From SunRay’s website:
This 20′ vardo is off-grid ready. Solar panels run a high-efficiency solar refrigerator and 12-volt lighting. The wood-fired heater heats 14 gallons of hot water while it heats your home. A propane stove and oven additionally warm this tiny home when you make tea or bake.
Our neighbor Todd Beeson getting ready for opening day. His truck is unique: a 1957 Chevy 2-ton Apache that he completely rebuilt. It’s got a chain-driven winch that operates off the boom. It looks like it might be a good crab (Dungeness) season this year.
Scanned from an old postcard
I stopped by Jay Nelson‘s house in San Francisco Wednesday on my way to Santa Cruz (to check out the sliding doors on his shop — for the sliding doors I’m about to build on my curved-roof shed), and this was parked out in front. The body is made of wood, and there’s a copper roof which lifts up.
The vehicle is a Subaru Brat (which, in Subaru-ese) stands for “Bi-drive Recreational All-terrain Transporter.” 4-wheel drive.
According to Autoweek:
“The BRAT came with one engine at launch, a 1.6-liter flat four mated to either a four-speed manual or three-speed automatic transmission. Two trim levels were offered, DL and GL. The GL had four headlights, the the DL had two. In 1981 displacement was raised to 1.8 liters while power grew from 67 hp to a whopping 73. In 1983 an optional turbo engine was offered with 93 angry Japanese ponies. Early models had a single-range transfer case; later models came with a dual-range unit. The strange Subaru Baja eventually came to continue the legacy, but only 30,000 were sold in the four years (2003-2006) it was produced.”
We are doing a new book, Hit the Road, Jack: Adventure Rigs, and Jay’s unique vehicles will be featured, along with those of Mike Basich and other creative builders.
Note: if you have anything to contribute, or know of cool road rigs, contact evan@shelterpub.com.
Photo by Chilón Amora
This is in the Wells Fargo headquarters in downtown San Francisco.
Wells Fargo began in San Francisco during the gold rush. It acted as a bank and delivery service for miners looking to strike literal gold.
It cost quite a lot of money to transport goods before railroads. In 1867, it would have cost $300 — $7,352 in 2015 dollars — to ride the stagecoach from Sacramento to Omaha, according to an advertisement from the era.
Wells Fargo was able to transfer money and goods quickly and reliably using the stagecoaches. The bank claims that its coaches were made using only the finest materials of the time.
The main builder of these stagecoaches, Abbot & Downing Co., hand assembled the coaches from a variety of woods and rimmed the wheels with iron. It created a suspension system of leather to make the ride more comfortable for passengers crossing deserts and mountains.…
When workers were done with the stagecoaches, they would weigh 2,500 pounds, about as much as a 2016 Toyota Prius C.
The stagecoaches covered 3,000 miles from the West Coast to Nebraska. Once railroads spanning the width of the country were introduced in 1869, stagecoaches began falling out of fashion. They continued serving areas not reachable by rail after that, and Wells Fargo spun off its delivery company in 1905.…
Matty Goldberg and I took the Wall Street ferry to Red Hook (Brooklyn); It was about 85 degrees. We wandered around for a while, then got some cold drinks and sat on a door stoop, talking about publishing, books, and printing. We spotted this Lincoln, which has been identified by a car aficionado (see Maui Surfer’s comment) as a 1957 Lincoln Premiere.
This was on the side of a spiffy Greyhound bus outside the Javits Center yesterday. I didn’t know there were still any Greyhounds.
This apparition came roaring down Bleeker Street last night with a rumble like 3 Harleys. Everyone was dumfounded. I ran to catch up with it, tried to see inside through tinted glass and couldn’t see a driver. An Elon Musk experiment?
I said to another guy, “Was there a driver?”
He said, “I certainly hope so.”
When I enlarged a shot from the rear, it turned out to be a Lamborghini. License plate: 61666, prompting one guy to speculate it was a car of Beelzubub. Wikipedia: “…The number 666 is purportedly used to invoke Satan.”
Look at that bilateral symmetry! Parked on the street in Berkeley