dimanche 29 décembre 2013
samedi 28 décembre 2013
AUTO POLO
There’s a a lot to be said for the sporting endeavours of the first motorists, “Auto Polo” is a long dead sport that set off in the early 1910s with one event even taking place at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The rules of the game were much as the same as for the horse based original version, there are goals at each end of the field, men with mallets and a ball that needs to be smacked around. The sport took it’s toll on men and machines with a fairly significant crash taking place in the photographs above and below, you may recognise the pattern on that ball, the sport called for the use of regulation American basketballs.
If you scroll down, you’ll find an article about Auto Polo from The Kansas City Star Magazine from November 14, 1971. It’s an in-depth look into the sport and if you scroll down further still, you’ll find a video of the mad men in action.
Here’s an excerpt from The Kansas City Star Magazine, November 14, 1971, by Floyd L. Hockenhull;
“The game was played on a football field or in a fairground or park where goalposts were set up. As in polo on horseback, the aim was to drive a ball through the goal, or to keep the opposing players from doing so
Two men formed a team, the driver and his mallet man. The ball, a regulation basketball, was lively upon impact of the mallet and hard to follow and to keep in a team’s possession.
The driver’s skill was a top factor in winning. He had to manipulate his car into leaps forward and backward, to make twists and turns so sharp that sometimes the car rolled over, to race down the field to the opponents’ goal, to protect his own goal and to shimmy back and forth to block the ball driven hard and fast by the other team.
No car but the Model T Ford of the early 1900s had the forward speeds and reverse and brake applied by foot pedals, plus throttle operated by hand, and the transmission system that made such maneuvers possible.
The skills of the young drivers and their mallet men of Natoma’s auto polo teams synchronized like gears of a smoothly-running machine.
As the driver whipped his car back and forth, stopped and twisted and turned, his mallet man, standing on a step at the car’s right side, leaned and turned to hit the ball or to take it from his opponent. To block a drive by the other team, he used arms, legs, all his body. And at game’s end, he usually was bruised and often was bloody.
The mallet man, too, frequently was thrown from the car. He had little to hang onto. Although the driver used no seatbelt and in rollovers often was thrown out, his seat and a rollbar on the car gave him more protection.
All the players wore heavy leather leggings. These helped to prevent sprained and broken legs. Some, such as Ray Hall, wore helmets but others at first scoffed at helmets&endash;then after they got hurt they changed their minds. Red Lyon was a driver who came to be a believer: He wore this helmet every game after being knocked unconscious by a blow on the head in a free-for-all tangle of cars and players.
Playing time was 60 minutes. Quarters and halves, with rest periods between halves, were as in football. The teams changed goals at the half.
The game began with each team at its own goalposts, the ball in the center of the field. At the drop of the referee’s red flag, the cars came charging, the drivers striving to block the car of their opponent.
After a score, the team that made it had a try for an extra point as in football. This field-goal try was from the 25-yard line. On the 10-yard line, the opposing team lined its car crosswise of the field and attempted to block the ball. The result usually was another noisy scramble, often a collision.
The auto polo cars had no mufflers and the roar of the engines, the screech of skidding tires, the shouts and screams of the spectators, helped keep interest at fever pitch.
The auto polo cars were designed largely by Natoma’s first Ford dealer, R.A. “Dot” McEwen and his right-hand man, Ray E. Hall “
via SILODROME
Sellers and seduction: From humour to heartache
Being able to make women laugh is an irresistible attraction, if Peter Sellers is anything to go by. Take his second wife, Britt Ekland, whom he married in 1964 – just 10 days after the pair first met…
Britt Ekland
It’s said that a few weeks into the marriage, Sellers took sexual stimulants to help him achieve “the ultimate orgasm” with his beautiful new wife – and suffered eight heart attacks in three hours as a result. Their marriage lasted only four years.
The search for his ideal woman was a significant part of Sellers’ life. “I need the help of a woman,” he said. “I’m continually searching for this woman: they mother you, they’re great in bed, they’re like a sister, they’re there when you want to see them, they’re not there when you don’t.” Perhaps this unrealistic optimism was a root cause of his many failed marriages – four in total, though his treatment of his various wives was notoriously harsh.
