Archive for category Old Cars Weekly
1909 Buick Old Cars Weekly
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on February 26, 2010
And the hits just keep on coming! This feature from Brian Earnest in Old Cars Weekly in about a 101 year old beauty,a 1919 Buick. Were there even different models in those days?
1909 Buick
By Brian Earnest
It’s only been a few years since Bill Brunkow died, and Ken Ganz, one of Brunkow’s car buddies and best friends, still thinks about him pretty much every day.
“I do. Yes, I do,” Ganz admits. “I miss Bill a lot. And I miss his collection, too.”That collection included about 20 rare and vintage cars, including a Duesenberg, Cord, Auburn Speedster and a group of about 10 brass-era cars. Ganz helped Brunkow feed and care for his stellar family of automobiles for many years, helping with some restoration work, keeping the vehicles running and generally sharing in Brunkow’s love for historic iron.
“Working with Bill’s collection — I spent probably 10 years working with his cars and taking care of them and showing them. And as I spent more and more time with those cars, it seemed more and more like the older the cars were, the better I liked them,” Ganz said.“And this one fit in really well,” he added, pointing to a splendid 1909 Buick Model F five-passenger touring car, its ample brass trim glowing in the mid-day sun. “It just happened that before he died, he and I had taken the body off this car and were doing some work on the engine. I had done a lot of work on it. I detailed the undercarriage. The brass really needed a good going-through. I spent a lot of time getting the chrome (brass) back into condition.”
1909 Buick
Little did Ganz know at the time that he was actually fixing up and maintaining what would be Brunkow’s parting gift to his longtime friend.
“I really didn’t [know], and to be honest, when he passed away, I called his son Bill one day, and I said, ‘Bill, I’ve gone about as far as I can go with this car without spending a bunch of money on it. What do you guys want to do with it?’ And his response was, ‘Well, that’s no problem, that’s your car! Dad wanted you to have that car.’
“And that’s how I found out.”Out of all the fine machinery in Brunkow’s collection, Ganz says he somehow developed a special affinity for the venerable 1909 Buick. It had enough things wrong with it to keep him busy, it was undeniably beautiful, with its dark red paint, black upholstery and fold-down top, and overflowing brass. And, it was almost 100 years old!
1909 Buick
If Brunkow’s ultimate hope was to keep Ganz smiling, tinkering and motoring to shows around his home state of Wisconsin, then it’s been mission accomplished so far. Ganz admits he is always busy doing something to keep the car on the road, and the car continues to make periodic car show appearances, including a stop at this year’s Iola Old Car Show.
The car isn’t without its problems and challenges, and that’s just the way Ganz, a resident of Alma, Wis., likes it.“There’s never an end with these cars. You’ll never have the ultimate, perfect car, and that’s just the way it is,” Ganz said. “So there is always something that has to be tinkered with, and I enjoy that. You really wouldn’t want to get into a car like this if you didn’t enjoy that. It’s a great hobby, but it’s really a time-consuming hobby.”
Ganz’s 101-year-old beauty was a bell cow in the Buick lineup when it was born a century ago. Buick made nine different models that year, and of the 14,606 cars built, 3,856 were Model F Tourers.
1909 Buick
The Model F was one of just two two-cylinder cars remaining on Buick’s menu by 1909 and came only as a touring car. It featured a 92-inch wheelbase and rode on 30 x 3.5 tires. Under the hood was a 159-cid, 22-hp inline power plant. The planetary transmission had two forward speeds plus a reverse gear. Power was supplied through chain-drive. The pilot drives on the right side of the cozy front seat, surrounded by a variety of brass trim and shiny do-dads.
The base price of $1,250 also got a buyer wood-spoke wheels, mechanical brakes on the rear wheels and a tilt steering column. The windshield was optional.
Driving such an open contraption is not for the uncoordinated or faint of heart. Pilots accustomed to operating with one foot and one hand are in for a 100-year-old reality check when they get behind the wheel.“The big challenge is to keep track of the pedals,” Ganz said. “You have three pedals on the floor: low, reverse and the brake. Once things happen you have to move quick and if you’re not used to that, it can be a problem. You kind of have to get your mind in that frame of thinking, that, ‘OK, what do I have to do if I need to stop quick,’ or whatever.
“[Right-hand drive] doesn’t really bother me much. I try to stay over to the edge of the road anyway. At least we have mirrors on this one. Some other old cars don’t even have mirrors to help you.
1909 Buick
“It’s a nice-driving car, but you worry on the highway. I don’t want to take it on the highway, but I need to drive it. You’re only driving 30, 35 mph, and everybody else is going 55 or 60 or who knows what. You don’t have turn signals, you’ve got right-hand steering. Just a lot of little things, and you worry about somebody coming up too fast behind you.”
Ganz guided the Buick on the 120-mile New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run in Minnesota a few years back before he became the car’s owner, but these days he lets the car get its most strenuous exercise at, of all places, a small airport.“I’ve got a good half-mile strip that I can run both ways,” he says. “All I have to do is look out for airplanes, and there aren’t many planes out there.”
Ganz says he likes to keep the brass on the car as shiny as possible, but beyond that he tries not to baby the car, or get carried away trying to fix all its imperfections. The car was restored at least once in its life, and Ganz has no idea how many people have actually owned it — he knows he’s at least the third.“Some people are so meticulous. I just go with the flow with this one,” he said. “If it needs something, we do it, and if we don’t, that’s OK, too. It isn’t a perfect car, so I like to drive it, and I don’t see the need to have everything back to perfect. Looking at it from this distance, it’s a beautiful car. You can look up close and find lots of little flaws, but that’s what old cars are.
“I’ve even put an electric starter on it. Most people say if you’re a purist, you’d never do a thing like that. But if you crank these things long enough, and they don’t want to start, you’ll be darn happy to have a starter.
“We’re just happy with the way it is right now, and pretty much intend to keep it that way and drive it.”
Ganz figures Brunkow would have approved of his treatment of the century-old Buick. The car continues to get lots of love at home, plenty of miles on the road, and loads attention at car gatherings, where people can appreciate a machine that has lived such a long and charmed life.
1909 Buick
“It certainly attracts a crowd, there’s no getting around it,” Ganz says with a hearty laugh. “ I had it at Red Wing [Minn.] at a car show on Father’s Day, and you couldn’t keep people away from it.
“I always thought that about Bill’s cars. Those cars at a car show are like garbage cans are to flies! You couldn’t even get the cars out of the trailer and you’d have people gathered around.
“I really got spoiled. How could you not be, being around those kind of cars? But, I knew it was going to end someday. I’m just really, really happy to have this one.”
1956 Packard Four-Hundred
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on February 26, 2010
Featured here is a seldom seen Packard in another great story by Brian Earnest for Old Cars Weekly.
56Packard
By Brian Earnest
There are plenty of folks around who really dig their old cars. And there are more than a few who are just head-over-heels, crazy nuts about a particular four-wheeled friend.
And then there are guys like Bill LeGall.
If there were a town specifically for people who were over-the-top, totally, insanely, madly in love with their cars, LeGall could run for mayor. The genuine, unbridled joy and enthusiasm that gushes out when LeGall tries to describe his lovely 1956 Packard Four-Hundred is truly contagious. As far as LeGall is concerned, there has never been a finer automobile built on this planet. And after hearing his take on the endless virtues of his Persian Aqua Four-Hundred, it’s hard not to be persuaded.
“Every time I use that car I feel like it’s the first time,” said LeGall, who has become a well-known figure in audiophile circles while running a very successful speaker repair and restoration service out of his home in Lansdale, Pa. He is a connoisseur of many things, and lives life with a rare zeal. But when it comes to collector cars, he is set in his ways. There is the 1956 Packard Four-Hundred. And there are all the rest of the cars in the world.
“I can’t even put into words my love for this car,” he says. “I can’t tell you in words how fantastic it is.”
It’s probably a good thing that LeGall and his wife wound up with their Packard, because they were actually acting a bit like stalkers before the car was theirs. Bill had owned a previous ’56 Packard and was in Ohio buying parts for it when he started quizzing the man who ran the business back in 1976. “I asked the vendor, ‘You must know of every one of the finest Packards in the country, don’t you? And he said, ‘Yes I do.’ I said ‘Where are they?’ And he made a list of six on a yellow pad, and said, ‘This is the best one. It’s in Coalport, Pa.’”
56Packard-1
But the car in question was not on the road. In fact, it was sort of in hiding, and the LeGalls had to go window peeking to find it.
