15 years ago almost to the day (yeah, I know, I'm running a bit late on this article) I fulfilled a child's dream... Ride a 911!

Obviously, that is not a reasonable purchase ; just finding an insurance that accepts you at 26 years old is quite an ordeal! Finally, I only managed to keep that car for a little over a year and a half.

Long story short, late June 2001, I went to Autobase (which became AMS78 since then), in the Paris area, a Porsche specialized garage where a friend of mine (Jérome V.) spotted a vehicle that might scratch that itch of mine... And as you can guess, beginning of July, I drove "Malicia", a 1986 911 3.2L , 1000km back to Southern France! The end of the story?
March 2003, I lost my job, belt-tightening period : I had to sell, reluctantly. At least she went in the hand of an enthusiast, in a heated garage somewhere in Normandy, beside a very lovable Alpine A110 Berlinette...

I sold it back exactly the price I bought it (17.000€), I've not lost a penny at that time ; since then, the prices for these cars has skyrocketed, it would set me back more than double the amount to get one of these today! It is, and will remain, above my pay grade. That's a pity, I would have loved to slip back into one of those bucket seats... Well, it probably wouldn't be the same anyway, nowadays there are speed checking radars everywhere!

Just looking back at these pictures, sounds and smells come back to me... Ok, gotta leave you now, I'm gonne play the Lottery!

September 11th to 15th was the the "Monaco Classic Week", a biennial event in Monte-Carlo, that gathers vintage sail,steam and speedboats.

It's a great opportunity to see a fantastic panel of shiny Rivas and Chris Crafts with their mirror-like varnish, but I was out there to meet John Fildes (from AlbatrossMarine.co.uk) who drove all the way down from UK towing 2 Albatross!

So I was in for a treat, a 45mn spin on-board one of these Albies, propelled at almost 70km/h (peak speed) by the rare Coventry Climax engine fed by two dual-barrel Weber carburetors ; the Albatross might very well have been the smallest boats of the whole event, but they sure were the fastest as well! My back vertebrae will remember this ride for quite a while!
Furthermore, John came with none other than the son of Archie Peace (the original creator of the Albatross)! Great encounter, lots of information, advice, tips and hints... Thanks again guys!

I managed to get a video from that ride at sea, but it doesn't do justice to the sheer speed of the boat and its engine roar : for that matter, the impacts on the waves and the water splashing actually killed my Lumix camera! See you in two years guys? Hopefully I'll join with mine as well!

