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My dad driving an amazing phaeton: what is it please?


Murphie

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A second cousin recently had some old family films digitized and came up with this gem...my dad has just driven up to a garage and hopped out of this amazing car to greet someone. Sorry for the terrible quality of the image, and also note in the first shot there is a four door sedan parked behind the vehicle it to make it even more difficult. I also found the two other outtakes. Any ideas what we are looking at here? I can’t find anything with any real detail. I believe the film was shot around 1935. Thanks!t385hchov7tiheepaldy.pngvvcwgmmnldgd0krpvo8z.pngcb2m81tyw3fdn3fufvwd.png

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Wow, thanks so much! I suspected Stutz, because my dad -gone over 50 years now used to talk about a Stutz he had as a "kid" The film was shot at my great-grandfather's estate in Pelham NY, on Long Island sound. The estate is still there, well kept up and little changed, and a few years ago I saw from the road that even that garage still exists. The estate was sold back in 1956 or so. 

 

Other than that, I guess my dad is about 24 in the picture. He worked on it himself, and told me he had tuned it carefully to get maximum MPG,  20 sticks in my mind. He went off to WWII, and left the car in that garage. After the war it was done, my g-grandmother had sold it for scrap to help the war effort.  Here are a couple more images of vehicles in the film, maybe those might help date when it was actually taken? image.png.fb2562e8db84c535520fbba35b83bab3.png 

 

image.png.b195e394f69976a7261bdbc332d2bbd0.png

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The sedan the people are getting out of holding presents is a model L Lincoln 1928-30 range.   The grey 2 door car is a 1935 Ford.  The other car is a Chevrolet of similar vintage.   The Stutz just looks like a regular phaeton, it's not a dual cowl phaeton which would have had a second windshield for the rear passengers.     Again, great video and thank you for posting.   

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3 hours ago, K8096 said:

The sedan the people are getting out of holding presents is a model L Lincoln 1928-30 range.   The grey 2 door car is a 1935 Ford.  The other car is a Chevrolet of similar vintage.   The Stutz just looks like a regular phaeton, it's not a dual cowl phaeton which would have had a second windshield for the rear passengers.     Again, great video and thank you for posting.   

 

The Chevrolet is a 1935 Master, the only year with suicide front doors.

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Murphie, great video. Thanks for sharing. That looks like quite the estate. What business was your g-grandfather in to own such a palatial property back then?

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Thx. Yes, it was quite the property. I remember it as a small child. He was a dentist and developed a popular toothpaste brand, Forhan’s, and sold it to a proto-conglomerate, Zonite, in the mid 1920’s. The brand was kind of the Crest of its day. As you can see since this was filmed around 1935 he managed to preserve the family fortune through the Depression. When it came to his divorce however he was not so lucky. :/

Edited by Murphie (see edit history)
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I'll finish this off with one more photo from that long lost lifestyle. This is my dad on the right and his younger brother. Based on their ages, one in shorts the other long pants,  I believe this was about 1928. On the back of this highly staged  photo in pencil are the words "Fixing the car". I'll bet the photographer was the chauffeur, his shadow looming in the foreground. My grandmother (she was divorced) probably could not find the garage. 

 

No mystery here though, seems to me the distinctive radiator shape can only be a Panhard. 

 

image.png.d5d5a862808cf4ce21ad16f81afe7d37.png

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by Murphie (see edit history)
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Stutz phaeton, chauffer's, elaborate estates....

Might be long lost today, Murphie but most backgrounds pale in comparison.  Great family history!

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 1/21/2018 at 9:30 AM, Murphie said:

A second cousin recently had some old family films digitized... Sorry for the terrible quality of the image...

 

Mr. Murphie, please be sure to keep the original film

in your family.  I have seen digitized films that are

not nearly as clear and sharp as the originals, when

the original 8 mm or 16 mm films are played on 

original equipment built for them.

 

For example, at an AACA Annual Meeting a few years

ago, the AACA Library was showing digitized automotive

films.  Another seminar there showed 8 mm automotive films

on an original 8 mm. projector.  The older equipment was

FAR superior.  Evidently a lot can be lost in the conversion. 

Edited by John_S_in_Penna (see edit history)
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55 minutes ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

Evidently a lot can be lost in the conversion

Probably more in the compression used. Remember jpeg and mpeg throw away a bit of detail. Every time it is edited and saved, detail is lost. There are lossless compression algorithms, in stills one is .png.

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Of course. The files would be huge otherwise. Here is the part of the Wikipedia entry about it.

"

Lossless, lossy, and uncompressed video coding formats

Consumer video is generally compressed using lossy video codecs, since that results in significantly smaller files than lossless compression. While there are video coding formats designed explicitly for either lossy or lossless compression, some video coding formats such as Dirac and H.264 support both.

Uncompressed video formats, such as Clean HDMI, is a form of lossless video used in some circumstances such as when sending video to a display over a HDMI connection. Some high-end cameras can also capture video directly in this format. "

Edited by Spinneyhill (see edit history)
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I've never had the pleasure of visiting New York.

What is the sports complex and is it still there?

It looks to be in the heart of a big city, a big deal parade, even has trains passing by in the background.

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