“On our way back to Brooklyn, N.Y., where I used to live, we decided to drive to Coalport, and sure enough there was a Packard dealership building there,” he said. “It was called Hegarty Packard. And this vendor of parts in Ohio had said, ‘Walk to the back of the building and look through the window in back in the shop area, and you will see the car.’
“Sure enough, we looked in the back window and I almost passed out. The car looked brand new!”
But the LeGalls had shown up on a Sunday and the business was closed. Undeterred, the couple found out where the Hegartys lived and dropped in for a visit.
“We walked down the street there to this home and it turns out they were just pulling out to go to church. I said, ‘Are you Mr. Hegarty? I’m interested in buying your ’56 Packard.’ Well, I had long hair and looked like a hippy, and he didn’t even answer me. He didn’t even acknowledge I was there. He just continued out the driveway and took the family to church!”
56Packard-2
But the LeGalls didn’t give up, and with the help of “a friend who is the smoothest talker in the world,” they eventually convinced the man to sell the ’56. “We drove back to Coalport, and I brought the money, and I didn’t know how he would react seeing me again, but this time he could have not have been any nicer. My friend Morris and I and my wife Loretta spent the entire day getting this car running because it hadn’t run since 1960. That’s when old man Hegarty had died. He was the original owner of the dealership and it was his personal car. They parked it and never drove it after that.”
The trio put in a new battery, changed most of the fluids and somehow managed to get the slumbering car running. Then, against their better judgment, they drove it all the way home in a blizzard, never even turning off the engine that had been silent for 16 years. “It turned out to be one of the two or three biggest snowstorms in my lifetime,” Bill said. “And the drive home was over 400 miles … Mr. Haggerty decided to loan us some skid chains or we’d never make it home. But we made it!”
The lovely Four-Hundreds were a two-door hardtop subset of the top-of-the-line Patricians. For 1956, a total of 3,224 were produced, compared to 3,775 of their four-door Patrician siblings. Base MSRP of the Four-Hundreds was $4,190.
Changes in the Packard body, from 1955, included a redesigned grille with a mesh insert with vertical and horizontal chrome bars placed against it. Both the mesh and the grille could also be seen in the “air scoop” opening under the main horizontal bumper bar. Wraparound parking lamps were seen again, but had rounded rear edges. The headlamp hoods were lowered by one inch. Front fenders were extended on all Packards and Executives. Packard hood letters no longer appeared, being replaced by a centrally mounted crest. With the redesigned bumper, the guards were spaced wider apart, placing them directly under the headlamps.
56Packard-3
The Patrician sedan and the Four-Hundred hardtop both had vertical vents on the rear fenders and the same arrangement of side trim. This consisted of a wide, ribbed chrome band extending the full length of the car between two horizontal rub rails. The first rail ran from the front edge of the upper grille bar to the rear edge of the back fender; the second was parallel to it, about eight inches lower. Both moldings intersected the vent ornament and outside door courtesy/safety lamps were placed at this spot. Also seen on both cars were model identification script, set into the contrast panel, behind the front wheel housing. In addition, both were highlighted by bright metal body underscores that continued across the fender skirts and had wide, ribbed chrome rear extension panels. The Ultramatic transmission offered an electronic push-button selector mounted on the steering column.
The Four-Hundreds certainly had a lot going for them — style, comfort, reputation and cutting-edge gadgetry. The push-button transmission and air-leveling ride screamed luxury. The 290-horse four-barrel V-8 gave the car plenty of power, and the paint schemes and badging were all top-notch. But as far as LeGall is concerned, it was the car’s unique full-length torsion bar suspension that set it apart.
56Packard-4
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“It has no coil springs or air suspension,” he said. “It has a full-length torsion bar, and this thing literally drives like a train. I’ve had all kinds of cars, driven in all kinds of cars, and I’m absolutely convinced there is not a more satisfying car to drive in my lifetime. It’s always totally planted, because it doesn’t rely on shock absorbers to keep the car on the ground. The wheels are glued to the ground. You do feel every pebble in the road, and yet you are never jostled. It is the most level ride. It is amazing.”
LeGall’s car has a full array of amenities, including power windows, seats and antennas, signal-seeking AM radio, dual heaters in the front and rear with separate controls, side running lights and fancy gold plating on the dashboard.
The Packard had 32,000 miles on the odometer when the LeGalls bought it. For a few years, Bill drove it frequently to work. The car now has 99,000 miles.
Bill has tweaked the clutch and transmission several times on his own, and repainted the car himself in the early 1990s. Beyond that, the car is largely original.
“I stripped the car down, I believe in ’94, and replaced the rocker panels, mig-welded in new metal to the bottom of the front fenders and couple other spots … And then painted the car using the original nitro-cellulous lacquer, rather than modern paints,” he said.
“I had the trunk lid and hood off the car on horses. I painted those pieces outside as well as the bottom part of the car … But the roof I did in our garage. And the paint went on so smooth, it was amazing. It barely needed any buffing at all!”
Not long after he got the car running again, LeGall took it to a show and found out that he apparently had a talent for spraying. “We went to a show in New Hope, and we put the car in the fairgrounds, only so we could picnic behind it. And they announced for your car to be judged make sure your hood is open. My friend Marty said, ‘Bill, open the hood. You could win something. I didn’t want to do it, but … I opened up the hood, and two or three judges came along, and when they saw the car, they said, “This is all original.” I said, ‘No, I just painted it. I had pictures in the trunk of me painting it and stripping it.’ They simply could not believe that the car was repainted, and that I did it in the driveway. The car took first prize! And the competition was wicked!”
For now, LeGall said he has no plans for the Packard, other than to drive it as much as he can. It will never be for sale, he insists, even though he has had many offers.
He says every “8 or 10 years,” he and Loretta drive the car back to Pennsylvania to show it off to the Hegarty family and assure them that the car is alive and well and went to a loving home.
“It’s not a show car, it’s something I love to drive,” he says. “The reason I don’t go to car shows hardly at all is that once you get in the car and start driving, you don’t want to stop and park it. I’m always sad when I get home and turn the key off and the ride over is over.”
1962 Triumph TR3B
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on February 26, 2010
Another great car of the week story by Brian Earnest for Old Cars Weekly.
Triumph-1
By Brian Earnest
Rena Valentine knows that it might sound a little strange to serious car guys, but her first priority when it came to shopping for a Triumph sports car was color. The car had to be baby blue with a white top — not necessarily because those are Valentine’s favorite colors, but more for sentimental reasons.
“The attraction is because when I was about 7, maybe 9 years old, I found pictures of my uncle’s car. It was a 1959 TR3, powder blue convertible with a white top,” recalled Valentine, who splits time living in both New Jersey and Connecticut. “In the pictures were all these trophies, and he raced the car, and it was just so cool. It looked like a baby Jaguar. I always knew I wanted a car like that. I didn’t know exactly what year of car it was, or exactly what model, but I knew I wanted a car just like that.
“For some reason growing up I had this affinity for that powder blue car. Little did I know that very few cars were made in that color, let alone left now in Britain or in the U.S. That’s a specific color for a TR3B. They only came in 3 or 4 colors.”
Valentine decided that she needed a little help before she took the plunge and bought a Triumph, so she joined a local club a full two years before she got her first car. It didn’t take long for her to find out what she up was up against in her search for a powder blue Triumph with a white top and a dark blue interior. “I went to the first meeting and figured, ‘Hey you guys will help me find one, right,’” she said. “You’ll sell me one, right?’ They said, ‘Good luck!’”
“It took me three years to finally find my car. I found one each year for about three years. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”
Valentine was too late to buy the first two cars she pursued — they had both been sold by the time she called on them. The third one she found, in Texas, was priced too high. So she kept looking, and hoping.
Triumph2
A year after passing up the third car, however, Valentine found it up for sale again, and this time she couldn’t resist. The car, a rare 1962 TR3B with 90,000 miles, had been owned and completely restored back to show-winning condition by Triumph restorer Ron Harrison, who operates Ron’s Vintage Auto Restoration in Salado, Texas. The shop specializes in restorations on Triumph, MG, Austin Healey and Jaguar. The car was then purchased by a second owner in Ohio, who never even got the car registered.
“The guy had it shipped up to Ohio and parked it up next to a 1959 TR3A that he was restoring,” Valentine said. “But when he decided to sell his ’59, his wife said ‘No, we’re keeping that one and putting the ’62 up for sale.’ So he never did anything with it! He just owned it for a while and flipped it. He sold it after putting no miles on it! He told me the car had never been driven outside of Texas, and I knew he was telling the truth because of the mileage and because I had tried to buy the car before.