Quite a big update about the Albatross today : it's going forward, finally!
To begin with, in early June I moved her to my workshop (which I recently refurbished) : I had to install a tow ball on Blue Toad, my VW Rabbit, with which I really have moved everything.
Anyway, the Pacha is finally in a place where I can take care of her, with light, room... Me likey! I've started working on the engine; not that many surprises for now : cylinders look clean, valves aren't seized.
In the other hand, the water inlet tube tube at the bottom of the block crumbled in pieces in my hand, rusted out. Same thing for the brass water tube that diverts part of the water water flow from main gallery towards valve chambers, totally destroyed by oxidization. Well, I'm not too concerned, these parts are available at Small Ford Spares...
But it looks like bits of metal went through the cooling circuit, which the water pump did not appreciate : its impeller lost several teeth in the battle. I'll have to take care of it, but again it shouldn't be an issue, all parts are available : impeller only, repair kit, or full pump exchange, everything's possible. I will also need a new flywheel, this one suffered from the extended stay in water.
I also got my hands on the spare engine Fred kept for me (thanks for your patience buddy!), I'm pretty sure I can make one good engine out of these two. Getting the engine out of the hull was easier than I thought. The small 100E block isn't that heavy... With the help of a friend (thanks David), it came out pretty easily.
The tricky part was to take the prop shaft out of the engine. A wedged assembly, corrosion, concretions on the shaft, et a big brass nut (which you must handle with care because fragile!), and you've got the perfect recipe for a headache.
Finally, by following BN's advices (from the OldSpeedBoats forum), a couple of clamps, a heavy hammer and some patience were enough to free the engine from the shaft.
The next challenge will be to take the rudder out, since its nut is not only rusted but as well pretty much inaccessible... And it must go, unless the prop shaft won't leave either. I think I'll take the hull to sandblasting, but to prevent the blaster from using excessive air pressure (which would buckle the aluminium panels), I want to bring the boat already scraped from most of the bondo+paint layers currently covering it. It's a slow process ; the heat gun is a great tool for that.
In order to sandblast the hull, it also needs to be totally bare from any accessories. Everything must go! So I keep unscrewing stuff... Which is far from easy, since the 100 stainless steel screws had a galvanic reaction with the aluminium hull!
Each one of them is like "welded", and it's a renewed challenge every time to take them out. Any method is good : WD40, impact screwdriver, heat gun, hammer, pneumatic grinder... But at the end of the day, the one that gave the best results is using vise-grips, very tightly tighten on the inside part of the screw (once the nut is removed). Then, with a small back-and-fort movement, the screw gives in... But it take a solid 10mn per screw, and I count 60 of'em just from the aluminium rail around the hull! And you'd better not be claustrophobic : to get access to the front compartment, you need to crawl under the dashboard (being 6ft tall doesn't help, believe me), then slide head first into a 35cm (13.7") hole all the way to the waist ; my shoulders don't even fit in that hole, I need to pass one after the other, with razor-sharp edges all around, no room for my arms, no breathable air... Even though I'm not claustrophobic, I must admit that one night, alone at 1AM, stuck into that compartment, I wasn't feeling that comfortable.

By the way, I made a funny discovery : a series of numbers, handwritten with a lead pencil right below the rivets of the front compartment. I guess these are the riveting order, as written there by an Albatross Marine employee in 1957. And when I see how "easy" it is to get there, I wouldn't be surprised if I was the very first to see that since the boat was built. Touching, no?

So, that's where I've arrived! I often spend my evenings there ("I'm doing my Jethro", kudos to the one who gets the reference), therefore there's actual progress. I hope I'll get it bare by the end of the month, to get it sandblasted. To be continued soon!

Petit voyage dans le temps aujourd'hui, avec 9 cartes postales du même coin de Juan-les-Pins : ce qui aujourd'hui s'appelle le Boulevard Baudouin, ou "Promenade du Soleil" (enfin, son début). Neuf photos, datées de 1903 à 1967, qui permettent de voir l'évolution du lieu...
Cliquez sur la première pour l'agrandir, puis utilisez le bouton next pour passer à la suivante, la date du cliché apparaissant en légende.

A l'occasion, j'irai vous prendre en photo ce qu'est devenu ce quartier aujourd'hui (vous pouvez voir l'endroit dans Google Streetview ici)... Et si je trouve d'autres cartes postales du même lieu, je mettrai à jour cet article, histoire de suivre l'évolution à travers les ages!
Edit 15/06/2011 : Ajout de la photo de 1930 (avec le bus)
Edit 22/07/2011 : Ajout de la photo de 1935
Edit 26/08/2011 : Ajout de la photo de 1967 (en couleurs)

Références :

• Villa El Djezaïr, construite en 1922, inscrite aux bâtiments historiques.
• Galerie du Casino, construite en 1926, inscrite aux bâtiments de France.
• Destruction du Glacier Belge : archives Nice-Matin du 14/08/2003 "Les travaux de démolition de l'ancien Glacier Belge à Juan-les-Pins ont repris depuis 10 jours. [...] Fin des travaux aujourd'hui"..
• Immatriculations des années 30-40

In order to put some updates on the website, I've decided to put online a few pictures of the latest status of the Albatross, more or less like a Log Book. I put all of this jumbled up together, I'll probably update/turn that into a proper article sometime later.

