Automotive Clothing = A Fashion Statement
Being a well dressed Car Guy or Gal can be a challenge
It occurred to your Editor that there were some special items of clothing around here that our readers might enjoy taking a took at. It’s clear that there is a lot of old stuff in my collection with the oldest of these items having survived 40 years. Each is a heritage piece. Each item has history and a story to tell.
One Lap Of America
For the 1984 inaugural One Lap of America, Brock Yates decided to come up with some special clothing. A very limited number of cold weather jackets were made by Simpson.
Limited is definitely correct because of cost and the fact that the jacket had to be ordered in advance. At that time Brock was publishing his underground newsletter Cannonball Express and to get the jacket you had to get your order in early.
To say that this is a collector item is an understatement. To wear this jacket is a statement.
Rear of the collar is embroidered with CANNONBALL.
1969 AMC Racing Jacket
Going back 40 years to 1969 is an Original AMC Racing Jacket. At that time I had an AMX with a 390 cubic inch engine. Definitely one fine package. Yes, it had its flaws, but I was able to average 115 MPH with it over a three hour period once. I was not a fan of the AMC Racing Patch that was sewn on the front and the patch was very carefully removed so that the jacket would be Red, White and Blue. Today, I am still a fan of basic colors.
1971 AMC Racing Jacket
At the Mid Ohio race course in 1971 was the Roger Penske AMC Race Team with Mark Donohue driving. Wearing my 1969 AMC Jacket and in the pits it was inevitable that good things were going to happen at the Penske area. One good thing was being presented a 1971 AMC Racing Jacket which happened to have the AMC. Somehow, the AMC Racing Patch also disappeared from the front of the 1971 jacket.
1977 School For High Performance Driving
In 1977 I was an instructor at the School for High Performance Driving at Texas A&M University, the subject of a recent article in the Tribune. Here is a photo of a standard blue nylon jacket with our Official and large School for High Performance Driving iron-on patch on the back.
1990 ZR-1 Corvette
In 1990 GM introduced the ZR-1 Corvette. This special car had an engine that was designed by Lotus and built by Mercury Marine. Corvette Chief Engineer Dave McLelland has a great quote about the ZR-1: It’s Corvette, only more so. At that time, as a member of the Sunshine Corvette Club in Miami the club decided it was a great thing to celebrate the arrival of the ZR-1 so some of us got the ZR-1 Jacket because they were a lot easier, and considerably less expensive, than the car.
1995 Serling Heights Assembly Plant
In 1995 I had the opportunity to tour the Chrysler Corporation Sterling Heights Assembly Plant in metropolitan Detroit where the Cirrus, Stratus, and Breeze were manufactured. This is a great hat if you are a Mopar fan.
CATAIR
As a member of the Canadian Associaiton of Technical Accident Investigators, or CATAIR, for the past 17 years this particular hat is one that I take great pride in.
Over the years I have had an opportunity to visit just about every Province from Prince Edward Island to beautiful British Columbia. However, being in Winnipeg in January permits you to experience clothing that will be omitted from this article!
The red embroidery is a graphic representation for Canada, just in case you missed it on first glance.
SAE
Society of Automotive Engineers or SAE is a professional organization of more than 121,000 members including engineers, business executives, and students from more than 97 countries. This is the professional mobility society. I am glad to have had many decades of involvement with this organization.
As Good As It Gets!
As a Car Guy it is great to know that this important clothing is in the closet. You are never out of style!
