Steve Parker Motoring / The Car Nut

THE LATEST ON SAVING THE "UNION 76 BALLS" AND ARROYO SECO PARKWAY BECOMES THE FIRST FREEWAY

Since the story below about the still-ongoing work performed by Kim Cooper to save the many of the original "Union 76 Balls" was posted several months ago, we are thrilled to announce that ConocoPhillips, the new owner of what we knew as Union Oil and then later as Unocal, perhaps the signature gasoline product and name of the Western United States from the 1930s and on, has agreed to replace some of the original '76 Balls' and make new ones somewhat true to their original styling intent (listen to my interview with the balls' actual designer below). These '76 Balls' included the one which proudly spun in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium since it opened in 1962 (in typically Southern California fashion, the beautiful and futuristic stadium was ready to open for the 1961 baseball season, but landslides and lawsuits delayed that for one year). For many Americans living in the Midwest and on the East Coast in the early '60s (like my parents and me, on Long Island, just outside NYC), that spinning bright orange ball with the giant '76' emblazoned upon it, easily visible in daylight and lit from inside at night, was as much a symbol of Los Angeles as the "Superman/Daily Pilot Newspaper Building" (which we all later figured out was LA's City Hall) and even the always-glorious New Year's Day TV broadcast (in color, no less!) of the Rose Bowl football game from Pasadena, which many of us enjoyed in deep snows while our parents looked at our small black-and-white TV screens and said, bravely, "What the hell are we doing here? That's where we're moving!" We also later learned that the football game was being played  just literally a short hop over a hill or two from that same Dodger Stadium parking lot. The route between Dodger Stadium and Pasadena was actually part of "the original" Route 66, and it could be negotiated on another new Southern California invention, the very first Freeway. Then known as the Arroyo Seco Parkway, it's a roadway which took drag racing from the nearby salt flats and race tracks where it had been developed and put it back on the city streets, because the stop signs at the end of all the on-ramps necessitated pedal-to-the-metal launches, even in 1940, when the Arroyo Seco Parkway opened. In 1999, that roadway was named a National Historic Civil Engineering Monument by the American Society of Civil Engineers. And that's no small stuff, either. Read on

Only nine other California Public Works projects have been awarded the “landmark” designation. The 8.2-mile parkway (pictured here in 1940) received this special designation because it was the first fully grade-separated, limited-access, landscaped freeway to be built as a non-toll state highway within an urban area. Built at a cost of $5.7 million, it paved the way for over 4,000 miles of California freeways that came after it and it became the prototype for subsequent urban freeways in the United States. The parkway was constructed between January, 1938 and December, 1940, when it was opeend to great fanfare and media coverage nationwide.

The Arroyo Seco, a dry wash lying just west of Pasadena and curving south and west toward downtown Los Angeles, was considered an ideal location for a road as early as 1895. However, construction did not begin for another 45 years. Amazingly, a bicycle speedway that was constructed in the early 1900’s preceded the parkway as the first transportation artery in the Arroyo Seco (Dry Gulch) Channel. Elements of that bicycle parkway, which saw some of the early, wealthy denizens of Pasadena riding healthfully to and from their brand-new offices in nearby downtown LA, are still visible and even in use. But, we digress ...

SAVE THE "76" BALLS

SAVE THE “76” BALLS!

Unocal’s New Owner is Taking Them All Down!

Hear the Car Nut Interview With The BALL’s creator here.

Sign The SAVE THE BALL Petition here!

Anyone who ever traveled the Great American West (or visited a race track where NASCAR ran events), knows well the large, round, orange balls twirling perpetually high above “Union 76” gas stations (later known as “Unocal”).

Well, Unocal’s new owner, ConocoPhillips, has begun removing ALL the BALLS, an advertising gimmick which has become nothing less than an icon of the American west of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, those years when millions migrated from east to west, and saw the great BALLS as heralding their arrival in the great new land. From the original Mother Road, Route 66, to the interstates which eventually replaced Bobby Troupe’s and Nat King Cole’s favorite road, the BALLS were shorthand for “The West”.

