karguy12

Wow.... I can't beleive that this car has stumped the entire internet! I have posted these photos here and on the HAMB (one of the greatest resources of auto related memory) and several other sights and these have been zero facts uncovered! With such an unusual and bizarre car that amazes me.

Several of the intruments have been identified as having been used in a P-40, but these same intruments were also used in multiple other aircraft including the P-36 that flew in 1935. The one Kollsman altimeter has a patent date on it from 1933. I have not removed any of the instruments from the dash, but there are other tags on the back of the other instruments that can not be read while they are still in the car. I will pull them and date them eventually. It would not suprise me if this car was also a Harlan Fenglar creation similar to the Thunderbowl Comet, because there are similarities in shape and construction, but of course I have no information to support that. Harlan Fengler was also pursuing multiple speed records and was actually the person that drives the Thunderbowl Comet in the 1936 movie "Speed". Another interesting note is the 1941 Popular Mechanics article posted at the link provided above by revkev6 ... http://www.gregwapling.com/hotrod/land-speed-racing-history/land-speed-racing-thunderbowl-comet.html The article talks about the Comet, then called the "Golden Eagle" preparing for a land speed run with three seperate engines in order to attempt three classifications of records including one attempt with a straight 8 engine for the then 152mph record set by Harry Hartz and Fred Frame on Murdoc dry lake. The article also talks about the 7 inches of ground clearance on the Golden Eagle. So while this Pierce Arrow car may not have been attempting the all out speed record, there were land speed records within its grasp even as late as 1941 when this article was written.

Well it has been about a week and nobody has been able to identify the Pierce Arrow so I had this idea. I saw on TV how when they have an unidentified body that is just a skeleton they reconstruct the face using clay so that people may see the face and recognize the missing person. So.... I did the same with this car's skeleton. I replaced some of the missing ribs and sheathed the car in aluminum foil just to give the appearance of what the body would have looked like sometime in it's past. It is obviously a little crude because aluminum foil is hard to work with without ripping or wrinkling, but here are the results.... At least it gives a better idea of what the car used to look like. The Artist rendering is courtesy of MotoArigato.com Moto Arigato: Florida Man Saves Pierce-Arrow Land Speed Record Car Featured on American Pickers

Some of you already know this, but this is not the first unusual streamliner I have been fortunate enough to uncover and save. I located and saved this 1937 Adler Lemans race car from the yard it sat in outside for 30 years. The one photo with the older shirtless gentleman is what it looked like when I found it. the others are from it's past and present life. It raced at Lemans in 1937 and 1938. In 1938 it came in 7th overall and won it's class. It was the first streamliner and closed car to race at Lemans as well as the first woman to race at Lemans. It too was a fun car to research and document. I'm hoping I will be able to fill in the missing history on this Pierce Arrow too.

I have been going back through the previous owner and reached out but no response as of yet. The car was purchased from a wharehouse in Ormond Beach in 1988 then brought to where I found it. There was supposedly another wrecked early land speed record car in the wharehouse at the time along with a couple of other cars. There were many "speed" records in all types of categories other than ultimate top speed. The way the car was built it is clear it was not for any street driven purpose. With it being complete, menaing everything done, interior in it, nothing missing, full body at one piont in time, it had to have been brought out sometime, somewhere. People in the historical societies in Ormond and Daytona are looking. It has only been "exposed" for a few days so we will give it more time. I am sure something will shake out sooner or later. An email is going out tomorrow to 33,000 car collectors World wide so maybe that will generate a response. Either way, it's still fun to look into the history and see what turns up!

I got it for much less than he offered it to Frank and Mike for. Let's just say I "bundled".

I've never thought for a minute that this car was ever a factory built car. Most LSR's weren't. What I have said though is that there was a lot of thought and engineering that went into this car. Somebody spent a lot of time, or money or both building it.

This is a post about one I had a while ago. There are two photos that just show a glimpse of the rumble seat. The seat was very plain with zero pattern on it with a welt around the edges and that was it. Picked up a Cool 28' Chrysler Roadster Tonight! UPDATE - Page 2 - THE H.A.M.B.

