A Barnfind For This olelongrooffan

"This book is for anyone who has ever owned, driven, or yearned for a sublime automobile. It is for the brotherhood of those who are stirred by the beauty of a Grand Marque, by the excellence of an honest design made real in metal, or by the exasperating, exciting individuality of a thoroughbred performer."*

As anyone Counting Along With Me knows this olelongrooffan is Car Crazy.

As I have mentioned numerous times in past blogs, I am confident my brothers and I inherited this passion from my Dad, TheGentlemanFarmer.

I mean with 9 kids, and another on the way, he was able to procure this 1932 Ford Model A while living in a huge *ss house in Shrewsbury, Mo, working at a printing company and driving two VW microbuses.

Later, after a move to the Ozarks, he was able to acquire this super cool longroof along with an Optimist pram sailboat. This 1967 Ford Country Squire, by and away, is the foremost reason my moniker is 'longrooffan'.
And I can remember taking a cross diocese trip, one in which TheGentleManFarmer did not let my schoolwork get in the way of my education, and we spotted this wrecked Chevy Nova on the hook. We were traveling, for whatever reason, in my maternal grandmother's 62 Chevy Bel Air and when this future longrooffan spotted it across from Miller Motors in Mountain View, TheGentlemanFarmer turned around so I could check it out further. By the way, he did, too. I am sure you observant Counters Out There will recognize the long sleeve, button down collar oxford shirt this olelongrooffan is sporting in this photograph as the type of fashion statement I still make.

Of course, a few years later this happened: and the GentlemanFarmer, in his unimitatable way bestowed this wonder of delights
to this olelongrooffan for my participation in the adventures of that Sweptline Series Dodge pickup.

Well, one of the photographs that brings me the fondest photographic memories of my youth is the one shown below. Yeah, me reading The Treasury of the Automobile on the floor of his den at 1822 S. National, Springfield, Missouri.

I even included a reference to it on my first blog over at Hooniverse, 'How This Hoon Became A Hoon'.

By the way Counters, it is 8:15 pm EDT and if you have been following along with me, a huge double prop military helicopter just flew north along my beach.

So, anyway, much speculation has been put forth toward the location of this copywritten in 1961 coffee table sized book, but to no final avail.

Now if any of you Counters have clicked on any of the blogs on the blog list just to the right, you will notice that the vast majority are automobile related (you should see my favorites on my home page).

One of them is one I call "More Car Stuff", although his title is "Tamerlane's Thoughts". It is an excellent, insightful blog, not just obscure cars but food and geopolitics to boot! Anyway, Kashgar216 did a blog a couple weeks ago about Powell's Books up in Portland, Oregon. He mentioned he found a great automotive related book he found there from his youth. He also threw down the gauntlet in that he was headed back up there from Northern Californey and if his followers wanted anything, we had better get there before he did. Turns out Powells.com was having a huge sale and it was liquidation time!

So, this olelongrooffan accepted that challenge and headed over to that site and I am so grateful to Kashgar for directing me that way but especially for a heretofore unknown Steve for doing this in 1967:Seems Steve had bequested his father a copy of 'The Treasury of the Automobile' for his Dad's birthday and now, some 43 years later, Powells wants to sell that copy to me.
Well, Counters, the sale price of that highly desirable book was a belief defying
$5.20 plus a whole $6.98 shipping and handling.
You got it....a total of $12.18 for one of the most formative books of my youth!

Yeah Counters, this olelongrooffan finally got my barn find, even though it is of the print variety.

So, this olelongrooffan ponyed up that $12.18 and today a driver of a Big Brown Truck delivered that book to the Taj Mahal.
And even though a buck or two is nearly impossible to come by these days,
this olelongrooffan is going to have a great time reading the sans-sarif 1961 generated font on this ole book as I continue to

Celebrate Life.

Be back in a couple weeks!

*from the forward of The Treasury of The Automobile.

Just Trying Something New

Found this over at the Jetpack's blog.


And in this way, I can

Celebrate Life.

More Stuff I Like

While I am waiting for the fries to cook in the oven and the grill to warm up to cook that steak, I thought I would try to post more stuff I like. Let's see if it works.
driving the old van with a shirt and tie on.

think car seats will fit in this longroof?

I love this longroof.

Only one, Privately built, of these was ever built. At least in the civilian version.

Ketel One, Rocks

Gotta love him smoking in this ad.

Yet another Cool VW ad.

Citroen DS21 grill. Would love this in my home.

Just a cool old truck

Would love to see one of these in person.

Saw these on several blogs. Apparently, all the rage in Japan these days.

my brother Tom used to have a 65 just like this. Forest Green


My brother Jim's current bus and grandson.

Well it worked, so here goes

Since I was able to figure out how to add links, demonstrated in my previous post, I have gained a bit of confidence and will move on in my short blogging career.

I will be expanding on each of the following topics in coming posts.

I am a 48 yo male, divorced, have a beautiful daughter who lives with her mom and her other dad in Naples, Florida.

My entire career has been in the construction industry, but last month was laid off from my job as a Sales Manager for an interior home design center. Yeah, I know, I couldn't have been much of a Sales Manager if I couldn't make the place succeed but the economy is just that bad in new home construction. You can see the website here. But I digress.

As of this coming weekend, I will have moved from Sl-Ocala, Florida to Ormond Beach, Florida, which is just north of Daytona Beach. I am in the approval process of leasing a small condo, about 5 blocks from the beach. It is really deco, well as deco as the early 70's can be, and I hope I get it. The price is right and there is always an ocean breeze.

I am from a large family, scattered all over the world, but with 1/2 living in, or based out of, Florida. I am originally from the Ozark Mountain region of Southwest Missouri. The Beverly Hillbilly's were from this area also. Beautiful Countryside.

Finally, the name of my blog, ByTheNumbers. I am a car fanatic.

Not just any cars,

not really muscle cars



this is the only pic of a muscle car I have in my library, but I kind of like this one)

not really big ass trucks



That is my nephew, the Kid, in this picture. I have a white F150, of the same vintage but 2wd, he and his dad were using at the time. James nicknamed it Casper, "John-John, that thing has 350,000 miles on it!! It should be dead!! It's still alive, it must be a ghost, we should call it Casper." Well it stuck. As James and I were walking around the Daytona International Speedway during the Rolex 24 Hour Race last year, we saw this and I said to James, "That is Casper's Uncle". We both had a genuine laugh over that one.

But I like cars such as these:










Can't seem to get more pics to load but you get the idea. Off the wall, old stuff, rare stuff, stock stuff. I like them all.
I have three cars currently, and none of them have model names, just numbers. Sure they have makes but, get this, Volvo 850, BMW 325, Ford (F)150. Okay, Okay, the f150 is a stretch, but you get the idea. Anyway, all numbers. Hence the title, by the numbers.

This is pretty fun, always liked writing anyway. Next time, I will try to find something interesting to write about. Til then.

Well, no time like now to really get going....

Yesterday, I disclosed to my older brother Jim that I have a blog also, and he posted that information on his blog (let's see if this works), you can see it here (i think it does) so I decided I would get off my lard ass and actually do some posting.