CarsAndRacingStuff.com |
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Official Site: CarsAndRacingStuff.com
Subtopics The Crittenden Automotive Library Page Sections History Titles Photos of the Month Article Index |
History
From CarsAndRacingStuff.com to The Crittenden Automotive Library
CarsAndRacingStuff.com was started December 12, 2005, with the intention of being an online store for automotive collectibles: die cast cars from NASCAR Action cars to classic Hot Wheels, racing cards, and more. The name itself was chosen because Cars And Racing Stuff is an acronym for CARS. The website was a blue background with yellow outlines around white text boxes, the colors having been chosen by a person who had been in the model car business for decades and was to be the store owner. Titles on the tops of the pages were in a chrome-effect lettering made to look like classic American car badges.
The site went online without the store, and in the meantime I began compiling a Vehicle List, a list of all car model names used and who used them. It was just a fun little resource that became the spark for the entire Crittenden Automotive Library.
From there I moved to creating a guidebook for all the model car kits and die cast, racing cards & other collectibles I could find and compile into a Model Kit & Collectibles Guide. It seemed like a good way to draw new customers to the site and advertise the store to them.
Then an effort was made to give the Guide searching and sorting functions, and it was converted into the Model Kits and Collectibles Database. The MKCD was a PHP-accessed MySQL database of all types of collectible cars and cards. It was actually building quite well, but other changes would need to be made...
While the MKCD was being compiled, I thought I'd write a few articles about collectible cars and models. An articles section sprang up on the site. Then I posted some photographs from the Chicago Auto Show in a newly created Photos section.
So I had the MKCD, Vehicle List, Articles and Photos. I thought it would be convenient if all the information were on one page, so that when someone clicked the link to, say, Chevrolet, that all the Chevrolet model kits, photos of Chevrolets, the list of cars and trucks Chevrolet produced, and a list of articles about Chevrolets would all appear on the same page.
The site was a couple months old, and by that time it was realized that the store wasn't going to ever go online, not with the convenience and audience that selling on eBay brings. I decided to refocus the site entirely on the information it contained. I dropped the database function, but kept some of the more convenient PHP features I learned in creating it and created the Cars And Racing Stuff Encyclopedia in February of 2006. The blue of the website was changed to a dark blue, and the yellow trim on was changed to a dark orange. I thought an information resource, if it was meant to be taken seriously, shouldn't have such bright colors. The chrome titles remained, though.
Eventually, however, I realized that "Encyclopedia" was not an appropriate name for the compilation of information I was creating. For one, it had very detailed information on some very obscure topics without even mentioning some very important ones. So it didn't have that "background information on every topic of importance" feel of a true encyclopedia. I also wanted to fully integrate the Articles section and other types of media that just weren't part of a traditional Encyclopedia.
A lot of thought went into the name. It should be unique and not easily confused with other information resources. Despite containing information about motorcycles and trucks, the word Automotive was chosen because the majority of the information is about cars and because "road transportation" sounds like a name a government agency or think-tank would use. My last name, Crittenden, was added to it simply because it was the easiest way to distinguish my resource from others with similar names. Finally, the name Library was chosen because of the wide range of types of information available. Libraries are traditionally associated with collections of books, but a modern library also includes photographic collections, databases, newspapers and other media. A modern library is more a collection of information than a collection of books, and so it seemed the most appropriate name for the collection of information I was putting together.
On September 5, 2006, The Crittenden Automotive Library was officially launched. The colors of the site changed as well, to dark green with dark blue trim. Since then the white-with-green-stripe design was created, and then the green wheel logo and finally the dark blue was changed to dark purple and later to a tan reminiscent of sepia tone photographs. The dark green has been a favorite color of mine since I was young, and from the standpoint of automotive history it is a favorite of mine as it reminds me of British racing green (and Crittenden is an English name, from the Kent/Medford area east of London).
In October, 2012, the last remnant of CarsAndRacingStuff.com outside of The Crittenden Automotive Library, the CarsAndRacingStuff.com Topsites, was disconnected from the rest of the site.
22 August 2009 Image ©2009 Bill Crittenden View CarsAndRacingStuff.com Title - 18KB | |
Beginning 23 August 2009 Image ©2009 Bill Crittenden View CarsAndRacingStuff.com Title - 19KB | |
2010-March 2011 Image ©2009 Bill Crittenden View CarsAndRacingStuff.com Title - 25KB |
Photos of the Month
Photos of the Month are the backgrounds behind the navigation links in the left-side column of the main content sections of CarsAndRacingStuff.com. Towards the end pictures were left online for longer than a month, and these background images are now under "Featured Images" on The Crittenden Automotive Library's Topic Page.