Last post was about the retrieval of the boat in late 2006 (!).
Without getting to much specific about the ins and outs, let's just say that the individual who hosted Pacha (the name of my Albatross!) for that period wasn't such a good friend, and I ended up not being able to visit my boat for 3 years. Anyway. (note for self : always keep an eye on your friends..)
So, three long years later, I finally find a proper trailer, a plot of land to host it, a few pairs of arms, et after a couple of epic conversations, I managed to get the beast back.

But in such a condition!! When I arrived on site, I felt like slapped in the face. I left the boat well protected under a tarpaulin ; I find it back with no protection at all, the engine half-immersed in 30cm of rain water! Not even mentioning the engine, I hope the weight of all that water didn't damage the hull...

The Pacha is towed to a more welcoming location, where I can give her some attention (thank you buddy for the hosting, even temporary).
The future is unsure, I'll have to move again the boat by the end of May, and to this day I haven't found a proper solution... It's not impossible that I'll have to sell it at some point.

So, here is the condition in which I found Pacha : the paint is chipping off, burn by the sun ; it even comes off by large bits on the inside - probably due to a bad preparation of the base before painting, aluminium is a bitch to paint properly. The extended stay under water obviously didn't help...
The engine was immersed in 30cm of water, but fortunately it didn't get inside. The engine turns freely, and its oil looks clean. The outside has suffered, but the whole block probably can be saved. Fred, whom I originally bought the boat from, still has a spare complete engine block, so I'm not too concerned by that aspect ; lots of work, but nothing impossible. I start on the hull, scrapping the paint off, by any means. I'll need a couple of spare hands, it's a looooooong job... On the engine side : I remove as many external part as I can. Lots of cleaning has already been done, everything was covered with paint chips... Plus, the engine compartment was obviously colonized by several generations of snails! So, that's the situation... It's progressing, but not as fast as I would like to. To be continued soon... I hope!

Here's a gem I found on the brilliant website British Pathé... A 3 minutes long video about water-skiing in England, in July 1955!
Even more than by the vintage swimsuits dressed pinups, I'm interested by the boat used in that video : an Albatross Sport, just like mine!

Extract from commentary : "The comparatively modern sport of water skiing [...] started in the luxury resorts of the French Riviera, taken out on the wide open water spaces of Australia and America, this exhilarating sport has reach Britain.".

As a matter of fact, water-skiing started around 1920, in Juan-les-Pins. Which is, basically, down the street where I live!

Extract from commentary : "The boats used are especially made for the sport and cost 500£ each. They are powered by only 10 horses power motor engines, yet they are the fastest crafts of their type of float.".

About the announced price of 500£ : it originally sounded quite low to me, but the National Archives currency converter reckons it would correspond to 8710£ nowadays, i.e. around 10.000€!

Finally, the so glamour touch : noticed the blond water-skier at the beginning of the video? Her look doesn't ring a bell?

It probably isn't a coincidence, since Marylin Monroe was then at the top of her career, her movie "The Seven Year Itch" (with the famous scene of the white dress over a subway grate) being released in June '55, just the month before this video was shot!

Yet another Juan-les-Pins postcard... From a graphic standpoint, it's not that interesting, not a lot details, as the colorization process masked many of them.

No, one this one, the back side is more interesting : this postcard was sent by Lieutenant J. Robinson, an american soldier then deployed here, to his parents in Baltimore (Maryland).

And the date sends a shiver through my spine : the US Army Postal Service stamps shows August 9th 1945.
That very same day, the Bockscar bomber (see nose art on the right) dropped the Fat Man atomic bomb onto Nagasaki, instantly killing 30.000, and many more later due to the effects of radiations...


War in Europe has only been over for 3 months, and Japan will surrender 6 days later, marking the end of WW2. The handwritten text has a different after taste in this context : Obvisouly, this soldier ignored everything about what was about to happen on the other side of the globe, and even if he had, the army censors verifier all letters against leaks.
At the same moment, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was in Nagasaki, just a few kilometers away from the hypocenter of the explosion. Three days earlier, he also was in Hiroshima on a business trip... He managed to survive both bombs ; he passed away a few months ago, last January.