Triumph3
“The guy told me it was probably the best one in the country. I told him I didn’t want the best one in the country, because I couldn’t afford it. I had just been looking for a driver in maybe the $10,000 or $12,000 range, and that’s what the other ones I found were. But he said, ‘You might never find another one,’ and I just decided I had to buy that car.”
“He never did a thing with it after he bought it, so officially I’m the second owner of the car.”
The TR3B was as a two-door, two-seat roadster offered only in 1962. The car was really a one-year extension of the TR3 line designed to overlap the introduction of the new TR4, which some dealers were worried would not sell well when it was launched in 1962. The TR4 was wider, heavier and a much different animal than the TR3 series cars, which lasted from 1957-’62, if you include the 1962 TR3B. Not everyone was high on the TR4 as a replacement for the TR3A, but the cars did last four years before spawning the next-generation TR4A in 1965.
Triumph4
Early production TR3Bs were identical to the TR3A, but the later, and more desirable examples, carried the TR4’s larger engine and its new all-synchromesh gearbox.
The 3Bs had all the other typical TR3A trademarks, including removable side curtains and a snap-on top. The cars rode on 15-inch wheels with solid axles. They had front disc brakes with drum binders in back. Spoke wheels were optional, as was a heater.
Late-production TR3Bs, like Valentine’s, were powered by the 104-hp, 2,138 cc four-cylinder. Earlier cars had the TR3A 1,991-cc, 100-hp four-cylinder. All cars carried a four-speed manual transmission with an optional overdrive.
Triumph5
Only about 3,331 TR3Bs were built for 1962, and they were only available in the U.S. “But it’s actually less than that,” said Valentine. “That’s how many chassis were built, but some of those chassis were sent out to build other cars. I think 2,804 is supposed to be the real number.”
Most of those cars didn’t survive the last 47 years. Valentine said Triumph aficionados have estimated that less than 300 of the TRBs are still around, and Valentine can attest that only a handful are dressed in factory-correct baby blue with a white top.
Some of the pieces on her car were replaced during its ground-up restoration a few years back, but Valentine still has the original parts that were part of the deal. She even got the trophies that the car won. “He told me I was getting every trophy that went with the car. So the trunk was loaded!”
Triumph6
“It has the original radio, and it has some other pieces that were period correct,” she said. “He gave me an extra set of carburetors, manifolds, the valve cover, valve cover gasket … I have the old side curtains. It has a rare ashtray. It has a rare map light. Optional rear seat… The car originally came with whitewalls and mine doesn’t have those. And it originally came with disc wheels, which mine doesn’t have. I have the spoked wheels.
“But everything works in this car, that’s why I feel like I’m driving in the past when I’m in it.”
Triumph-engine
So far, Valentine has only put about 150 miles on the car, but they have been eventful. She is assimilating into the British car crowd when she takes the car to shows and is soaking up as much Triumph insight and knowledge as she can from “old guard” collectors. “At the Touch of England Show at Hermitage in Saddle River (N.J.), I won first place in the TR3 division, and one of the older retired guys came up and was ribbing me,” she said. “He said, ‘Let me know what shows you are going to. I used to win and I’m not going where you’re going.’ But we’re best friends now.”
Valentine is also enjoying the driving thrill she hoped would come with a roadster of such vintage. “It’s like I’m driving … geez how do you put it? It’s like I’m driving a piece of art. Even though I wasn’t born then, I feel like I belong in that car. It’s just a blast from the past. It’s like going back in time.”
Triumph-main
1967 Buick Gran Sport 400
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on January 18, 2010
Here is another great story by Brian Earnest over at Old Cars Weekly in their featured Car of the Week.
1967 Buick Gran Sport
Rick Rubis is a big believer in fate. In fact, he’s pretty sure that, like a woman, fate will change its mind every once in a while.
At least that seems to be the case for Rubis and his sweet 1967 Buick Gran Sport, who finally wound up together about 18 years ago after several near-misses. Three times Rubis tried to land himself a ’67 GS 400, and twice he missed out on chances to own the car he has now. But the two finally wound up together, and it’s been a happy marriage.
“I just figured it wasn’t meant to be,” said Rubis, of his earlier failings to buy a ’67. “I had sort of given up on it, but then things changed and maybe fate did mean for me to have it.”
Rubis had a new muscle car on his mind after he returned home from a tour of duty overseas in 1967, but he didn’t want to drive the same car that everybody else had. “Everybody seemed to get getting the Chevelle Super Sports and the GTOs at the time, but I like to be different,” said Rubis, a resident of Monroeville, Pa. “My dad and my uncle were both Buick guys, so when I spotted the first Buick Gran Sport on the street, I went to a dealer and investigated because nobody really had them.
“I actually wanted to order a ‘67 but wound up with a ‘66 4-speed car that had 12,000 miles on it. It was yellow with a black roof.”
Rubis, eventually swapped that car for a Super Bee, and then got into Corvettes. But he never gave up on the idea of getting another Gran Sport, and the next time around he hoped to finally find a ’67.
“I had that yellow and black one, so when I went out looking that’s what I was looking for,” he said. The closest thing he found was a solid-color Gold Mist hardtop in Pittsburgh that didn’t exactly blow him away.
1967 Buick Gran Sport 400
“When I first saw it didn’t have the black painted roof. It didn’t have red line tires on it. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the appearance, but I could tell it was a good solid car,” he said. “The seller was one of the guys that didn’t want people to know where the car was, so he met me in a section of Pittsburgh and I wound up making him an offer that he declined. I thought it wasn’t meant to be and that was the end of it.”
A year later, however, Rubis saw a newspaper ad for the same car. The Buick hadn’t sold, and the owner was again trying to find a buyer. “But I tossed the newspaper or lost it, or whatever, and I never got to call on it,” Rubis said.
“So finally, I had a friend who told me, ‘I have a brother-in-law who has a bunch of cars, and one of them is a ’67 GS. You should could go check it out.’ Turns out, the brother-in-law was the only guy that showed up to make an offer on the car I had gone and looked at, and he made the guy some ridiculous low-ball offer and the guy took it! So I wound up getting the car from my friend’s brother-in-law for $1,000 less than I had originally offered for it!”
1967 Buick Gran Sport 400
1967 was the first year that the GS 400 was in a series separate from regular Skylarks and Skylark GS 340s. The series included a coupe with a $2,956 base price, a two-door hardtop with a $3,019 sticker and a convertible that listed for $3,167. With 10,659 assemblies, the hardtop was the most popular. Only 1,014 coupes were made, along with only 2,140 ragtops.
A Gran Sport 340 was also offered in 1967 for those on a slightly tighter budget, or who were slightly less horsepower-crazed. The 340 was available only as a hardtop and was sort of viewed as the 400’s little sibling.
On the 400, special equipment included a hood with twin simulated air scoops, a rallye stripe, GS ornamentation, all-vinyl seating with foam-padded cushions, dual exhausts, White-Line wide oval tires and a heavy-duty suspension. Desirable options included the four-speed manual transmission for $184.31, limited-slip differential for $42.13, front power disc brakes for $147, a tachometer for $47.39, a full console for $57.93, a consolette for $36.86 and chrome-plated wheels for $90.58.
67 GS interior
Rubis’ car had about 35,000 miles on the odometer when he took the keys. He drove the car without doing much to it — aside from adding a vinyl top — “for the first 15 years or so,” but he has now turned the car into his vision of the ideal ’67 GS. The car has been repainted, given a new vinyl top, new headliner, seat covers and carpet. He kept the same gold paint color, but jazzed up the car’s appearance slightly with some aftermarket 17-inch Ion wheels and redlines from Diamond Back. “And we took the Buick wheel centers and jury-rigged them on the wheels so they fit. They aren’t original wheels, but they do fit with the car.”
Rubis also added a console around the car’s manual floor shift, and swapped in an aftermarket steering wheel. “It’s like a Corvette wheel. I put it on and I’m happy with it. The original wheel was cracked and needed to be replaced.. I like this one, even if some people say it wasn’t an option and isn’t original.”
The only real trouble Rubis said he has ever had with the car came one day “four or five years ago” when he took the car out for some exercise and ran into some engine trouble. “I was going out on one of my ‘blow out the dust’ rides and I blew out more than the dust,” he said. “I had the whole engine rebuilt at that point.”
