4 replies to this topic

[Isetta]

I don’t know if this post is allowable as it is not about Motor Sport per se, but it is about Motoring and perhaps to some, Nostalgia.

In part two of Jack Kerouac’s On The Road, the account of his trips across America between 1947 and 1949, he describes how in order to save fuel, Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady ), free wheels his 49 Hudson down the Tehachapi Pass in California to the San Joaquin Valley.

‘Dean cut off the gas, threw in the clutch, and negotiated every hairpin turn and passed cars and did everything in the books without the benefit of accelerator…..He merely passes cars without a sound, on pure momentum….…We made thirty miles without using gas.’

The book is semi autobiographical so I assume he is describing actual events., so the question to our American friends if I may is would you consider the feat to be possible in 1948 and if so what degree of skill would be required?

On a much more important note he mentions a fish-’n-chips joint on Market St, San Francisco. Did they have such things in America back then and if so were they the same sort of thing a Brit would recognise as Fish and Chips?

[TooTall]

Well it's certainly possible. A '49 Hudson would of had un-boosted brakes and steering so the effort on the pedals and wheel wouldn't of been any higher. It would have been hard on the drum brakes because he would not have been able to use engine braking. The '49 Hudson was one of the best handling American cars of the time and was very successful in stock car racing so that's also a plus. Possible, yes, recommended, not really.

The fish and chips I had in London were pretty much the same as fish and chips I've had here in the US (not the fast food kind). Main difference being the variety of fish served. I'm sure it would have been something local.

Kurt O.

[arttidesco]

I am sure there is mention in the Electric Cool Aid Acid Test, of Neal Cassady free wheeling the 'Further' bus down some long mountain road and terrifying the other members of the Merry Pranksters party by refusing to use the brakes, been 30 years or so since I read the book so I can't be more precise on where this event happened.

Around about 1974 my folks took me to revisit Cyprus and borrowed a friends humungous MK10 Jag we drove up to Mount Olympus in the Troodos mountains from Larnaca one morning and then coasted down most of the way towards Paphos in the afternoon, unlike Cassady my old man used to drop the clutch and bump start the engine for the steeper inclines and tighter bends also unlike Cassady my old man was not on speed or any other kind of opiates :-)

[RStock]

I've been across Tehachapi pass and I'd say it's possible. I did much the same thing one night in a Ford Maverick I had that was about out of gas, so I cut the engine and coasted as far as I could. Made it about five miles and that was with only a small hill to give me the needed momentum. On later occasion I discovered that the thing still had close to a quarter of a tank of gas in it when the gauge reached empty. I suppose it was designed that way as a sort of reserve.

[Sisyphus]

‘Dean cut off the gas, threw in the clutch, and negotiated every hairpin turn and passed cars and did everything in the books without the benefit of accelerator…..He merely passes cars without a sound, on pure momentum….…We made thirty miles without using gas.’

The book is semi autobiographical so I assume he is describing actual events., so the question to our American friends if I may is would you consider the feat to be possible in 1948 and if so what degree of skill would be required?

Marcus Ambrose tried that a couple of weeks ago at Sears Point...didn't work.