Sadly, Sunoco (which has a strong east coast presence) has also replaced Unocal and 76 as the “Official Fuel” for NASCAR, so the BALLS are no longer displayed at race tracks nationwide.

The huge BALL in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, revolving perpetually above a googie space-age Unocal gas station, served to alert uncounted millions worldwide who ever watched a Dodger game on TV anywhere in the world that this game was being played in Los Angeles, the Heart of the West. Even that BALL is gone!

Steve Parker, The Car Nut, recently interviewed the creator of the original BALL which was used as a promotional gimmick for the Union 76 Sky Ride at the Seattle World’s Fair some 40 years ago. Ray Pedersen’s stories of actually making the first BALL, flying it all over the West in his private plane and having it photographed at Western iconic symbols such as the Grand Canyon, is MUST listening for Fans of The BALL. It takes a bit of time to download, but it's absolutely worth it. Hear it by clicking here!

And SIGN THE PETITION to SAVE THE BALL here!

Ray Pedersen --- and his balls --- thank you!

And here's the address for the latest on the SAVE THE BALLS effort: http://feeds.feedburner.com/76ball ...

SAVE THE “76” BALLS!

Unocal’s New Owner is Taking Them All Down!

Hear the Car Nut Interview With The BALL’s creator here.

Sign The SAVE THE BALL Petition here!

Anyone who ever traveled the Great American West (or visited a race track where NASCAR ran events), knows well the large, round, orange balls twirling perpetually high above “Union 76” gas stations (later known as “Unocal”).

Well, Unocal’s new owner, ConocoPhillips, has begun removing ALL the BALLS, an advertising gimmick which has become nothing less than an icon of the American west of the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s, those years when millions migrated from east to west, and saw the great BALLS as heralding their arrival in the great new land. From the original Mother Road, Route 66, to the interstates which eventually replaced Bobby Troupe’s and Nat King Cole’s favorite road, the BALLS were shorthand for “The West”.

Sadly, Sunoco (which has a strong east coast presence) has also replaced Unocal and 76 as the “Official Fuel” for NASCAR, so the BALLS are no longer displayed at race tracks nationwide.

The huge BALL in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium, revolving perpetually above a googie space-age Unocal gas station, served to alert uncounted millions worldwide who ever watched a Dodger game on TV anywhere in the world that this game was being played in Los Angeles, the Heart of the West. Even that BALL is gone!

Steve Parker, The Car Nut, recently interviewed the creator of the original BALL which was used as a promotional gimmick for the Union 76 Sky Ride at the Seattle World’s Fair some 40 years ago. Ray Pedersen’s stories of actually making the first BALL, flying it all over the West in his private plane and having it photographed at Western iconic symbols such as the Grand Canyon, is MUST listening for Fans of The BALL. It takes a bit of time to download, but it's absolutely worth it. Hear it by clicking here!

And SIGN THE PETITION to SAVE THE BALL here!

Ray Pedersen --- and his balls --- thank you!

"NEW", PRIVATIZED CHRYSLER APPOINTS A TOP EXEC --- A PUBLIC CORPORATION LOSER CEO RUN OUT OF HOME DEPOT EARLIER THIS YEAR

Ah, yes, let the fun (and the firings and sell-offs) begin! Chrysler's new owner, Cerberus, wasted no time in hiring a chief for the newly-private automaker. Robert Nardelli was named Chrysler's president and chairman, while long- time Chrysler chieftain Tom LaSorda (not the Dodgers baseball team ex-manager), a popular executive who many thought deserved the top title, will be president and vice-chairman. At least as long as he remains at the company.

And, according to the LOS ANGELES TIMES, Nardelli's pay package will be completely performance-based, to the point that he will receive compensation only if and when Chrysler returns to profitability.

Cerberus recently paid $7.4 billion for Chrysler; In May, 1998, Daimler paid $46 billion for Chrysler, in an attempt to merge the two companies' perceived strengths in larger and luxury cars (Daimler Benz) and fuel-efficient smaller cars (Chrysler); both companies were and are still strong in truck production.