67 GS engine
A new 400-cid engine in 1967 replaced the 1965-66 “401″ in the Gran Sports. The old engine design dated back to 1953. The new V-8 combined lightweight construction and better breathing characteristics to create a potent package.
The new 400 power plant had a 4.040 x 3.900-inch bore and stroke, a single Rochester four-barrel carburetor and a 10.25:1 compression ratio. It produced 340 hp at 5000 rpm and 440 lbs.-ft. of torque at 3200 rpm. It was also available with the variable-pitch-stator Super Turbine 400 transmission, a $236.82 option previously used only in big Buicks.
Rubis figure he puts between 1,000 and 1,500 miles a year on the GS these days, splitting his car hobby miles between the GS and a slick, custom 1970 Skylark convertible that once belonged to his mother. “It’s just a fun car to drive,” he said. “I don’t think those early GS’s were super fast, like the ’70 GSX or some of the others that came later. I’m sure there were a lot of cars that could blow the GS’s off the road at the time. But it’s really a fun car to drive.”
67 GS wheel
And driving is Rubis’ main hobby activity. He has done the car show circuit with pristine cars, and says he much prefers having a “driver” car that he can take to cruises with his hobby brethren. “I had a ’64 Corvette one time that I turned into a show car, and that was a big mistake,” he said. “It ruined the fun of the car for me. But back at that time, nobody was doing cruises. All you could do was go to shows. But I much prefer the cruises. These cars were meant to be driven.”
Ironically, Rubis lived not far from the first owner of his car, but says he never noticed the car on the road. “I originally lived in Latrobe and the car was originally from Greensburg, which is only like 10 miles away,” he said. “I never remember seeing the car in those days. That’s another thing made me think by fate I was meant to have it.
“It’s funny, I originally was looking for a ’67, and I eventually wound up with a ’67 years later. I figured fate didn’t want me to have it. But then fate turned around and maybe I was supposed to have the car after all.”
1967 Buick Gran Sport 400
Tucker Convertible on Auction Block at Russo & Steele
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on January 18, 2010
Brian Earnest over at Old Cars Weekly has a timely story about a pretty rare car, a Tucker convertible.
tucker-group
Justin Cole could live to be 99, and still be sure of one thing: He never had another year quite like 2009.
Back in December of 2008 when Cole took the gamble of his young lifetime and purchased what was billed by some, including the seller, as the only Tucker “convertible” in existence — i.e., a car that was born at the original Tucker factory — he knew he was embarking on a mammoth undertaking in more ways than one.
He would be attempting to finish a rare, orphaned and high-profile car that was a long ways from complete. The car was a one-off — the only Tucker that wasn’t a sedan. But perhaps equally daunting, Cole was going to face an unrelenting chorus of doubters and critics who insisted the car was a hoax.
Now, as he and his crew at Benchmark Classics in Madison, Wis., put the finishes touches on the Tucker as they ready it for its big night on the auction block, Cole is able to admit that both challenges — building the car and dealing with the hurricane of attention and controversy — have been every bit as daunting as he imagined.
“Man, for a few months there it was definitely pretty overwhelming,” said Cole, who will be front and center in Scottsdale, Ariz., Jan. 23 when Russo & Steele rolls the Tucker across the auction block (on reserve) in what will surely be one of the most-watched moments of this year’s annual car hobby extravaganza. “I carry a Blackberry, and I have all my appointments and reminders and stuff on it. If I didn’t have that thing, I don’t know what would have happened.
“Some days I’d have like 80 different appointments and reminders. The vast majority of my time for about three months was dedicated to that car… We’d have production meetings where we’d have a list from the ceiling to the floor of things that needed to be done. It was just crazy.
“It was definitely a massive project. I don’t know what could compare to it out there.”
Tucker
By now, the saga of the car has been well documented. The story goes that the car was started in secret as either a prototype for a future production convertible, or a special one-off car for Preston Tucker’s wife Vera, and that when things began to fall apart for Preston and his company, the car was ushered out the back door and wound up at the Lencki Company headquarters. From there, it apparently sat largely untouched for many years until a retiring employee took it with him when he left. The car changed hands one more time and ultimately came to the attention of Wisconsin collector Allen Reinert in the early 1980s. Reinert bought the rolling chassis and hoped to finish the car himself, but the project languished and he made many attempts over the years to sell the car. Reinert and Cole met at a show in 2008 and Cole soon put together an expensive deal that included trading several cars and cash for the controversial Tucker.
Old Cars Weekly ran a cover story about the car (Feb. 5, 2009 cover date) and it wasn’t long before the media attention began to snowball. The New York Times and a long list of other print and online media outlets began running stories on the car, and the debate that had raged on and off over the years over the car’s legitimacy reached new heights.
Everybody seems to love a good mystery, and Cole soon found himself not only in charge of figuring out how to finish a car that had no blueprint, but he was also thrust into the role as curator, caretaker and defender of the car’s legend.
“It’s the talk of our showroom, that’s for sure. So many people want to talk about the car,” he said. “The vast majority are just people interested in the car, and it’s a fascination for so many people because of the history of the Tucker automobile. And the story was really brought back to life with the movie and a whole generation of people not old enough to have seen a Tucker when they were made back in ’48 — they know it from that movie.”
“It’s just such a unique car. I would have to say the vast majority of phone calls and e-mails we get about the car are positive.”
Not long after starting work on the Tucker, Cole launched a Web site, www.tuckerconvertible.com, to help him fight the P.R. battle. On the site, Benchmark has posted photos of the car during the build and made public much of the evidence that Cole insists back the claims that the car was a factory project. For all his efforts, Cole knew that he would never convince everybody of the car’s pedigree, however. Front and center in non-believer camp are a group of vocal doubters with ties to the Tucker Club of America (www.tuckerclub.org)
Tucker
The fact that Cole is an affable sort who is clearly long on patience has certainly helped him survive his roller-coaster ride. He has heard every possible criticism, accusation and pointed question imaginable when it comes to the legitimacy of his Tucker, and he doesn’t fluster easily. There is no hint of doubt in his voice when he states his case. He has clearly done his share of homework and compiled as much proof as he can that the car was started in the Tucker factory. He believes what he believes, and doesn’t back down.
“I get things from people or in blogs where people are attacking the car or me personally,” Cole said. “For people to say things about me and my business that have never even met me or been in my shop … People hide behind some screen name and write stuff – I’ve got no respect for someone like that. But that kind of stuff has probably taken about one-half of 1 percent of my time. Overall, it’s been a very positive experience, and I’ve learned a ton going through the process.
“I could probably write a book about the experience, because it’s been a full year now.”
Tuckerinterior
Cole laughs when thinks back to his original plan to have the car completed by May of 2009. That was the month when the car made its first truly “public” appearance at the Keels & Wheels event in Seabrook, Texas.
“The organizer there called and said, ‘This is the date of the show, and we want that car here.’ I told him I didn’t think we’d ever have it done by then, and they said, ‘Well, bring it in whatever condition it’s in…
“At that point we had a rolling body. It was painted in primer, but you could get a real good idea of what it looked like. We were probably only 60 percent done with it, but it was the star of the show … Of course, 1 out of every 15 or 20 people would say something under their breath. ‘It’s the fake Tucker convertible, or ‘They made that Tucker up,’ but overall it was a very positive experience.”
The car’s next appearance came at the Auto Historica show in Highland Park, Ill., in July, then it was at the center of a whirlwind trip to Connecticut for the Fairfield County Concours in September.
“Our goal was to have a finished car for that show. Well, we didn’t quite have a finished car, but we certainly tried as hard as we could,” Cole said. “We had people working on that car ’round the clock. We actually had three different shifts at one point. I was out getting pizza and energy drinks to keep people going.
“We kept it [at home] until the last minute, then the guys went from Madison to Westport, Conn., straight through stopping only for fuel… It was crazy, because they got there, and said ‘We still need to adjust stuff’ and this and that. ‘We forgot extension cords and we need to buff it out again.’ I actually met everybody at a shopping center and went and bought extension cords. So here we are 30 minutes from the show, getting it as ready as we can. Then we finally roll in and they open the gates as soon as we get the car in place. And it was the star of that show there, too. It was nonstop.”
Then came a stop in Hershey, Pa., in October, where Cole thought he actually had the car sold to an East Coast collector. The man and his wife told Cole they wanted the car and negotiated a price, but the deal fell through a few days later when the couple apparently couldn’t get their finances arranged.
“I was just like, ‘Oh my God,’” Cole admits. “I really thought we had it sold. I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging people. If I spend a little time on the phone with someone I have a pretty good idea if I’m going to wind up selling a car to them. I really had a good feeling about this guy, but sometimes things just don’t work out.
