[Steve Moskowitz]

You have to read this! The article is from 1952 Popular Science and starts on page 115. Parts of it are hysterical given today's prices...

www.books.google.com/books?id=HCEDAAAAMBAJ

[Tom Laferriere]

My Stanley is a Pollard car...look closely at the photo and you will see BJ Pollard on the right front frame rail.

[Jim Dillon]

Originally Posted by 1937hd45

Jim, were is the 1913 Chalmers that Barney drove on the 1950 Glidden Tour? The Elmer Bemis 1912 T was on the Tour as well, and I've had the car since 1983. I've always thought it would be fun to trace all the cars from that Tour and collect photos of them today.

Bob that car was one of the greatest cars to drive. The engine had never been apart (that I know of) and portions of the interior were original. I had that car up to 70mph on the Southfield freeway and it drove like it was on rails. I sold it to Matt Browning. He called me after it was shipped back to Montana and told me he was really pleasantly surprised at how great a car it was. It struck up a friendship with him that I cherished, good car guy.

My grandfather worked at Chalmers in 1913 as an engine tester where he worked on vibration problems. He told me it was kind of crude science but he would try and match gears by switching them to find the best with the least vibration. He said after awhile he could "read" the gears. This helped him get his job at Packard in the experimental department as an engine tester. His skills on the vibration problems he said helped him abit on the Twin Six issues and the Liberty aero motors. Matt kept the car until his death and the last I saw of any reference to it was in his nicely appointed auction catalog, wherein he stated he bought it from my collection (don't I wish I had enough to call a collection). In my opnion it was pretty close to the driving pleasure of a Twin Six.

A funny story was one day the air starter on the Chalmers decided to go south and I took it to the Greenfield Village Meet. So I had to hand crank it which was no big deal to my grandfather but I was not overly fond of it (the air also supplied air to the gas tank which made me shy away from any hills-which there was one overpass that made the car sputter a tad). Well they called my number to take the car in review down in front of the grandstands and so I set the spark and cranked it and then went back to reset the timing and this guy is waving at me frantically. So I go over and ask him what it going on and he said "Hey could you restart the car all over again, my wife missed what you did". I pleasantly declined ,but chuckled to myself.

If I see any reference to it I will let you know-Jim

[Steve Moskowitz]

Hope this adds to the interest of this thread. Our thanks to the folks at www.oldcarsweekly.com

Barney Pollard after the fire and some of the damage in his yard...

[keiser31]

Steve...that was a very sad scene indeed. I remember seeing a few cars with the name stamped. I believe he started doing that rather late in his collecting career and that is probably why not all were stamped...he had too many to stamp and little time to do it.

[1937hd45]

I sure hope the Henry Ford/Barney Pollard story makes it to the book someday. I still think that last laugh ending is great.

[First Born]

Steve, thanks much for that link. Could hardly quit reading. Ah, memories!

Ben

[JerryVan]

O.K., I'll add my Pollard story as well. When I was 5 or 6 years old, my dad caught word of a group of guys going to the Pollard collection for a semi-private "look-see" just before the auction/s of Barney's collection began. Since we were not on the official guest list, my dad didn't know what time to arrive and so, as it turned out, we were very early. After a moment or two standing at the locked gates, a woman came over and asked what we needed. My father explained that we were there to see the cars. She invited us in, told us we were a lilttle early and took us into the office for coffee and talk. As we soon learned, it was Mrs. Pollard. I recall she asked me what my birthdate was. Apparently, she was quite into astrology and began to tell me my likes and dislikes based on my being a Pisces. She then gave me a silver dollar!

Soon, all the others who were in on this expedition began to show up. When they layed eyes on my dad and I they instantly knew that we were not part of the program and asked us unceremoniously to leave. Apparently Mrs. Pollard was within earshot and announced that my dad and I were her personal friends and that if we were not invited than neither were they. That settled that.

What lay in store for us from that point on I will remember for the rest of my life. The hundreds of cars, standing on end, stacked in rows. The locomotives, motorcylces and all the rest. If I weren't already destined to become an antique car collector, (is this the trait of a Pisces?), I was from that day forth!

I will always think kindly of Mrs. Pollard and the kindness she showed us that day. It gave a 5 year old boy a wonderful hobby for life and a grand memory.

I recall seeing Barney only once. He did a small talk, sort of telling his life story, at a VMCCA, Great Lakes Region meeting. He explained his dislike of Henry Ford due to his slowness, or complete lack of paying him for trucking work he had done. He also mentioned his first working at Packard. He said, "They put me on a drill press. It was simple enough, but so was I so we got along good..."

[keiser31]

Jerry...what a GREAT story and memory.

[Jim Dillon]

Jerry your comments regarding my grandmother cracked me up. She could go on a bit with astrology and she had a thing about coins as well. When my brother and sister were on one of our many visits my grandmother would ask us how many days or Saturdays it was since we last saw her and she would give us so many coins for every day or week and we would all pile into her recently new 55 T-Bird and go to the dime store to pick out some collectibles to take home. Four people in a two seater and a small trunk (with a spare-no continental kit) left little room for large "junk".

I had to attend quite few of those tours you speak of to be some of the eyes and ears. In the sixties, we had to put some brakes on them as we ran into occasions where some of the guys on tours would take emblems or gear shift knobs or whatever. I remember people crawling across the cars in the restored car buildings-most of the time it was pretty good car people but other times the people were just an embarrassment to the group.

The cars standing on end were a sight to behold and pretty eerie at that. Although I walked in them numerous times, I always felt there was an element of danger and I would always catch hell when I got home as the grease on the cars ruined many sets of clothes.

My grandfather was fearless and he thought everyone else should be apparently. When I was 13 my grandfather suggested to my dad that I go to work in the restoration shop-he was the real patriarch of the family so his suggestion carried alot of weight. On one occasionwhen I was probably 15, some of the cars standing on end started falling and of course my grandfather nonchalantly mentioned to me to go pull them back up with a come along. No matter your age it seemed, if you were a kid not prone to swearing, working there you somehow added many colorful phrases to your vocabulary. WTH (or worse) sometimes was as common as saying good morning or whatever. It was scary stuff working 18 or 20 feet up standing on plywood or boards across radiators pulling fallen cars with come alongs and resecuring them with wire rope. One time when 5 or 6 cars had slipped and one had fallen through the building and the construction supply company behind us called to tell us. Well my grandfather in his understated way said "some cars have slipped-pull them back up with a come along"-easy enough. Took all day-open heart surgery may have been easier. The only thing that helped me get the job done was the guy that I got to help me was much more afraid of heights than I was and you could never tell my grandfather you could not do it. That was not in his vernacular. Crazy times although it was a great place to grow up in and around.-Jim