I was wondering why the traffic to our site spiked on May 23rd. Now I know.

The New York Times published a story by Kit Kiefer about the 1949-51 Nash Airflytes and the Nash Car Club of America's founder Jim Dworschack.

The story reminds America that the bathtub Nashes were part sleeper sofa, part camper, and completely comfortable. You could drive an Airflyte Statesman or Ambassador off the beaten path and park it near a stream. There you could cast your line into the water and later sleep under the stars in your bedroom-on-wheels Nash. (The only feature missing was an onboard flushomatic commode!)

It's great at long last to see this story in print. Jim Dworschack contacted us last fall and asked me to provide Mr. Kiefer with a copy of our 1950 Nash Airflyte Trailer. I was happy to help, but honestly, I forgot about the whole affair until I saw the story in print. Congratulations, Jim. It's a great tribute to the Airflytes and to Jim, who founded the Nash Car Club at age 15 in 1969.

One of the most impressive elements of the story is the fantastic photo of Jim by photographer Andy Manis. (Use it as your publicity photo, Jim! Get some business cards and wallet-size prints!)

I keep coming back to the June 2008 issue of Collectible Automobile, because there are a lot of great orphans in this issue.

I always thought that CA confined itself to post-WWII cars, but I may have to change my thinking about this magazine. (I suspect it's because the content in their chosen field is finite. There are only so many old car stories out there.)

When you turn a few chapters farther back in history, you find some really interesting stuff. The Photo Feature of the 1916 Scripps-Booth Model C Roadster is a good example. Before this company was gobbled up by GM, they produced some cool Brass Era buggies. The Model C, pictured here on another web site, was a "luxurious light car" with a floor that was lower than the chassis rails. The Model C pioneered this concept 32 years before (and several hundred pounds lighter than) the Stepdown Hudsons of 1948.

They made 6,000 of these from 1915 to 1916 before William Durant bought the company in 1917.

There is a jump seat just ahead of the passenger seat. It looks like a padded toilet seat. Maybe it was a "safety feature" like the padded dashes of Kaiser-Frazers in the 1950s.

AMC historian du jour Patrick Foster (It used to be folks like John Conde and Arch Brown.) just wrote a story about the 1965-66 Rambler Classics. Look for it in the June 2008 issue of Collectible Automobile.

These cars are usually forgotten, because they weren't sexy, and they were built at a time when AMC was pursuing the disastrous policy of competing with The Big Three. But I like the clean styling. The boxy shape definitely screams, "Get out of the way, or I'm gonna clip some hippies!"

You'll get the usual ho-hum recitation of facts and figures, but I found some new and interesting items. Look for the sidebar story about the 1966 one-off Rebel station wagon called the St. Moritz. It was a winter-themed custom car built for the 1966 Detroit Auto Show. I love the tinted rear windows that wrapped up into the roof.

Also, look for the '66 Rebel hardtop owned by Christine and David McGowan (two fellow Buckeyes and friends of Torq-O). The car is a beauty.

I really like what Collectible Automobile has done with their Design Fantasy sketch series.

Basically, CA has asked, "What if Brand X cross-pollinated with Brand Y to create a car that looked a little like both?" Publisher Frank Peiler then sketches up the results.

These visual mashups are fun. Some of them force you to do a double take. The Ford/Nash mutation in the June 2008 issue almost makes me do a spit take.

Good job, Editor Biel. At least you're trying to lighten up the magazine while maintaining its scholarly credentials. (Now if we could just get CA to create a web site!)