“I thought there was a chance we’d find a buyer in Hershey, and we did find a buyer, it just didn’t work out.”
Cole can’t be certain there will be a buyer stepping forward in Scottsdale, either. By then, he estimates he and his crew will have 4,000 man hours into the car and the night will be bittersweet whether the car sells or not.
“I’m confident it will sell on the block at Russo & Steele,” he said. “They think it’s going to sell, too. They are very confident it will. The literal million dollar question is exactly how much is it going to sell for? Their estimate is somewhere more than a $1 million. But beyond that, who knows? Some people are saying that it could set a record for an American-built car.
“It’s gonna be a spectacle. I think anybody who is anybody in the classic car business when it comes to collecting high-dollar cars, selling high-dollar cars and buying high-dollars cars is going to be there. I try not to ever get exited until a car is sold, I have the money and see the taillights going down the road… But I do catch myself daydreaming about what could happen. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get excited thinking about it.”
Regardless of what happens on that fateful Saturday night, Cole knows his shop definitely won’t be the same if the Tucker leaves Arizona in somebody else’s trailer.
“I’d love to hold onto the car because of what it is. There isn’t a collector out there that I know that doesn’t want 1-of-1 cars,” Cole said. “I’d like to have it as our showroom centerpiece for as long as possible. So on that side I won’t be too excited to see it go.
“But on the other side, I’ve put so much time and effort into it, and so have my employees. It will nice to finally be paid for that.
“I’ve thought from Day 1 if we brought that thing to our shop and completed it properly and it looked as good as it possibly could, it would do good things for not only my business, but for the hobby in general. Benchmark Classics as a business was only nine months old when the Tucker rolled into our restoration shop and that was absolutely going through my head [when they bought it]. I was thinking, ‘This car is a piece of history, no matter how you look at it. ’”
So would he do it again? If another automotive unicorn or Holy Grail opportunity came up, would the guy who made the Tucker convertible come to life be willing to go through the headaches, heartaches and insanity all over again?
“Oh yeah, I definitely would,” Cole said. “I undershot my estimate on how long it would take, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it.”
1957 Dodge Royal Lancer D-500
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on January 18, 2010
Brian Earnest of Old Cars Weekly Car of the Week brings us the story on a 1957 Dodge Royal Lancer D-500 owned by Wayne Maddox.
1957 Dodge Royal Lancer
Wayne Maddox knows the 1950s Bel Airs and the Cadillacs and the finned Chrysler Letter Cars of the day hog a lot of today’s collector spotlight. In fact, the Westminster, Co., resident has owned some of those high-profile cars himself.
But Maddox still hasn’t seen a car that surpasses his 1957 Dodge Royal Lancer D-500 hardtop when it comes to combining sweet, swoopy looks with neck-snapping performance.
“It’s just amazing. It’s a time capsule,” he says of his 37,000-mile Dodge, which is largely untouched from its original factory condition. “When you talk about 1957, the car that immediately comes to everbody’s minds is the Chevy Bel Air. And I still own a ’57 Bel Air that was our family car when I was a kid. But when you put that ’57 Dodge up next to the Chevy, the Bel Air just seems so frumpy and so high.
“A lot of people think that Dodge pulled off the fins the best, and it’s hard to argue that … And with that Hemi in her, boy I’ll tell you, she just cruises!”
57 Dodge-back
Over the years, Maddox, who operates a small salvage and parts business, has assembled an impressive array of vehicles in his collection. Joining the Royal Lancer D-500 and Bel Air are about 20 other cars ranging in vintage from a stunning 1949 Plymouth convertible to a 1984 Chrysler limousine. But Maddox claims he’s “not one of these ‘big buck’ high-roller type of collectors which now, seem to dominate the hobby. While I have a lot of cars, I have been lucky to be in the right place at the right time to obtain them. My garage is not one of these mini mansion warehouse garages. It is a simple two-car garage out back of my house. About eight of my cars are stored in an old turkey barn north of town, and some, regrettably, are sitting outside.”
But the ’57 Dodge definitely gets its share of TLC. As was the case with many of his purchases, Maddox came across the Royal Lancer largely by accident.
“One of my dad’s buddies knew this woman, and he had been after her to buy it for years,” he said. “Finally, in ’78, she was at a point where she had to go in a nursing home … So she called [the friend] up and said, ‘Are you still interested in the car?’ He said, no, but that he had a buddy who was an old Chrysler guy and he might be interested …
“So he called me and said, “How’d you like ’57 Dodge with 15,000 miles?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I’d be interested.’ I thought it would probably be a stripper Coronet, dark green sedan with a flathead six and three on the tree. I wasn’t expecting much.
“So we made arrangements to see the car and he picked me up and we went to (Colorado Springs). We pull in and here comes this sweet little old lady saying, ‘Oh, you must be here to see the car.’ Well, I just about fell over backward when she showed us the car. Here was this two-door hardtop, two-tone paint and that neat D-500 badge on the deck lid!”
The odometer at the time ready 15,200 miles. Then came Maddox’s favorite part of the story.
57Dodge-interior
“I thought something must have been wrong. I couldn’t believe it. So right away I asked, ‘How much do you want for this car?’ And she waved a finger at me and said, “I want $500 and not a penny less!”
Suffice it to say no price haggling ensued and Maddux became the vehicle’s new owner in short order.
Turns out, the car had sat for 20 years after the woman’s husband had died. The couple had bought the car new, but the woman didn’t drive and the car sat untouched after she became a widow.
57Dodge-backseat
Under a layer of dust was a car that needed very little work. By the time Maddox had driven the car home, “I had left most of the exhaust on I-25,” he said, but the car was otherwise still very drivable. It still wore its original wide whitewalls tires. The interior was in splendid shape, and even the original floor mats were in place. “You could still see little half moons in the mat from her high heels,” Maddox said with a chuckle. “The only bad thing was a wiper scratch on the windshield. And I’ve left it that way, because it’s original and that’s the way I got it.
“I’ve put on new tires and hoses, and I’ve done a few small paint touch-ups. And I’ve had the exhaust tips taken off, because every steep driveway I went in, those tips were scraping. And I also put a clear plastic seat cover over the bottom of the front seat.”
57Dodge-engine
The 1957 Dodges were totally face-lifted from the previous year and showed off the “Forward Look” Chrysler styling. They were longer, lower and wider than any previous Dodge and hugged the ground on 14-inch wheels. Front torsion bar suspension was new, and headlights were deeply recessed below large headlight “brows.” The grille featured a gull-wing-shaped horizontal bar, which dipped in the center and surrounded a large Dodge crest All models used a single horizontal chrome strip along the bodyside and chrome trim along the base of the large rear fender fins. Chrome trim surrounded the headlights and grille opening.
The Dodge name, in block letters, was spaced along the front and the grille, directly below the hood ornament.
57Dodge-badge
The Royal was once again the intermediate trim level in Dodge’s lineup and included two- and four-door hardtops, a two-door convertible and two-door hardtop.
The D-500 was a performance option available in all Dodge cars that year and was even more muscular than the year before – growing from 315 to 325 cid and jumping from 260 hp to 285.
57Dodge-Trunk
Maddox’s Hemi-powered Dodge has made appearances at Meadowbrook and a number of other hobby events, including several Walter P. Chrysler Club (WPC) national meets. He has rolled up about 22,000 miles since taking the keys and title, and had a close call a while back when an inattentive motorist dinged the car’s front end. “A gal ran a red light one time and clipped the front end and knocked a piece of molding off,” he said. Still, he doesn’t shy away from taking his beloved Dodge anywhere, anytime. “These cars are meant to be driven. If it’s one thing I abhor, it’s a trailer queen,” he said. “If you have a 1910 Maxwell, that’s one thing, but if you have cars that can drive at highway speeds, c’mon. A car like this is meant to be driven. And it’s got a Hemi!”
It addition to its calling card fins, 325-cid Hemi and two-tone Glacier White and Turquoise paint scheme, the Dodge has plenty a few other niceties and options. Among them are dual exhaust, power steering and brakes, Torqueflight transmission, twin outside mirrors, push-button AM radio, clock and emergency brake warning light. And then there are the twin rear-mounted antennas – maybe the crowning touch on the car, at least when it comes to grabbing attention. “Yeah, people just go nuts over those twin antennas,” Maddox says. “They are so long! I have to pull them back down before I can get it into the garage.”
