1912Staver

Sorry, but no. Freeing up some of the currently outrageous value of this place is part of the equation. The house market out here is nuts, even for a near tear down like my current place.

This ended up in my pile at a auction a couple of weeks ago. Rear end is most likely Hudson and I am speculating these body parts came from the same car. Roll down 1/4 windows can't be that common. Or a rear door that uses a piano hinge. Body parts are free for the taking in Langley B.C. Canada, just East of Vancouver B.C. I am keeping the rear end.

I know Craig, I just throw that phrase in for comic relief. Compared to Edmonton I am living in Canada's tropics. But I did spend my early years in Winterpeg. And a year in Huston B.C. { by Smithers } Those memories never fade. Lately I have been considering immigrating to El Berta. Prices of everything is getting pretty extreme West of the Rockies. Not so sure about the Edmonton area, more like Red Deer. Time will tell.

Thanks Peter. I was actually thinking more about the cars shown early on in todays photo set. I expect very limited production compared to the trucks. That's amazing that the 1903 truck chassis survives.

Amazing photo's Peter ! Are any of those early Saurer automobiles known to survive ?

I am going to hazard a guess that it is from the larger , Model 40. That's based on the size of the top tank { surface where the emblem mounts }. Compare to Dave's photo of one of the smaller models. The larger area of your shell becomes apparent.

I agree about Packard roadster. 1924 seems likely although I think 1925 is almost identical. Great cars. Unfortunately this one seems to have spent at least one decade too many outdoors. Still , if it was a reasonable distance { it isn't } I would be happy to give it a home.

In a way that sounds more like current F1. Indy is a pretty unique event. How much faster are they today than say 15 years ago ? Quite a bit safer today , but I suspect really not all that much faster. Like I mentioned before , it's all the modern tech that makes modern racing uninteresting to me. Sometime in the mid 1980's it became more about budgets and electronics than a man and a machine.

Driver safety is of course very important. But over the last 40 years the cars have , in stages , evolved from quite dangerous to quite safe. Were the cars a generation { engineering, not human } or two ago significantly less safe ? I expect each newer design became a bit safer than the previous. We have now arrived at a point where the cars are pretty markedly different than even 10 years ago . What's next , air bags ? I personally have lost much of my interest in modern racing cars. When it takes a team of 3 or 4 tech. people just to start the engine I think things have gone too far.

Here in Canada the average was closer to $1000.00. Supply and demand. A good friend went whole hog and paid $1200.00 for a 65 ,GT fastback ,4 speed. A code. He still owns it all these years later. Upgraded to a full K code powertrain about 25 years ago. A very rusty K coupe gave up its mechanicals. The coupe became a race car with much higher than K spec parts. We don't waste anything up here in the frozen North.

My 66 was already a bit scruffy when I bought it in 1975, but $650.00 for a running , driving V8 Fastback was very cheap even back in the day. Unfortunately a C code auto, but at that price I didn't have many other options. Weekend jobs didn't put much in a 16 year old's pocket back in the 1970's. The MGB I replaced it with was much more money , over $1100.00 with tax. I still wonder how I afforded that one . But I was 18 by then and working more hours. The MGB also saved quite a bit on gas costs. Every little bit helped both then and even more so now.

Lots of pre war cars I like. But none of the ones I like are affordable in my current circumstance. Even more garage intensive than a tiny little Morgan so a double whammy on the affordability front. A $40,000 - $50,000 late teens / early 20's Marmon sport touring plus a $60,000 ++ garage is simply not in the cards. I just got rid of 2 Model A's last summer, they are not my thing anymore. The Model A's lived in a lean to shed, not quite the place to keep something even 1/2 ways decent.

I guess you are either a VW person or not. { or German cars of any sort for that matter }. I have driven pretty much every reasonably common , post war British car at one time or another. And enjoyed every one except the F.W.D. BMC's, Mini , Austin1100, Land Crab , etc. I have never even had a ride in a VW, let alone driven one. And never even slightly tempted to buy one. Hard to imagine MG and VW in the same sentence. Steve, I loved my 66 Mustang fastback that was my High School wheels. Easy to afford back in the mid 1970's, today not a chance. Inflation, downward mobility sucks !

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.