Cupholder problem solved?

I must have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, so pardon the snark, but commercialize that?  It's two $3 bicycle water bottle cages and a $5 piece of HDPE sheet.  I guess if my coffee is leaking down the side a little bit the carpet can soak it up, so that's a feature.  It's unclear how he has attached the little tangs on the bottom of the water bottle cages to the HDPE sheet, but HDPE is known for its tendency not to stick to anything and I don't see any mechanical fasteners so I'm worried about that part.  The cages can be bent wider or squeezed narrower to accommodate any size cup until the cheap aluminum breaks at the welds.  It'll take two hands to adjust.  Who holds the coffee while you're adjusting it?

I think I'll drink my coffee first and then drive. Beverages have never been an integral part of driving a sports car for me anyway. I'll pop a water bottle and whatever I think I'll need into a small bag and toss it behind the seats.  I can drink when I stop to pee.

As a side note, when I look inside cars in the parking lot what I usually see in cup holders is: loose change, sunglasses, wadded up tissues, janky old face masks, and cell phones.  I rarely see a cup.

I think mister sourpuss needs a nap... I'll go do that now.

i agree with @JMM (Michael) about the quality along with the look and lack of being practical of that invention....but,as always IMHO,  i think it is nice to have a practical cup holder for those long drives between hydration stops (and females do as well, just sayin')....i like my solution to the cup holder problem...cheap, easy and tinker free

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You fellows could be a tad hasty, here.

That plastic sheeting looks sturdier than the floor pans in my car - it's certainly twice as thick. And it doesn't rust.

I'm considering permanently installing them and throwing away the cup holder part.

And if you're driving a Speedster correctly, no bottle is going to stay in any cupholder for long.

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20 ouncer between the legs works for me...not so much for hot coffee..

It is a great idea for sure... and can be modified. Thanks for posting.

A roll of Duct tape for me!  The tape is slightly sticky on the sides of the roll. It is like velcro on the carpet. And let's face it Duct tape is great to have with you anyway. I have never had a cup of coffee flip out of the tape roll and spill

I remember the good old days when people didn't have to have a drink with them at all times or strap one to you to cover a 15 minute walk .... don't ever remember my Dad or Mom having to have coffee in the car.

If we grab a coffee during a 3 hour drive, I have to wait an hour and a half to drink it or I have to pee and I hate stopping (I'm a male after all!) My wife always has a water bottle, when did it start?

Cory...Thanks for the info !  Those are are very close to being good ! I've looked at a lot of cup holders and none of them are perfect. There's always one or more drawbacks. To add to the problem, a Speedster is one of the more difficult cars to find something that works  well in them. What I have found is when I find one (or make one) that works pretty good, it always has drawbacks. Usually it's with ingress/egress of the driver or passenger. I have one coming out of a CNC machine shop this week that I would like four of you to keep, test and evaluate. So far Paul Ellis and Jim Vickers have volunteered and asked for black ones. It will take a little "sand" to take on this test because it will require cutting a slot in your door panel or mounting it under the edge of your dash. This means that some skills will be required to install it. I have no photos yet but will this next week. Again , Cory, thanks for your input.............Bruce

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Family road trip in my dad's '52 Buick.

The Fireball straight eight returned eight miles per gallon, with the two-speed Dynaflow - if you didn't get held up in traffic too much. So, range on the 20-gallon tank was a theoretical 160 miles.

The limit on highways, once you got out of town, was 50 mph, but you were usually doing less in traffic. You could pass on those three-lane highways, but you had to choose your moment, especially on a summer weekend when all the Sunday drivers were out. The middle lane served as a passing lane for both directions, which, at one point in the history of highway design, seemed like a good, efficient idea.

Coaxing the Buick up to passing speed could take some doing. The speedometer would sometimes edge up to 65 mph - genuinely thrilling in that car, with its mechanical, unasssisted drum brakes. You could floor the pedal and hope for a downshift, but it was a safer bet to move the column shifter into Low.

We would fill up when the gauge showed half (because you never knew), so that was about every two hours. By that time, everyone wanted to stretch his legs, anyhow. You could tell the attendant 'ten gallons of regular', or you could just let him keep the whole four dollars. The more cavalier thing was to say 'fill it, and keep the change'. Keeping the change was always understood if you also asked him to check under the hood. After he finished cleaning and wiping the windshield, he'd bring the dipstick back to the driver's window, supported in one hand with a rag, to show you where the level was. If you were wise, though, you would have topped up at home before you left, when you were checking the radiator and topping up the battery cells with distilled water.

While we were stopped, I'd usually ask my mom for a nickel for the coke machine. They were red, and every station had one, usually right out front, next to the door into the station office. You'd drop in the nickel, and push the grey metal handle down until you heard the bottle drop. If you finished your coke before it was time to get back in the car, there was a wooden crate next to the machine for the empties.