He also gets a kick when people ask him about what he did to restore the car. “One thing people always say is ‘Wow, who did your paint?’” he said. “Nobody! Look at it, it’s original.”
57Dodge-side1
Yes, this 1957 is definitely original. It belongs to an owner who loves and appreciates it. It’s cool. And it was a bargain.
1974 Chevrolet Camaro
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on January 18, 2010
1974 Chevrolet Camaro
{Editor’s Note: Since Tim Reid can certainly tell the story of his 1974 Camaro restoration better than anybody else, here is his tale behind this week’s OldCarsReport.com “Car of the Week}
By Tim Reid
In 1974 I was 12 years old. I had watched my dad buy many cars over the years, have a little paint and body work done to them, clean them up, drive them for a while and sell them. Being in this environment every since I can remember has given me a love for cars (old and new).
I have many work-in-progress projects (1964 El Camino, 1965 Chevy Truck, 1947 Ford Super Deluxe, 1952 Chevy). I also have many completed projects (1974 Camaro, 2006 Corvette, 2008 Cadillac CTS, 2008 Silverado Z71 crew cab, 2007 Chevy Avalanche, 1998 Corvette, 2004 Hyundai Tiberon). The inventory changes constantly.
In 1974, my dad was looking for a car to fix up for my older brother to drive when he got his driver’s license. We made the trek down to Indianapolis to a place we had been many times before, Wrecks Inc. Their saying was “We Meet By Accident”. We spent a couple of hours looking over the hundreds of cars they had. My dad had settled in on a 1974 Camaro that was hit in the front. As usual, it took about an hour of wheeling and dealing for them to come together on a price. We loaded it on the trailer and headed back home.
74 camaro
Once we got a car home, the norm was to tear it down to see exactly what parts were needed, then start calling the local salvage yards for parts, and decide whether we would be better off buying new parts or used part. The tear-down was complete within a day or two, but that’s where the process came to a screeching halt. While looking for parts, another deal was found, and the ’74 Camaro got pushed back in priority. After all, it was two years before my brother would get his license. The car was eventually pushed to the back of the priority list over and over again.
Fast forward to sometime around 1999, my dad was selling his house in the Chicago area and didn’t have a place to keep the Camaro so he sold it to a friend of his who had a body shop.
Fast forward again to 2004. My dad called me one day and said his friend with the body shop was retiring and wanted to know if I knew anyone interested in buying the 1974 Camaro for $1,500. The car was still not finished. I talked it over with my wife and 14 year-old-son Tyle. I told Tyler if he would help restore the car, it would be his driver when he turned 16. We traveled to the Chicago area to pick up the car. Little did I know my dad’s friend would also give us plenty of extra GM parts. We had the back of the truck, the inside of the Camaro, and the trunk of the Camaro filled up with extra parts that he had accumulated over the years.
We got the car home, and started the tear-down all over again. There had been some work done, but during the long trip home, I had decided we would do a complete restoration on the car. We removed all the interior, glass, doors, trunk lid, front-end, bumpers, engine and transmission from the car. The car had been stored inside most of its life, so it was in excellent shape for a 30-year-old car. It still had the original Uniroyal Tiger Paw bias ply 14-inch white lettered tires, with the Rally wheels. Surprisingly, they weren’t dry rotted at all. The wheels had a little surface rust in a few places.
74 camaro
We tore into the engine. Once the heads were off, I was glad we decided to go through the engine. There were mice droppings on top of most of the pistons. I sent the engine off to be checked and rebuilt. I also sent the transmission off to be rebuilt.
While those jobs were being done, we started on the bodywork. We stripped the car down to bare metal, and marked the imperfections. The doors had a few door dings from sitting in the garage at home but, amazingly, there was not one bit of rust on the car. We did what little bodywork there was and primed, blocked and sealed everything. We decided to do something a little different with the hood, so I took it and the two mirrors to a friend of mine in Piedmont, Ala. I told him to surprise me, with some flame/fire on the hood and mirrors. He did just that. He put the Chevy bowtie in each of the valleys in the hood, and has fire rolling out from under the bowties all the way up the hood. He also put some ghost flames in the center of the hood. The mirrors look like they are literally on fire. He did an amazing job.
We started assembling the engine after it came back. We decided to paint it the original Chevy orange color, but then we clear-coated over the orange. We painted all the brackets with high-gloss black, and the master cylinder with cast blast paint.
74 camaro
I painted the car with the front-end, doors, and trunk lid off. We painted the firewall the same color as the car (it normally was a flat black). While that was drying, we stripped all the inner structure of the front end and painted it high-gloss black.
74 camaro
Then came the long, slow process of getting the car put back together and lining everything up. We finally got it all put back together, and started the most enjoyable part of restoring a car — wet sanding (anyone that has done this knows I am lying). A little side note, when I was 13 years old I would wet sand complete cars for $6. No wonder the owner of the body shop kept me busy.
74 camaro
It was this time when Tyler informed me that he wasn’t going to drive the Camaro every day. He knew we had gone way overboard for this car to be a daily driver.
We got the engine and transmission put back in the car, installed the windows, and buffed the car. That is truly the point where you can see the results of all the work put into restoring a car. We left the original Tiger Paw tires and wheels on the car. We only drove it to the close car shows (10 miles or less), and trailered it to the rest. We’ve won many trophies over the last few years, but it has really been a topic of conversation at the car shows. Just this last year we replaced the original tires and wheels with some Foose wheels and Firestone tires.
74 camaro
Today, we have ‘74 Camaro with 5,000 original miles. It has original interior, original glass (except the windshield), original weatherstrip (except the trunk), original wheels and tires. The car has ceramic headers and stainless steel Magnaflow exhaust. The bumpers were sent off to be re-anodized. We upgraded the windows to power windows and the door locks to power door locks.
I would like to say I completely restored this car by myself, but I had help from many friends in the areas I’m not as comfortable with. Steve Baskins of Baskins Tire did the wiring, Magnaflow exhaust and installed the Firestone tires. Cecil Bing rebuilt the transmission, Frank Morgan assembled the engine, and Al Marion did the flame work.
74 camaro
1962 Chevrolet Bel Air Sedan
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on January 18, 2010
Brian Earnest, at the Old Cars Weekly Car of the Week website writes about the history of a vintage American icon, the 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air Sedan. thanks for another great story!
1962 Chevy Bel Air Sedan front
Even if tomorrow it were trampled by elephants, or run over by a train, or entered into a demolition derby, Frank Keller’s 1962 Chevrolet Bel Air four-door sedan has still lived a charmed life.
Somehow, the lovely red Chevy has survived life as a daily transportation during its early years, avoided being pounded into the ground by a college kid who apparently didn’t even like the car, and lived through a major tornado that tore the roof off the garage it was in. To top it off, against all odds, the 47-year-old car is almost as rust-free today as the day it rolled off the assembly lines, even though it has never been restored and sat untouched and unloved in a garage for about 16 years.
“We found chips in the metal, but no rust at all!” said Keller, a resident of Chetek, Wis., who bought this week’s OldCarsReport.com “Car of the Week” last summer. “There was no discoloration of any of the chrome or aluminum. Nothing.
“We can’t figure out what is going on with this car. It just defies logic.”
Frank and Diane Keller run the Shady Grove Resort in northern Wisconsin and found out about the car through a customer. The Kellers are a horsepower-loving muscle car clan — Frank has a ’71 Chevelle SS 454, Diana rolls in a ’69 GTO convertible, and their kids, Scott and Wendy, own a ’68 4-4-2 convertible and ’68 Charger, respectively — but Frank liked what the customer told him about the Bel Air. “He told me about the car and gave me a price, and I thought, ‘Well, it might be worth playing with,’” he said. “The man was meticulous about things, and if I believed what he said about the car, I figured it would be pretty nice.
“The car belonged to your typical little old lady, and the guy had bought it from her back in about ’91 for his son to drive to college. Well, the kid only drove it for about two years and then he garaged it. I guess he didn’t care too much for it. It started with 41,000 miles on it when he got it, and it had 45,000 when he parked it.”
62-Chevy-BelAir-rear
And then the car sat, untouched, at least until things got exciting with Mother Nature in 2001. In April of that year, an F4 tornado rolled through the small town of Hoisington, Kansas, where the car resided. The twister tore a huge swath through the heart of the town and destroyed or damaged about 400 homes and a number of businesses. The storm put Hoisington on the map, for the wrong reasons, and made national headlines.
