Last Auto Reviews Blog: Updates: Abandoned Cit, Tremulis’s flying saucer, H&N’s signage, Fiat factory in P’kpsee, Lloyd engine

Alex Tremulis's saucer rendering

Sometimes we find out more about one of our posts after the fact, or somebody leaves a comment on an ancient post with some good info worth highlighting. We’ve had a bit of that lately, so let’s wrap it all up in one big post.

* First off, regarding Tom Longfellow’s photo of an abandoned Citroën, which inspired an Abandoned Autos column in Hemmings News, which inspired a reader’s letter claiming shenanigans: Jonathan Oauknine of Le Perreux, France, wrote in

This abandoned Traction reminds me of the French comics “Le Petit Spirou” (little Spirou.) It’s about a little kid, Spirou. He regularly goes to a field with his girlfriend, Suzette. There’s an abandoned Traction there and he pretends he’s driving it.
Spirou was created in 1938. During the 50s and 60s, it was drawn by Franquin who was very keen on details, including cars. If you’re interested in European cars, bikes and trucks, you should check out a Spirou from that era.

Thanks, Jonathan.

* Next, streamliner from the Tucker Bulletin Board filled us in on the entire connection between Alex Tremulis and the flying saucer hood ornament. It looks like Tremulis (through Fortune Manufacturing) was able to sell about 4,000 of the hood ornaments in 1950-1951 – 146,000 short of his goal.

* When Ben Hart showed us some vintage photos of his family’s dealership at 713 Grand Avenue in Spencer, Iowa, we didn’t include any modern-day photos of the dealership or photos of the restored neon signs out front. Thankfully, Ben sent us some with his sons Mike and Jack showing us the neons.

* Finally, inspired by the photos that Mike Eldred sent us of the disintegrating Lloyd in a New Hampshire barn, James Kimball sent us some photos of his NOS two-cylinder Lloyd engine.

I knew nothing about them when I picked this up (also in NH). I just looked this up again, and the one in your pics had a different motor (19 HP 4 stroke). Mine is the LS400 13HP 2 Stroke. It has a Bosch starter on it that I think was also on some Saabs. This motor was originally designed for the LS400 car. I was told these were used in two snow mobiles- Yukon king 1967-69 and the Herters 1968-72.

Thanks, James!

* Okay, one more. In with the photos that Ron Wharton sent of the can-shaped cars were a few build photos that I didn’t include in last week’s post. If you were wondering exactly how he built ‘em, here ya go.