The Buick had no cup holders, but it had four ashtrays and a cigarette lighter, like every other car.

I think cars may have started growing cup holders when the ashtrays went away.

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@Sacto Mitch posted:

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Family road trip in my dad's '52 Buick.

The Fireball straight eight returned eight miles per gallon, with the two-speed Dynaflow - if you didn't get held up in traffic too much. So, range on the 20-gallon tank was a theoretical 160 miles.

The limit on highways, once you got out of town, was 50 mph, but you were usually doing less in traffic. You could pass on those three-lane highways, but you had to choose your moment, especially on a summer weekend when all the Sunday drivers were out. The middle lane served as a passing lane for both directions, which, at one point in the history of highway design, seemed like a good, efficient idea.

Coaxing the Buick up to passing speed could take some doing. The speedometer would sometimes edge up to 65 mph - genuinely thrilling in that car, with its mechanical, unasssisted drum brakes. You could floor the pedal and hope for a downshift, but it was a safer bet to move the column shifter into Low.

We would fill up when the gauge showed half (because you never knew), so that was about every two hours. By that time, everyone wanted to stretch his legs, anyhow. You could tell the attendant 'ten gallons of regular', or you could just let him keep the whole four dollars. The more cavalier thing was to say 'fill it, and keep the change'. Keeping the change was always understood if you also asked him to check under the hood. After he finished cleaning and wiping the windshield, he'd bring the dipstick back to the driver's window, supported in one hand with a rag, to show you where the level was. If you were wise, though, you would have topped up at home before you left, when you were checking the radiator and topping up the battery cells with distilled water.

While we were stopped, I'd usually ask my mom for a nickel for the coke machine. They were red, and every station had one, usually right out front, next to the door into the station office. You'd drop in the nickel, and push the grey metal handle down until you heard the bottle drop. If you finished your coke before it was time to get back in the car, there was a wooden crate next to the machine for the empties.

The Buick had no cup holders, but it had four ashtrays and a cigarette lighter, like every other car.

I think cars may have started growing cup holders when the ashtrays went away.

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Mitch, I could read your reminiscences all DAY!

Beautiful, evocative writing!  For a little boy, was there a more delightful sound than that of a Coke bottle clinking out of one of those tall red chests?

Thanks for the memories!

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Cory, reminiscing is my way of checking how many brain cells are still working.

These days, the gauge reads about half.

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i remember those coke/pepsi machines at gas staition,,some were vertical big handle others were horizontal and slide the bottle out,,put the empty in wood rack,,could get .02 for it

i was a pump jockey for Shell in mid 60s before Nam...we checked the oil, cleaned glass etc..never got a tip except for 1 guy in back seat,,had a Rolls with red S on plate for Senator from somewhere,,,this was right outside DC lines in MD. gave me a buck..i remember it well..

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Bob, maybe you would have had better luck at a Texaco station.

You can trust your car to the man who wears the star:

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In Canada, anyone who watched Hockey Night in Canada on CBC saw Murray Westgate do commercials for Imperial Esso.  He become an icon up here for his sales pitches for ESSO products.

Hockey Night in Canada, every Saturday night, was a well watched program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...hannel=GlenbowMuseum

Here's one featuring a 356 at the beginning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...hannel=GlenbowMuseum

@barncobob posted:

i was a pump jockey for Shell in mid 60s before Nam...we checked the oil, cleaned glass etc..never got a tip except for 1 guy in back seat,,had a Rolls with red S on plate for Senator from somewhere,,,this was right outside DC lines in MD. gave me a buck..i remember it well..

I worked at a Mobil station in the early 80s instead of going to college.

It was 56-1/2 hrs/week for $4/hr (all straight-time), and I brought home $350 after taxes every 2 weeks. I believed this to be fair compensation, and all I could hope for in economy of the time. We started at 7:00 and worked until 5:30, with an hour (unpaid) for lunch. I got Wed. afternoons and Sundays off. I changed oil, tires, exhaust, and brakes (occasionally) - it was generally the work nobody else wanted.

Winter was magical - changing big truck tires required laying under the trucks in the snow outside, and every car that went up on the rack had an undercarriage packed with snow. Once the car came inside the door, the race was on - would I be able to drain the oil, hit all the grease zerts, and check the differential fluid before the snowpack dropped on my head in a giant slush-ball? Or would this be like every other day? I remember water actually running out the legs of my pants after gray slush dropped on my head, ran down my back, made its way though my butt-crack, and trickled down the inside of my legs. As I stood there, getting soaked to the bone, every third person would blithely remark, "if it's going to be cold, at least there is snow".  I remember wanting to do them bodily harm, but smiling and saying something equally vacuous.

