1912Staver

Actually a decent VW Beatle convertible can be just as expensive as a somewhat scruffy Morgan. A Karmann Ghia even more so.

Perhaps not, but part of this hobby has always involved speculating / fantasizing about about what car you would like to buy. By narrowing it down to cars that a given person can actually afford just makes the exercise more real, and avoids the Ferrari / 300 SL/ Duesenberg revolving door.

I don't see too much personal risk saying I could afford a $30,000 car. I think pretty much anyone with a job or on Social Security could swing something at that sort of price . Particularly at what are still near historic low interest rates. It's not like I am keeping $30,000 in cash in a flower pot on the front porch, waiting for the right car to come along.

A Morgan. Not cheap, but I could afford one at the cheap end of the range . Say a mid 1960's , Cortina powered 4 seater. About the cheapest Morgan out there all things considered. Hold back is space. I would have to build a new garage to house it. Construction costs are out of this world in my part of North America. The basic $30,000.00 price tag of the car is nothing compared to the cost of building something around here. Cars are cheap { relatively }. Land and structures are through the moon here in Western Canada.

Similar in that they both have horseshoe magnets, but quite different in output voltage. The one on the unknown engine is a high tension mag. It fires the spark plug directly. The low tension mag in this post uses the magneto output to power a ignition coil and then the spark plug.

One of these would be more $ than your Electra , but not a lot more. But 400% of the fun of a " large " Buick. I am trying to be nice John , not a big fan of big cars. But I know some like them. 1958 Buckler 90, sort of a kit car, sort of a production car. This a nice one built up in New Zealand in the late 1950's.

Possible I suppose, but who would have the abilities and resources to do this ? Materials and metallurgy are one thing , but produce and use forging dies, carry out heat treatment , and the equipment to do grinding operations are skills / machinery that few single persons have. Very few skilled sheet metal people are good designers or mechanics let alone skilled mechanical engineers. Pretty tall order. Unfortunately we don't live 200 years.

Gunsmoke, I can't think of any rational reason for owning a " fast " road car. Seeing as how even using a fraction of its potential on a public road is going to eventually end up in very expensive trouble. As I really like fast cars I am only going to own a fast track car. A Chevron of pretty much any type would be my first choice, followed closely by a Lola T290. I would even settle for being able to afford using my Elden MK 12 with the Cosworth BDA it was fitted with from the factory. 1973 British F3 series car, now fitted with a water cooled VW FSV engine . Not quite as fast, but substantially cheaper. Long live wings and slicks.

Most expensive ? People with fat wallets and the requisite ego determine this. Those of us in the great unwashed don't really have a clue what motivates " world class " prices. It might as well all be a news broadcast from Mars.

GT 40's sell reasonably frequently. If you are talking about one of the Le Mans winning cars then they are in a separate category and almost never are sold. I think Ford still owns most of them.

Decarbonization is actually very simple to achieve. Just live in a warm place , cook your food with a large magnifying glass, use a bamboo frame bicycle for transport and accept that you will probably never see anything more than 10 miles from your front door within your lifetime. No need for a multi billion $ P.R. job.

Interesting car, but that price is just plain nuts. So many equally / more significant cars change hands for a small fraction of this absurd price. I don't really buy into the MB or even the Porsche , " Uber car " mindset. 300 SL's / SLR's , 906's , 908's ,917's ,were not really " dominant " , lots of other cars could give them a good run for the money. And often a lot cheaper to buy and operate.

Tough to be sure, but this isnt what Packard normally called a truck . Heavy commercial car chassis ? Packard dropped truck production in 1924, and they were not anything like this vehicle. Here is what a Packard truck looked like in the 1920's.

That's another low tension mag. Similar to a wizard. Usually found on relatively early stationary engines.

Many did have the optional wires, but wood spoke were standard on most models.

Packard trucks are out there as well . But even the " small " 1 ton is a lot more truck like than these smaller Whites. Other than the actual size of the parts involved a Packard 1 ton is almost exactly the same design as a Packard 3 ton. { a real truck ! } They just scaled the drawings up or down depending on the size. White quality is very good, but Packard is in the same catagory. Ed , you should consider getting a Packard truck to keep your Whites company. You will be just as amazed by their quality as is the case with White vehicles.

A pretty tall order I am afraid. A car big enough for your HS V8 will in almost every case , even without an engine, be worth a lot more than the cost of finding the correct engine. Especially so if it falls in the 1910- 1918 time frame. Almost no cheaper than just buying a complete car. Large brass or early nickel era cars are still in significant demand. A 1916 - 18 Cadillac might be your best bet.

A 40 Sports are rare, but in general they don't seem to bring very high prices in North America. The Jensen coachworks is nice, but the Austin chassis is quite basic and rather underpowered. Most people would rather have something like a MGA or TR 3 . A 90 Atlantics can hit some substantial prices, but a very limited market in North America.

Early MC side car ?

Finding the right sort of chassis from the correct era may be a bit of a challenge. Engines in general seem to survive a bit more commonly as they often were adapted to other purposes , pumps, saws , generators, compressors , etc. once the cars useful life was over. Some large cars were converted to farm wagon use, I have such a chassis myself. But it is probably a bit too new for your engine. A 1926 Cadillac 314. The short wheelbase for 1926 as I believe it came from a Custom Series, Roadster. But still a reasonably big car, at a 132 inch wheel base. If you are possibly interested let me know. Greg

They look like Rudge wheels so I think that makes it about 1924- 25.

I suppose it could be a 40 H.P. just as easily as a 30 or 35 H.P.. But judging from the photo with the seated driver, it does not look like a particularly large car to me.

I think it is an older car , 1910 era. Possibly the modifications were done in circa 1914 . That would account for what would have been brand new hood hold downs. The front frame crossmember on my Packard truck is made in a similar manner to what I am suggesting for this cars frame. Except both the inner and outer layer are steel plate rather than one channel and one plain plate. Wood sandwiched by steel and quite a few through rivets. Steel gave it strength and the wood gave the crossmember some strength plus a bit of give if the truck was pushing against something. I think the wood filler on this car would be intended to make a lighter duty , perhaps 30 H.P. car , stiff enough for racing.

If you want one of these , just go out and buy one. If you can't afford to do that then you can't afford to keep one running even if someone gives you one. A car for the few. Just my opinion , but few have both the fat wallet and the fat ego needed for ownership.

I think it is a regular channel frame with a wood insert. And then the inner closing piece is either carriage bolted or riveted in place. Notice all the rounded bolt or rivet heads visible on the outside of the frame. I think some European race cars around this time used a similar technique. There is a lot about this car that resembles the first Mercers , but a number of things are not right. There were a few " Sharp Arrow ' cars built that evolved into the Mercer for series production . Could this be one of them, possibly owner modified to some degree ?