Sophia Loren
During his first marriage, for example, before he met Britt Ekland, Sellers fell heavily for Sophia Loren, his co-star in ‘The Millionairess’. Indeed, he only agreed to act in the film after learning of Loren’s involvement and he later declared his love for the actress – in front of his own wife. While Loren never became his wife, he later admitted (and regretted) an extreme infatuation for her.
Ursula Andress
And then there were the on-screen relationships – such as with the stunning seductress Ursula Andress in the 1967 spoof version of ‘Casino Royale’. This time, it wasn’t Peter Sellers’ relationship with a woman that failed – it was the film itself that flopped.
Miranda Quarry
Wife number three, whom he married less than two years after his divorce from Britt Ekland, was the 23-year-old model Miranda Quarry. Even before their wedding in August 1970, Sellers was expressing private doubts about the wisdom of marrying again - doubts that were sadly proved right when, in early 1973, he became engaged to Liza Minnelli. This was despite the fact that he was still married, and Minnelli was engaged to someone else.
Liza Minnelli
Even by Peter Sellers' standards, his relationship with Liza Minnelli was a short-lived thing. His engagement to the troubled star, who battled her own drug addiction demons, lasted less than a month. It's said by some that he ended the affair when she jokingly pulled off his toupée... but whatever the truth, Minnelli was yet another in the long list of beautiful women who first intrigued him, and then fell by the wayside.
A comic genius on film, it’s painfully clear that Peter Sellers’ own life wasn’t so humorous. His love affairs repeatedly ended in disaster, while he constantly strove to tackle depression, alcoholism and drugs. He finally died of a heart attack in 1980, at the age of just 54.
Photos: Getty Images
Land Rover by Studio Job: Birthday cake on wheels
Land Rover Defenders are frequently endowed with additional features, designed for a specific purpose, such as snorkels for wading or bullbars for intimidating. But nothing will prepare you for the artistic addenda that Studio Job applied to this example...
Formed in 2000 by a pair of Antwerp-based graduates, Studio Job has gained fame in art and design circles, partnering with the likes of Bulgari, L’Oreal and Swarovski. For its latest collaborative project, the studio was given a Land Rover Defender in order to create a 65th anniversary tribute to the pensionable workhorse. Land Rover’s only condition was that it remained ‘drivable’ - a line which was toed with as much leeway as possible, as you can see.
Opulence, intricacy and irony
Studio Job has become known for its “high levels of craftsmanship with extreme ornamentation”, with a calling card of “opulence, intricacy and irony”. The Defender employs flourishes of each: the bonnet-mounted globe and comically oversized wing-mirrors are inlaid with Swarovski crystals; the windows are replaced with stained glass; and one of the headlights has been supplanted by a candle, giving only minimal night-time illumination. The implementation of ironic imagery is perhaps the most interesting, a good example being the hand-beaten aluminium tongue protruding from the grille. “The numerous elements kept accumulating,” says Job Smeets, co-founder of the studio. “The car literally sticks its tongue out. It wants to be something that it actually isn’t. It’s become a great concoction, monumental and cynical. But isn’t that also true for power and class structures?”
Popemobile for an African chief
Along with several geographical references (the United States Capitol and Roman Colosseum each decorate one wheel), the Studio Job Defender also pays homage to African culture. “I imagine this car as a Popemobile for an African chief, personalised in a bizarre way,” says Smeets. "It's a caricature of a status symbol.” As a result, you’ll find that one of the chunky wheels has been replaced with a simple cartwheel, while flags of Zimbabwe and the Congo 'fly' from the bumper-mounted poles. Inside, seat and curtain fabrics - look closely and you’ll see various car parts among the African imagery - have been provided by Vlisco, a company which provides exclusive materials to wealthy Africans. Meanwhile, a gilded rhino tusk sculpture sits proudly on the bonnet.
One of the car’s purposes is to launch an “unsubtle protest” at the lack of imagination in today’s car industry. “We didn’t want this to be a simple styling task - there are better people for that than us,” says Smeets. The result might be harder to swallow for Defender devotees than the wheel-mounted ‘sex cake’, but the crazy Dutch duo certainly represents a more interesting design force than Victoria Beckham.
Photos: R. Rezvani (black Defender, photographed March 2013 during ‘making of’) and Zero40 (white Defender, photographed November 2013. Now Studio Job is planning to papier-mâché the entire car...) for Studio Job.
A selection of slightly more discreet Land Rover Defenders can be found in the Classic Driver Market.
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