Also, a merger of the companies' dealerships world-wide was seen as a possibility. Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep suddenly had access to the many Mercedes car and truck stores throughout the world; Daimler could sell new, smaller cars, developed with Chrysler's design and production help, through their huge world network and at the many Chrysler dealers in the US and Canada. The Mercedes-Swatch developed Smart car (photo below) might have been a good experiment for owner Daimler to sell at Dodge stores, for instance, but now they will be sold exclusively at dealerships owned by Roger Penske's "Penske Automotive Group", the second-largest auto dealer chain in the US.

After the merger, execs from both Daimler and Chrysler said that Mercedes parts would never be used on Chrysler products, and vice-versa; that pledge was broken almost immediately (Chrysler's Crossfire, for instance, is a thinly-veiled version of a small Mercedes convertible, and the Chrysler version comes with a manual convertible top, not the neat-o automatic one on the Benz).

What was the outcome of Daimler's purchase? Many key Chrysler executives, especially in manufacturing, quit the new company, and the combined market value of the two companies took only nine years to drop 50%, or $45 billion. The two might have done better had they simply shut their doors for those years and re-opened as the "new and improved Daimler-Chrysler!"

Nardelli is perhaps best-known to the general public for his being the chief exec at Home Depot, where his enormous pay package, including $210 million in a severance package when the Board of Directors essentially fired him, and his attempt to thwart union members, Home Depot stock shareholders and even his own top execs from speaking at the company's annual meeting, gave him a reputation near on a par with other recently-disgraced corporate executives.

Just yesterday (August 4th) it became official --- Chrysler Corporation once again became an American-owned company (as far as we know) and, perhaps more importantly to hundreds of thousands of Chrysler Corporation employees and retirees, and the families they support, it also moved off the world's stock exchanges into private ownership, where answers from management are legally few and far between. (Logo above -- That of Cerberus, whose name comes from ancient Greek, that of the four-headed dog which is said to guard the gates of hell. Sounds like a fun place to work, huh? Bet their holiday parties are a blast! Below, new Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli, smiling, which he does often. Three guesses why ...)

And at Cerberus/Chrysler, Nardelli will not have to deal with those nasty little "shareholder meetings" and other things which, let's face it, only get in the way of "big boys" like Nardelli from making the real money; that is, firing employees, cutting back retirement and health care packages (even those already agreed upon by the company) and, ultimately, selling-off chunks of the company, getting rid of dealers who have been with the company for generations and focusing on increasing production and sales in India, China, Asia, Africa, eastern Europe and South America, until that flowing red ink starts to turn black ... if that ever happens.

We say "as far as we know" when referring to Chrysler's new American ownership, which is going to be heavily hyped in their advertising, because when all is said and done, we don't really know who owns Cerberus. The company can claim all their investors stepped off the Mayflower, but, legally, there is little which the company needs to make public. And least of all, they don't need to make Nardelli's pay package public (nor that of any other Cerberus/Chrysler exec) because it is now a privately-held outfit.

Nardelli becomes the second CEO of a Detroit Big Three operation to come from outside the industry.  Ford hired a top executive from Boeing to run their North American operations, Alan Mulally. Ford indeed showed an unexpected profit in the last quarter, and big kudos to them. However, the announcement of the "recall which just won't end," that of various FoMoCo cars and trucks having cruise control systems which can catch fire, might take up all of that profit and a lot more. they "mutually agreed" to the resignation, which took effect Tuesday. Under the terms of a separation agreement negotiated when he joined the company in 2000, Nardelli, 58, is to receive about $210 million in cash and stock options, including a $20 million severance payment and retirement benefits of $32 million." (end of Washington Post quote)

Here's how THE WASHINGTON POST covered the story of Nardelli's resignation from Home Depot in January, 2007:

"Robert L. Nardelli has abruptly resigned as chairman and chief executive of Home Depot, pocketing a lavish severance package and leaving shareholders with a stock that has languished even as sales have nearly doubled during his six-year tenure.

In a statement released yesterday (January 3, 2007), Home Depot's board of directors and Nardelli said

Sounds like just the kind of guy America's auto industry needs, huh? At the very least, he is not the kind of chief executive which unions, workers, retirees and even the white collar execs he may be firing by the (Dodge?) truckloads need in these times.