April 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1951 Hudson Hornet | |
May 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden Marmon Wasp, 1911 Indianapolis 500 Winner (Ray Harroun driving) 28KB | |
June 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 2003 Pontiac Vibe 33KB | |
July 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1957 Jaguar XK140 13KB | |
August 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1935 Packard 1201 Type 819 30KB | |
September 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1965 Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray 9KB | |
October 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 2007 Buss Ford Car Show 26KB | |
November 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1973 Buick Centurion 30KB | |
December 2007 Photo © Bill Crittenden NOS Energy Drink GMC Yukon 7KB | |
January 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden 1972 De Tomaso Pantera 23KB | |
February 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden Dale Jarrett's car during the 2005 Daytona 500 Cropped from a U.S. Air Force photo by Larry McTighe 22KB | |
March 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden The overhead console of a Chevrolet Venture in the foreground, and the traffic outside a strip mall in the background 23KB | |
April 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden A Suzuki RV-125K from the private collection of Greg & Kathy Mosley 27KB | |
July 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden The main grandstand at Chicagoland Speedway before the 2002 Tropicana 400 28KB | |
September 2008 Photo © Bill Crittenden Cutaway wheel and tire from a Clint Bowyer model car from the GTR Summer NNL 28KB | |
March 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden The Toyota 4A-GE engine under the hood of Tamara Froney's 1986 Toyota Corolla drift car. The picture was taken at the 2008 McHenry, Illinois Fiesta Days Car Show 42KB | |
April 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden A 1971 Plymouth GTX model car in front of an American flag. The picture was taken at the 2009 Classic Plastic hosted by Rockford Wheels in Scale on January 25, 2009 25KB | |
May 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden The center of the hubcap from a 1964 Pontiac Grand Prix 33KB | |
June 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden 2009 "Cars for Kids" charity car show in Antioch, Illinois 32KB | |
July 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden Exhaust pipes on Blue Max 37KB | |
August 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden A 1931 Wisconsin license plate on a 1931 Buick Series 90, with a 1930 Milwaukee Journal Tour Club badge attached 36KB | |
August 2009 Photo © Bill Crittenden A 1931 Wisconsin license plate on a 1931 Buick Series 90, with a 1930 Milwaukee Journal Tour Club badge attached This image replaced the one above on August 8 39KB | |
September 2009 A section of the Cases Sited from The Law of Automobiles, Fifth Edition (1919). Note the case Crittenden v. Murphy in the list, the California Appellate Court case became legal precedent for the following: "The owner owes the duty to the traveling public to see to it that his car, when driven on the streets, with his permission and for the purposes for which the car was purchased, should be driven carefully and with due consideration to their rights; and the owner should not in good conscience be allowed to disclaim his responsibility on the ground that the use thus contemplated and authorized by him is permissive only." 45KB | |
October 2009 The cockpit and left-side door of a 1962 Chaparral 1, serial number 002, raced by the Meister Brauser team at the former Meadowdale International Raceway. The picture was taken at the 2009 Meadowdale, Motorsports & Memories car show, held on the south end of the main straight September 19, 2009. The following Monday, work began to remove the old track surface and install a path around the park, now known as Raceway Woods. 36KB | |
November 2009 The speedometer from a 1981 AMC Concord. The Concord was sold from 1978-1983 and was the basis for the 4-wheel drive AMC Eagle. After AMC's acquisition by Chrysler, a similar name would appear on the 1993-2004 Chrysler Concorde. 37KB | |
December 2009 The Saturn Curve concept car. The car was built on a modified GM Kappa platform, which is also the basis for the Saturn Sky. 34KB | |
January 2010 The engine of a plastic model 1968 AMC AMX. The car was built by Joe Salzburg and displayed at the December meeting of IPMS/C.A.R.S. in Miniature, a model car club that meets in Crystal Lake, Illinois. 53KB | |
March 2010 Bill Elliott in Victory Lane after the 1987 Champion Spark Plug 400. 58KB | |
April 2010 The interior of a scale model of a 1964 Sunbeam Tiger Cannonball Car at the 2010 Cedarville Model Car Contest and Swap Meet. 32KB | |
May 2010 A Rick Miaskiewicz pit stop at the 1986 Miller American 200 at The Milwaukee Mile. The "Indy Car" race at Milwuakee was traditionally held the week after the Indianapolis 500, a combination that occurred 52 times since the track opened in 1903. 59KB | |
June 2010 Tail light of an MGB GT. 41KB | |
July 2010 Just some of the cars that showed up for the first Green Street Cruise Night on June 7, 2010. It was estimated that 140 cars were there that night. 46KB | |
August-December 2010 The PMD (Pontiac Motor Division) on the valve cover of the overhead cam straight-six engine of a 1966 Pontiac Tempest Sprint. This car was among 400 Pontiacs displayed at the Indian Uprising All Pontiac car show. 37KB | |
December 2010-March 2011 The air conditioning button on a BMW 40KB | |
March-June 2011 A 1957 BMW 507 20KB | |
June 2011-January 2012 A 1970 Oldsmobile 442 clone at the Green Street Cruise Night 39KB | |
Mid-January 2012 to April 2012 Tommy Houston's Southern Biscuit Flour Buick at the 1986 Nationwise 150, a NASCAR Busch Grand National race at Martinsville Speedway in Virginia. Tommy Houston won 24 races and finished in the Top 5 in season standings in the series seven times in the 1980's and early 1990's, including a second place in 1989, but never won the championship. The racing series began in 1982 as the Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series and is today known as the Nationwide Series. Original photo by John Walczak. 30KB |
Date | Article | Author/Source |
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5 September 2006 | The Crittenden Automotive Library | Bill Crittenden |