Slightly better was changing the automatic transmission fluid on a GM car, regardless of the time of year. A drain-plug would have cost an additional $.50 per car, so the General (and Mr. Ford as well) decided that none of us grease monkeys needed one. As such, it was a physical impossibility to do the job without dousing oneself in sticky brown transmission fluid. If I was lucky, there'd be one waiting for me on the rack at 7:00 AM, so I could go through the entire day soaked in oil and smelling like a superfund site. The stink of it wouldn't wash out, though I'd try to scrub it out with dishwashing soap if I had a date that night. My hands had perpetual black deposits in the nailbeds and callouses. No amount of GoJo would touch it. I'd shower every night and again in the morning, but whatever was embedded in my skin discolored the carpets in the house and ruined the sheets on my bed.

I changed more semi and tractor tires (by hand) than I can count. I once had a battery explode in my face while jumping a car. I immediately stuck my face under the garden hose, but the acid ate my shirt off my body. I got another from the house, but was docked for the time. I was glad I wasn't wearing a Jacket because then I'd have needed to buy a new one of those as well. The pants were unscathed because they were 100% poly work pants (the kind that are like wearing chaps made out of garbage bags). I provided my own work clothes. I can't remember ever being warm in the winter.

One summer, I had a radiator blow while I was trying to take the cap off of an overheating car too soon (so I might go to lunch a half-hour late, rather than miss it altogether), and received 2nd degree burns over my entire upper body for my efforts. I got a couple of (unpaid) days off with the burns, but no work-comp. I paid my own medical bills, which amounted to a trip to Tremont Medical Clinic for some gauze and ointment. At least it hadn't ruined any clothes.

All of this happened well before my 19th birthday.

I'd watch "the drive" from 11:00 until 12:00 when Gene Koch ("Gene, Gene, the drive watching machine") was at lunch. Smokes sold for $.35/pack, and I'd fill the car, fetch a pack of L&Ms, and check all 4 tires while Mr. Important sat in his car blowing smoke out the window.

I never, in 3 years of doing this, got a tip from anybody. Not once.

On Christmas Eve (which was a normal work day), Elmer Bruner would bring in a jug of homemade boysenberry wine and we'd drink a bit of it from Dixie cups, but that was it.

There was nowhere to go but up from that job.

Good story Sacto !  My Father sold Buicks back then and many times I would ride along with him on demo's.  That car, if you had a Roadmaster, weighed in at nearly 2.5 tons at the curb.  That smoooooth running straight-8 had twin carburetors and was connected to a Dynaflow transmission. The shift indicator said "PNLDR" not "PRNDL".

Dynafolw's didn't have a torque converter like modern transmissions. The had a fluid coupling that was adopted from a larger version used in WW2 tanks.  A fluid coupling is very simple. To picture what it looked like my father told the client, " imagine cutting a grapefruit in half, carefully carving out all the pulp but leaving all those little separator membranes intact. This you would put inside a ball with a shaft connected to each half of the grapefruit and fill it full of oil. When one side is turned with the motor, the oil would swirl around and get the other half to start spinning too, which turned the driveshaft."!  Of course they slipped like crazy on take off but as you got up to speed, it nearly became hydraulically locked.  Hence, the term Dynaslip" or "Dynaflush" became popular.  I think a guy named Oliver Kelly invented it and was first used in about 1948 by Buick. The transmission only had one planetary gear set inside and that provided Low and Reverse via one clutch and one band. Low was only used when you needed it. Normally you just left it in drive and let it do it's thing to get you up to speed.  At highway speeds that fluid coupling had less slippage  than the torque converters used in, say an Oldsmobile so highway fuel economy was a slightly better in a Buick than an Olds back then.  The dealership where my Father worked had installed a Quart Mason Jar inside the demonstrator car that was connected to the fuel system. My Dad would show the client exactly how much fuel would be used for city driving and highway driving.  Since this dealership sold all GM cars and trucks, they had those jars set up in the Chevy, Olds, Pontiac, Buick and Cadillacs. I was pretty impressive !

Since Dynaflow's didn't give back much braking via engine compression, they, and Cadillac were the only GM cars with 12" diameter hydraulic brakes. the others had 11" or 11.5".  Driving a Dynaflow Buick around town sucked up gas by the gallon but on the highway, they were as good and sometimes better on the mpg but it really depended on the driver.

Ashtrays galore though ! Three in the rear, one right and left and one in the center of the back of the front seat with that "rope" strung all the way across there too. Also clothing hanger hooks with "Hand Loops" for easier ingress/egress. If I recall correctly, the turn signal lever was on the right side of the steering wheel. Also you started the engine by mashing the gas pedal all the way to the floor once you turned the ignition switch to "ON".