The storm claimed the roof of the Bel Air’s garage, according to Keller, and knocked the adjacent brick home off its foundation, but the only damage the Chevy suffered was a small ding near the center of its hood. “There were only two real dings in the car and that was one of them,” Keller said.
The car then sat for eight more years after the tornado before Keller came for a visit. “When I saw the car, it had about two inches of dust on it,” he said.
62-BelAir-Benchseat
Keller said he and his son typically restore one car a year for fun and profit during the winter, but it didn’t take him long to realize that the Bel Air didn’t need a lot of work. In fact, aside from having some new OEM-style seat covers made and replacing the carpeting, he’s basically kept the car as he found it. Aside from the seat covers, all of the interior is new, and all of the body panels are original.
“I had intentions of building it up and fixing it up, but I was thrilled it came back naturally on its own terms,” he said. “Could it be fixed up perfectly and have the little nicks and scratches fixed? Yeah, but to me, that’s character. I’m going to leave it just the way it is.
“The engine compartment — we cleaned it up, but that’s about all we did. I thought somebody must have painted the valve covers and intake, but they didn’t. It’s never been painted, and all the decals are in place.
“The car had been sitting so long that we had to flush the tank out four times. Then we pulled the carburetor. Those cars were very touchy with gasoline. They used pure gasoline, not the garbage that is out there today.”
The Bel Air lineup occupied Chevy’s mid-priced niche in 1962, and sedans were the most popular. The Bel Airs came in two- and four-door sedans, a two-door hardtop coupe, and six- and nine-passenger station wagons.
Bel Air standard equipment included foam front and rear seats; color-keyed carpeting; foam backed luggage compartment mat; and a specific steering wheel hub. Interiors were higher-grade cloth and vinyl combinations. A full-length upper bodyside molding was used, with Bel Air script appearing on the rear fenders, just below it. A stainless bright gutter cap molding and four taillights, arranged two on each side, were other distinguishing features. A bright rear cove molding added a touch of distinction.
Also standard were a heater and defroster; dual sun visors; crank-operated ventipanes; directional signals; parallel action windshield wipers; front door armrests; ashtray and coat hooks.
62-engine
62-engine2
The Bel Airs came standard with either a 170-hp 283-cid V-8 — which Keller’s car has — or 135-hp, 235-cid six-cylinder. Racier 327- and 409-cid engines were also available. Keller’s car is also optioned with full wheel covers, whitewall tires, AM radio, power steering and two-tone paint.
“It’s got a few chips in the metal, but no rust at all, even underneath,” said Keller of his ’62. “The paint was faded, but I spent two days buffing it out and I could comb my hair in the reflection. I was absolutely amazed. I started buffing one panel, then another… It was amazing the luster and shine that came back.”
The Kellers took their sedan to a couple of car shows not long after it got back on the road, and happily claimed trophies in both shows. “Both times it lost to fully restored four-doors,” Frank said.
The trips also gave Keller a chance to experience the fun of traveling in a full-sized “old school” family sedan — something he hadn’t done in a while.
“They’re a boat,” he said with a laugh. “Hey, they were Chevy’s full-size vehicles.
“The cars today, the technology is just astronomical. Back then, they were just put together! We laugh, my son and I, at some of the workmanship. It was not the greatest. But it’s like being out being out in a big old 20-foot Chris Craft on a lake. You could get seasick in one of these.”
62-profile
Keller plans to sell the car if the right buyer comes along, but he won’t feel bad about having a nice, big red sedan around for a while if he has to. Clearly, the car is growing on him.
“I do buy some cars for investment, but I’m in no hurry to sell it,” he said. “I don’t want to see this car hacked … Somebody out there is going to love this car, and I hope they find it.
“You just don’t see these cars. They didn’t survive. And four-doors never got the respect they deserve, but they were the cars we were all raised with.”
1938 Chevrolet Coupe
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on December 6, 2009
Brian Earnest of Old Cars Weekly posted this “before and after” story about a 1938 Chevy Coupe barn find.
1938 Chevrolet Coupe Barn
1938 Chevrolet Coupe Done
The “before and after” versions of Richard Thomas’ 1938 Chevy
coupe. The car had sat for more than 20 years in a shed before
Thomas bought it from an old friend in 2004.
Richard Thomas waited a long time to land his “Sweetie.” More than four decades in fact. And when opportunity finally knocked, even at the least-expected time and most unlikely place, he didn’t hesitate.
Thomas had known about his 1938 Chevrolet Master Business Coupe, this weeks’ Old Cars Report “Car of the Week,” since he and the car’s owner were childhood friends back in the 1960s. Even though he didn’t own other collector cars and wasn’t active in the car hobby, Thomas had always told his friend, Mike Webb, that he’d like to buy his car someday. He was always rebuffed, until his luck finally began to change in late 2003. The two man bumped into each other at a garage sale after not seeing much of each other for many years, and Thomas again gave Webb his sales pitch. A year later, Thomas called him on the phone, still pining for the car. Then, finally, in December of 2004, the pair saw each other at another garage sale, and this time, Webb’s tune had changed.
“I think he had hoped and hoped that he’d get around to restoring it, but his health was getting bad,” said Thomas, a resident of Arkansas City, Kansas. “Life isn’t always fair, and it wasn’t fair to him. He was having some hard times.
“But I was very surprised that he agreed to sell it to me. I could hardly believe it.”
It hardly seems a surprise that Webb would have trouble parting with the car he had owned for so many years. He had gotten the car from the original owner, Elijah Ham, who had purchased the car new from a fledgling dealership in Arkansas City. Ham, a friend of the Webb family, apparently drove the car very little, and during his retirement years decided to give the car to Mike Webb, who was just 14 at the time. Thomas says the other boys didn’t know Webb even had such a car, but he remembers the day everyone found out!
“The first first time I saw it just a bunch of us guys 17, 18 years old, right in that area, we were just hanging out and doing what teenagers did in the ‘60s,” he said. “I didn’t even know he had it. I about died when I saw it. It was just a cool old car. Of course, we didn’t really know much about it, I just thought it was cool.
“He let us all drool, then took it back to the house. He’d get it out on occasion. But he eventually had a little problem with the brakes — the positive battery cable rubbed a hole in the brake line. And one day he popped the brakes and ran into the back of a flatbed truck and put a nice crease in the grille. After that he rolled her into the barn and there she sat …
“It just stayed in the barn and as time went on we both went our own ways and didn’t see much of each other. … Every once in a while we’d pass ways and I’d kind of half-heartedly say, ‘Hey, want to sell me that car yet?’”
1938 Chevy Coupe Yard
1938 Chevy Coupe towed
By the time Thomas got his chance to own the car, which he calls his “Sweetie,” it had sat for more than 20 years. The gas had turned “to varnish” and the neglected Chevy was covered with a thick layer of dust. It had also become home to generations of unidentified varmints and various other creatures. It was a long way from the impressive, shiny coupe that Thomas remembered from his teenage years.
“I was kind of hoping it would be in kind of shape where it had been setting for a while, but wasn’t let go as much as it had been,” he said. “I was hoping to change the oil, put a fresh battery in it and go for a ride. But that was not the case.”
But underneath all its dirt and imperfections, Thomas could still see a beautiful car. Chevrolet’s “diamond crown” styling changes were introduced for the 1937 models and carried over into 1938. The changes included safety glass in all the windows and fenders that were straight on the sides. The ’38s had a new grille that alternated narrow and wide horizontal bars with a center molding down the middle. There were a few other styling tweaks for the ’38s, but the body shells and running boards were the same on the ’37s and ’38s.
1938 Chevy Coupe trunk before
The hoods had ventilators with three chrome horizontal moldings. The headlights were bullet-shaped and mounted close to the grille. Master series cars — there was also a higher-end Master Deluxe series — hand single tail lamps.
Under the hood was the familiar Chevy inline six, displacing 216.5 cid and producing a modest 85 hp. A three-speed manual transmission with the stick on the floor was standard on all the bowtie ’38s.
There were a total of 12 different Chevrolets available in 1938 — six each in both the Master and Master Deluxe lineups. The two-door town sedans were the most popular by far with 95,050 built, but coupes were also good sellers. A total of 39,793 coupes like Thomas’ rolled off Chevy assembly lines carrying base prices of $648, which was the lowest MSRP on the Chevy menu.
Thomas began to bring his Sweetie back to life soon after he got it home. He started by fixing the starter and fuel pump, but then made a costly mistake when he started the car without cleaning out the old gas tank.
