw last week. Thanks, thanks and thanks again to everyone who took the time to Like us. Some are folks we know, but the vast majority are new Stromberg friends from all over the world, and that’s what we’re especially pleased about. According to the FB Likes clicker, we’re heading for 500 with a vengeance. Some prizes have already been mailed out. But there’s a stack more to be won. Here are the latest prize winners. If you’re these guys, make contact with a shipping address and we’ll get your swag off to you soon!
151-200 License Frame winner… Clay Blythe (186)
201-250 License Frame winner… Wolfgang Griesmann (230)
251-300 License Frame winner… Dan Wolff (257)
301-350 License Frame winner… Murray Anderson (346)
351-400 License Frame winner… James Antonowch (353)
401-450 License Frame winner… Zach Suhr (211)
0-200 Cap winner… Tony Hills (76)
0-250 Black sign winner… Derek Frazier (165)
0-300 T-shirt winner… Phil Hutty (246)
0-400 Beanie hat winner… Willem Hoffer (81)
Eagle eyed readers will have noticed that the 401-450 winner was number 211. That’s because Facebook does some weird stuff on the Likes counter. They say we have 492 Likes. But we’ve faithfully listed every single one and we make it 399. So we drew the last one from the full 0-399 to make it fair.
So, we’re closing in on 500 Likes this week. That’s a cool Stromberg 97 heavy metal rusty sign (see above) ready to be shipped to the lucky draw winner. Plus of course, another Stromberg License Plate Frame for the 450-500 group. Thanks again, especially for all the messages of goodwill and kind words about our carbs, linkages and other stuff.
Here’s a thing. As I write this we have nearly 2000 people on our e-mailing list. Over 800 followers on twitter. 1000s of page views every month on our blog, the Stromberg Bulletin. But just 153 Likes on Facebook. We appreciate that support, of course. But it’s time to make some new friends. How? Bribery, that’s how. We’re giving away a load of Free Stuff. Stromberg license plate frames, signs, T-shirts, caps, beanies and yes, three new Stromberg 97s of your choice – even chrome.
Here’s how we’re going to shake it down. We’ve set targets up to 1000 Likes on the Stromberg97 Facebook page, each matched with great free draw prizes. Every Like has a number, from Robin Larripa (1, our first ever Facebook Like).
www.random.org is where we’ll pick our winning numbers. And if your number is drawn, we’ll ship the prize to you anywhere in the world. The license frame winners are drawn from the most recent 50 Likes (eg, 1-50 or 101 to 150) and the other prizes are drawn from all our Likes so far.
Prize winners will be announced on Facebook and Twitter, and you have 14 days to contact us with you choice/shipping address. If we don’t hear from you, we’ll redraw and so on.
So…Tell your hot rod & custom friends to LIKE us! The sooner we hit 1000, the sooner someone’s going to win three new 97s… And it could be YOU! Just one more thing. We’re already at 153 Likes if you’re these ladies and gents, please contact us soon to claim your prizes. CONGRATS.
0-50 License Frame winner… Ray Combs (23)
51-100 License Frame winner… Ryan Morgan (55)
101-150 License Frame winner… Justin Hocking (117)
0-100 T-shirt winner… Estelle Bilson-Booker (77)
Terms & Conditions? Not many. You must be Liking Stromberg97 on Facebook at the time of claiming your prize. Prizes aren’t negotiable. I’m in charge. And one more thing. We do check our Likers so don’t ask your mom, your Aunt Bessie and all 56 nephews to Like us just to up your chances. That’s plain greedy. And a touch sad…
Well, it started with a photo emailed over by our Arizona-based carb consultant Norm Schenck. So he’s visiting up in Oregon and he’s found this cool museum and took a picture of a Stromberg-equipped (five 97s!) crazy engine we’ve never seen before and couldn’t identify. What’s to do, but delve further? We googled it, found the place and emailed ’em. Ken Olsson, Museum Coordinator came back to us with all the info we needed plus more incredible pictures.
The motor? A Ranger aircraft engine, which apparently was a popular and relatively low cost (ie. Army surplus) heap-o-horsepower in the late 40’s and early 50’s. What’s really cool is that the Ranger engine is designed for inverted installation. So in the race car it was installed upside down (!) with a dry sump oil system to make an automotive drive train possible. Hence that giant oil tank in the engine bay. Ken sent more pics of the race-car plus a picture of the motor in full aero trim, with propellor for comparison. And the car owner/builder? Step forward Cliff Nelson, a man of vision and no shortage of automotive engineering skill, if you ask me. All we know about ‘Wild Bill Hyde’ is that he drove seven NASCAR races in 1955 and 1956…so we can assume he was a hired gun. I guess if you want to be called ‘Wild Bill’, driving an inverted aero-engined race car with no floor boards is a great place to start. Hickok managed it and all he had was a short temper…..We salute you ‘Wild Bill’, whoever you were.
Their antique automobiles vary from 1899 to the 1960’s, but mostly, from the “Golden Age of Transportation” – 1920’s, 30’s, and 40’s. Going by their events calendar, It looks like there’s always plenty to fun to be had. They fly the old planes, drive the cars, and even have their own Youtube channel (search for WAAAM Museum ), all of which makes them much smarter than us…..
Bob Denton sent us a cool picture of his flathead motors – one with Stromberg carbs. “Here is my flathead with three Stromberg 97’s on an Evans manifold. The heads are custom by Big Boys”, he said. Ok, I thought. Got me there. Never heard of ’em! I better find out more..
“Big Boy heads were made in Bakersfield, California”, says Bob, “by a company called CMC Engineering. I do not believe there are more than a dozen sets of these heads around. As you can see, they are quite thick due to the increased cooling capacity and they have a Ford V8 60 type water manifold on them. The company is gone. I bought these in the early nineties along with a new French block, pistons, 4” crank, and everything I needed to assemble a mean flathead. I never got around to it. And I still haven’t. However, I’ve decided to use the heads on the Mercury because I wanted to use the Evans intake with the Strombergs and Evans didn’t run a fan/generator bracket on the front of the manifold. As with all 8BA heads, the water port precludes the use of a side/head mounted generator. I am still debating this intake. I may wind up, if I stay with Evans, putting the generator low right and running a a separate belt off the crank for it.
The 8BA in my roadster is my prized engine, but it runs two DCOE Webers. The engine itself is an “overbuilt” flathead. Chevy valve seats, big valves reinforced bottom end, etc. The blower is by Jerry Magnuson. It was designed by him to go on a SBC. Jerry’s friend Tom Roberts made the pieces to put his regular (conventional) blowers on flatheads. The many pieces needed to put this blower on my flathead were made for me by Roberts. Again, this is probably a one-off. Quite honestly, I’m terrified to start it for fear I’ll blow it up. I have that much money invested in it. And I’m getting close to it being ready. Clive, I love flatheads. Always have. My first flathead was in a 1940 Ford Deluxe Coupe I bought in 1956 for $24.00 and drove it home. My mother had a fit. How could I waste my money?”