Ashtrays....remember them in airplane arm rests. Movie theaters ? Buses ? Doctor's offices ? Beauty Parlors ? Restaurants ?  John Wayne saying "I'd walk a mile for a Camel !"  The midget singing out "Callllll fooooor Phillip Morrrrrris". and coupons too !

Now it's CUP HOLDERS.....Yup !..................Bruce

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@aircooled , here's a video of a drive in a 1952 Buick Super. My dad's was a Special, but very similar to this.

The interior is almost identical, except for the placement of instruments on the dash. You can see the two front ashtrays flanking the radio controls. The rear ashtrays were in the side armrests. Ours was a two-door, so no middle ashtray on the seat back. Somehow, two-door owners had to make do with only four.

The wheel is the same. It was enormous for a reason. You needed the leverage against the manual steering (with that mile-long straight eight up front). Steering inputs needed to be started well in advance of a planned course change.

The car doesn't so much accelerate as gradually gather momentum, like a ship at sea. You can hear all the slippage in the transmission, getting under way from a stop. As you mention, nothing was actually 'slipping' - it was designed to work like that. The design goals, in the power train and suspension, were to make everything as smoove as possible.

I grew up in this car and for some time, this was how I thought all cars should be.

Imagine the slap up the side of the head it was for me the first time I turned the steering wheel of a 1968 BMW 1600 and felt the car - the whole car - suddenly dart in the direction I had moved that wheel. For me, that was it for anything automotive made in Detroit.

I'd like to end this with a little quiz, but Bruce, as the family member of a former Buick dealer, you are disqualified from participating.

What was the purpose of the knob just above the rear-view mirror in the video?

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Well, if the Buick was like my 1946 Ford Business Coupe, turning the knob above the rear view mirror would rotate the radio antenna around to stow down the windshield to fit through the garage door.

Do I win?

@Sacto Mitch posted:

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Bob, maybe you would have had better luck at a Texaco station.

You can trust your car to the man who wears the star:

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I remember wherever you go .... trust Texaco

Then "At Texaco we would like you to come back"  

Did the knob move a radio antenna?

no Texaco,s it was Shell, Sunoco(dial ur octane to 100)Sinclair and Amoco in my town.

Below is a link to my cup holders.

One problem with putting the cup holder in the door panel is that it is not vertical.  Something like a McDonald's or Starbuck cup with a plastic lid will leak on your carpet if full.  I have a coffee stain I need to clean. I think something like a CONTIGO cup with auto-lock nondrip should be used. It might have been better to mount them on a vertical surface in front of the door but I would have to enclose them on the other side.

https://www.speedsterowners.co...up-holders-installed

Michael...I've addressed that, I think,......It's about 17  degrees from vertical.......Bruce

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@Michael McKelvey , you are correct, but the timestamp on your post was nine minutes later than Gordon's, so the judges have awarded him first place.

I've always thought that antenna knob was a Buick exclusive - I'd never noticed it on other cars. '52 was the last year for it, I think, as well as the last year for the straight eight. Time marches on.

Another peculiarity of that car was the vacuum windshield wipers, driven by manifold vacuum, so they sped up as car speed increased. Unfortunately, after about a year, they would quit completely at idle, like when you stopped at a light. In the 1950's, you sort of put up with quirks like that. (Note that in the video, it took four tries for the motor to 'catch'.)

All US makers seemed obsessed with making each year's model as different looking from the previous year as possible. You didn't want your neighbors seeing you driving around with last year's tail lights. Underneath, the chassis, brakes, and suspension may not have changed in a decade, but no one seemed to care much about that.

The body panels on the BMW 2002 were almost identical from the 1967 introduction (in the US) until the last model in 1976. This had the advantage of looking like you were driving a new car, nine years after you drove it off the dealer's lot.

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https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B083HFDQ4L

Here's my contribution to the cupholder problem. Actually for me the "stevia-sweetened Zevia soda problem." The link above is a pair of unobtrusive fold-down cupholders; you may come up with a better idea of where to put them than I did.

My idea was to make them into a little pair of saddlebags to hang over the hump, by the shift lever, and take advantage of how much velcro likes Vintage Speedster carpeting. Cheap, easy project -- just add velcro strips -- completely removable when you get to the show field, out of the way of the doors but within reach, and the cupholders are moderately adjustable for container size.

Please see https://www.flickr.com/gp/farsightful/7P6jS2

Interesting do you have to watch for one to go up ... just kidding of course.

I put 4 of those cupholders in a Vanagon Westfalia I had. Two got screwed right to the side of the plastic shift console for the automatic trans up front.

Two more in back near the seat. They worked great.

My solution.