The Fat Man type bomb was later tested on the Bikini atoll, which gave its name to the swimsuit I was telling you about recently, which was marketed as follow : "the bikini, the first anatomic bomb" (sic)...

The excellent website "Le Blog Moto" (The Moto Blog) has just released an article about the RT 125 the history of DKW.

Have a look here : (the article is in french)
http://www.leblogmoto.com/2008/10/08/dkw-rt-125-une/

Enjoy!

It's been a long time... So this time, it's not one, but two postcards from Juan-les-Pins!
Yeah, yeah, I know, I turn mono-maniacal ; just another of my obsessive compulsive disorders!

Those are two pictures of center Juan-les-Pins' main crossroad : the "Carrefour de la Joie" ("Crossroad of Joy" : WTF?!) ; but, moreover, the two photos were taken merely under the same angle, one at daylight, the other at night! That's how I could make the above banner, overlaying both pictures... Giving this unreal result, where daylight shadows and kids in swimsuits meet night's men in suits and neon glowing lights... The right picture above (at night) is dated from 1958 on its back ; unfortunately no date for the left one (by day).
But looking at it closely, I found a poster announcing a concert on Saturday September 1st ; and September 1st was a Saturday in 1951, '56, and '62 only. Based on the vehicles we can see (lots of american cars, Renault 4 CV, Vespa and Lambretta scooters, Fiat 500), I believe the picture was taken in 1956...
Note, on the night picture, a Rumi Formicchino parked along the sidewalk on the right... Quite rare!

Identical angle and two years difference for these two pictures, one of which travelled to Belgium, to end up on my desk half-a-century later... And finally be scanned and posted to the Internet. Wow...

Hey, there's a sign announcing the Crazy Horse's Strip-Tease Girls at the Casino... Damn, 52 years late!

Here is the UFO I met a few days ago, 2 streets from my place...

That was the very first time I saw a real one, I even made a sharp U-turn to park my car and shoot a few pictures of this beauty! Sorry for the poor quality of the pics, I only had my mobile phone...

Come on, I'm sure you recognized it...



A DMC12 DeLorean!

You may think it's gray; but actually, it's unpainted, uncoated brushed stainless stell!
I looked for more information on this model (have a look at its history on Wikipedia, it's really worth reading!), I learnt it's only been built from 1981 to 1983, in Ireland ; 7.000 models or so still exist today. Designed by Giugiaro, fitted with airbags, shock-absorbing bumpers, it was designed to be environment friendly and security oriented... Sounds very 2007, right?

Looking for info, I found on the Net Stainless Wings, the French DeLorean Association. With a very active forum on which even found the owner of the DeLorean I shot!

Aaaah, it must be great to cruise with it... On the highway... at 88 miles an hour.

Continuing over the "Fifties Deco" theme, here is one of my favorite objects ever, found on eBay (as usual...), for around 20 euros, and which is now my master piece on my bookshelf...

This is a Calor fan, probably built late 50's, early 60's. The propeller is chrome plated, without the mere rust spot : things were built to last by that time... The leg is made of marbled Bakelite...
So, more or less, here is a pure incarnation of what I love in the production of this era!

If you like it, do a search on eBay, I see pretty often this kind of items, at very affordable prices...

And guess what, the icing on the cake? It works perfectly under 220VAC, and it's absolutely silent... So, despite its highly respectable age, I use it every summer!

Click on the picture to see full sized...

Edit 15/03/2016 : Romain, who's a ShamWerks reader, indicated that this fan date probably from the 30's, most probably before 1937 as Calor started to date its devices from then on. By that time the whole network was running 110V (with few exceptions). By the end of the 60's one could give his devices to EDF (that which from Electricité De France) to get them converted to 220V (they would then received a small sticker showing the conversion).
Thanks a lot Romain for these informations!

Yet another vintage Albatross picture, found on VintageSkiBoats.com...



But not the least, not less than 2 Albies towed by a VW Split pickup, painted with the name of the company - Albatross Marine Ltd.! Isn't it a pure collector??