“I finally did get it started. It ran — it was a little rough — but it did run,” he recalls. “Well, after I got done bouncing off the walls with excitement, I took a couple of pictures of it running, then I shut it off and went inside. The next day I went out to start it again, just went [insert loud engine noise sounds]! Come to find out the fresh gas I had put in it had melted some of the varnish and the varnish had gotten up into the engine and stuck the valves shut. Overnight it had crystallized right in the engine. I had to buy a whole new set of push rods and whole set of lifters … Now I preach that hard, hard: If you ever buy a car that hasn’t started in a long time, before you start it, pull the tank on it and clean it all out. You’ll save yourself a lot of problems.”
1938 Chevy Coupe Primed
The next big step in what Thomas termed “a rolling restoration” was to replace much of the interior “so it didn’t smell like a bathroom,” he said. “I drove it that way for a while and actually took it to some shows. It was all pretty much original, except for the interior.
“Most of the paint had popped off it. It had a lot of bare spots and a lot of surface rust. I still had fun driving it and darn sure didn’t have to worry about polishing it before I went to a show.”
1938 Chey Coupe interior-done
Thomas kept messaging the old ’38 a little at a time, fixing and replacing a few body panels, then priming the back half of the car and re-chroming the rear bumper. “From the side it looked kind of funny,” he said. “The back half looked good and the front half was all original.”
Thomas eventually primed the front half of the car, too, and got the rest of the chrome done. “It had aftermarket fender shirts on it so it looked like a low-rider. It really looked cool!” he said.
1938 Chevy Coupe engine-done
The finishing touch finally came last winter when the car got a shiny new suit of black paint. “I decided to bite the bullet,” Thomas said. The car is now arguably better than new, with options like fender skirts, heater, defroster, clock and ashtray that were not in the car when it was ordered new.
After waiting all these years, Thomas has no problems putting some miles on his Chevy, often with his wife Peggy riding shotgun. “She loves it and loves to go for rides,” Thomas said. The coupe’s odometer now reads 54,000-plus miles, and Thomas has accounted for about 6,000 of those. The Chevy’s days of sitting sedentary in a barn appear to be long gone.
“It runs fine, it just doesn’t run real fast,” Thomas joked. “It’s the old babbit-beater engine. It’s basically the old oil-splash system. It will run for ever as long as you don’t over-rap it.
“I get it out when the weather is good. I try to drive it at least once a week. I run across people who’ll see the car and say, ‘Hey, I remember when Mike’s mom used to drive that car.’ Some of the old-timers around here remember it.”
1938 Chevy Coupe Done
Experimental Eldorado
Posted by rariccardi in Old Cars Weekly on December 6, 2009
Here is a great article about an experimental Eldorado made by Cadillac in 1965. Thanks to Angelo Van Bogart and Old Cars Weekly with materials supplied by John Hambrock.
After long being a leader in design, Cadillac had a little catching up to do after the 1961 Lincoln Continentals made their debut.
1965 Cadillac Eldorad
Close inspection shows this isn’t an ordinary 1965 Cadillac
Fleetwood Eldorado convertible. Note the flush-fitting convertible
top lid in the down position, wire wheels and 1966-style cornering
lamps, all features not found on production 1965 Eldorados.
The restrained elegance of the slab-sided Lincolns was a styling sensation and carried Lincoln production through significant production gains throughout the 1960s.
As a result of Lincoln’s styling challenge, Cadillac released a clean, slab-sided car of its own in 1965 that elegantly retained traditional Cadillac features. Yet, through the redesigned 1965 and similar-appearing 1966 models, Cadillac convertible coupes retained a bulky folded convertible top when the top was in the lowered position. The 1961-and-later Lincoln Continental convertible sedans, however, featured a folded convertible top hidden under a cover flush with the sheet metal around it. In 1965, General Motors worked to match Lincoln’s appealing flush top-cover styling element on a special Eldorado.
1965 Cadillac Eldorado top
The project to give this Eldorado a fully automatic top and
flush-fitting top compartment lid earned the special project
car the name “XP-850.”
A 1966 General Motors Project Report of the “XP-850 Cadillac Convertible Running Car” details work by the General Motors Styling Staff and Fisher to build “a completely automatic convertible top on a 1965 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible.”
The report, submitted by J.H. Gilson and approved by A.A. Limberg in January 1966, addresses the special design features of the unique project Eldorado.
“The design features of the Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, XP-850 are the Fisher ‘Infora’ convertible top and the Styling features which were added to make it fully automatic,” the GM report said. “These were a powered retractable glass window, powered flush top compartment lids and a powered convertible top header latch. The Fisher ‘Infora’ convertible top bows and tacking strip were altered to accept the flush lid design. The deck lid was retained, but the hinging was replaced with hood hinges.”
Details of the Infora top are not included in the report, but the photos accompanying the report made it appear to be a more finished-appearing top on the inside, and without the intrusion of exposed convertible top bows. XP-850 was one of 10 1965 Cadillac Eldorado convertibles fitted with the Fisher Infora convertible top early in 1965, and it was the only car scheduled for evaluation by the General Motors Styling Staff. As a result, it was likely the only such 1965 Eldorado given the special styling alterations by General Motors Styling Staff.
According to the report, “Styling, at this time, decided to install flush convertible top compartment lids and add electric header latches as well as a powered rear glass window to provide a completely automatic top; a top that any woman could operate with ease.
“The advanced design should be cheaper, more positive in operation and feasible for production.”
Engineering these styling alterations by the General Motors Styling Staff commenced Feb. 1, 1965, but the design staff’s heavy workload caused many holdups. On Oct. 11, 1965, the conversion work on the Eldorado was completed by the fabrication department and the top was demonstrated to management and car division representatives. Nine days later, on Oct. 20, 1965, the accompanying photos were taken. “All agreed that the design has production possibilities,” indicated the Project Report.
The Eldorado was then delivered to the GM garage for use by an unnamed corporation executive. While being demonstrated, the circuit breaker for the top circuit protection kept opening, shutting off power to the top.
“It was suggested [by the executive] that before it was delivered to him again, the top be cycled 2,000 times to make sure of its dependability,” the report said. “This, he felt, would be necessary before demonstrating it to other corporation executives.”
At this point, the car was returned to Styling and the recommended cycling test began. During the cycle tests, the top began moving slower with each test. The top finally stalled after 250 cycles, even with electric fans cooling the drive motor, “because of the circuit breaker opening,” stated the report.
The cause of the failure was determined to be a damaged spur gear and thrust bearings in the main drive gear boxes. Tenstedt Division had designed these Dura-built assemblies and inspected them and found the spur gear had not been hardened, causing the thrust bearing to fail, the report stated.
After the damaged parts were replaced, Fisher was called in to adjust XP-850’s top. When the top would not stack properly, it was determined that the main pivot-torail frame was bent by 1/4 inch. The rail’s thickness was increased 1/4 inch and its design was further corrected using a fixture to relocate it. The top was then reassembled and adjusted so that it stacked in the proper position.
By the time of these adjustments, automobile production was in the 1966 model season, so XP-850 was updated to the 1966 configuration. It is pictured here in Oct. 20, 1965, before the facelift was undertaken, and retains the standard 1965 Fleetwood Eldorado side trim, as well as the front grille and rear bumper found on all 1965 Cadillac models that year. However, there are a few unique elements on XP-850. Wire wheels not found on any other production Cadillac appear in these October photographs. During the 1950s, some design-study Cadillacs have appeared with wheels by Borrani, the company that may have sourced the three-bar spinner wire wheels on XP-850. These wheels do not appear to be the same wire wheels found on the 1964 Cadillac Florentine coupe show car.
XP-850 was also given cornering lamps similar, but not identical, to those found on 1966 Cadillac models. Using this style of cornering lamp would simply have required the use of a 1966-style front fender, which would have been available in October 1966, or significant modification to a 1965 Cadillac front fender that XP-850 was presumably fitted with originally. A single rectangular lense covered two stacked headlamps up front for a look often found early-1960s GM show cars, as well as the personal cars of Bill Mitchell. The crowning touch to the front end of the car was a deck job that removed the Cadillac “V” and crest, and the car received a special stand-up hood ornament showing the wreath and crest. Mitchell’s personal 1967 Fleetwood Eldorado also featured a stand-up hood ornament that replaced the standard wreath and crest on the front of the hood of production cars.
By Jan. 14, 1966, work to convert the XP-850 was complete. The car got a fresh repaint and was made available to management.
Where it went after that remains a mystery.
Below are pages from the original styling report. They were submitted by J.H. Gilson and approved by A.A. Limberg in January 1966.
