Ali a Mouthpiece for Motor Firm

Nobody ever accused Muhammad Ali of being modest. The former world heavyweight boxing champion, who used to boast of being able to “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” wants to start a new line of sports cars named after himself. To that end, Ali and five partners are asking the Halifax County, Va., Industrial Development Authority for $9.3 million in industrial revenue bonds to finance a plant to turn out the limited-edition sports cars, which would sell for about $35,000. “We’ve developed a vehicle that complements the image of Ali--one of a champion,” said Nelson E. Boon Jr., a partner in the project. Ali Motors would produce about 3,000 vehicles a year, most for export to the Middle East, where, Ali said, “I know the rulers. I go there every year.” He described the venture as “pretty exciting. It’s got more visibility than building a hotel.” And Ali’s car would go John Z. DeLorean’s namesake one better: He plans to call it the “Ali, 3-WC,” which stands for “Ali, three times world champion.”

--For years a scalp shirt said to belong to Crazy Horse was displayed in museums. But now the Nebraska State Historical Society says it wasn’t his after all. The reason? Part of the shirt was sewn by machine. “Frankly, I don’t believe the Sioux in Wyoming in the Powder River were hauling a sewing machine around” in the 1870s, society director James Hanson said. Nevertheless, the shirt, which bears 291 locks of hair, is still a prized artifact. “Scalp shirts were made for what the Sioux called the brave men, the ultimate protectors of the tribe,” Hanson said. “Usually there would be only five or six within a band of Sioux.” The society acquired the shirt in 1901 from wild west show operator Charley Bristol. Bristol maintained that the shirt belonged to the Oglala Sioux war leader, who was stabbed to death in a scuffle in 1887. His claim was supported by He Dog, who was a contemporary of Crazy Horse’s.

--Thanks to the alert eyes of Maxine Mertens, of Keystone, Iowa, President Reagan is having the deteriorating gravestones of some of his ancestors refurbished. She wrote to the President after visiting the Township Cemetery in Fulton, Ill., and noticing that the Reagan markers needed repair. Reagan, who was apparently unaware that his great-grandfather, Michael Reagan, and two great-uncles, William and Thomas Reagan, were buried there, wrote her back: “I had no idea there was such a marker or that those graves were there. My father was orphaned at age 6, so we know very little of his family except for an old photo of his mother and father.”