More interesting facts about this truely amazing car.... I identified the 300MPH speedometer as an aircraft unit. But I was wondering how they converted it to a mechanical reading for the automotive application. Well, they didn't. Apparently there was a wind speed indicator or opening on the car somewhere because the guage is hooked up to air hoses! Check out the pics. The lettering on the back of the guage says "CAUTION: DO NOT BLOW INTO TUBES". Notice the one line hooked up to the guage.

Wheelbase measures 137" from hub center to hub center......

Here are some photos of what is left of the body...... some places look like a stainless steel mesh with a fabric over that and then something that appears bondo like but it is something else with a gray look to it. I do not know whether this was the original bodywork or something added later in its life. The entire interior structure of the car including frame, engine compartment, interior panels, etc was originally painted red. The red bucket type seats were covered in a blue leather. I can't find any indication of exterior color other than silver gray.

Was it possible to order only a bare chassis with engine in 1931? I forgot to measure the wheelbase but will do it this afternoon.

More on the guages... They appear to be P-40 guages from comparing them to the following link http://www.warbirdsite.com/museumP-40.html The fuel temp and oil guage are from The Electric Auto-Lite Co Motometer Gauge & Equip’T Div. La Crosse, Wis. The compass I incorrectly identified as a Kollsman appears to be a Bendix.

I just examined a few details more closely. The trans looks like it has a 2*9*31 date on it. Engine number is 227460. Yes, the tag on the right front frame rail is missing with bits still stuck under the old rivets. Here are some additional photos of the fabricated tach or speedometer drive as well. Also, check out these amazing door hinges. i am thinking these must be aircraft and so are most if not all of the guages. One guage says "UP" and "DOWN" with a 1-10 reading on it. There are small tags on the rear of the guages that identify most of them as Kollsman guages. Some of the guages look identicle to the ones in a P-40 aircraft, so perhaps the build is later than thought or they did some upgrading over the years. The guage I could not identify is a Kollsman aircraft compass with adjustible settings. There are also tags that look like Airforce part number tags that I have seen before with patent, part number, order number info that should make ID'ing the age or type fairly easy. Also included is the Electric door latch mechanism photos. Yes, it has electric shaved doors, lol.

Sometime in the next week or so I will be sheathing the body in heavy duty aluminum foil just to get an idea of what it would have looked like to hopefully spark someone's memory about the car. It will be kind of like when they reconstruct a face over the skull of a unidentified person to help identify them. i will time lapse video the process and post photographs when I am done.

There are lowering blocks on the car (see photo) plus it appears the springs have been modified but i may be wrong about that. Each leaf spring is sheathed like the V-16 Cadillacs I used to work on. The brakes look to be rod actuated at first then convert to cable with huge hubs and drums. I don't know enough about Pierce Arrows yet to determine if they are stock or not. Here are some additional detail photos. The one photo shows the mechanical linkage design for the rod to cable 4 carb linkage. There is also a guage that is smashed over to the passenger side that I do not know what it is or does in the one photo. The last photo is the most similar shape on another automobile that I can find. The sides of this Pierce Arrow would look almost identicle to the sides of the finished car in the Shlumpf museum. The sides on the Pierce Arrow are also of course taller and the Pierce perhaps longer as well. However, the front fender corners are very close in design to the Pierce Arrow. The hood of the car would have looked similar towards the rear but the nose of the hood would have just tapered gradually from the radius of the cowl to the same flat configuration just in front of the grille opening on the Pierce Arrow and would not have had the "nose" of the car in the museum. The hood on the Pierce was made in two long pieces that opened like a clam OUTWARDS towards the fenders. Each hinge then had a pin mechanism like a miniature hood release pin on a 60's car that released from cable pulls from inside the car so both sides could be removed independently. I assume the "clam" hood design would allow them to open the hood easily to allow the engine to cool and then allow either side to removed quickly if they needed to work on the car. I really have not evenhad a chance to study the car myself. The junk has yet to be cleaned out of it! I am sure that many more interesting details will emerge as we clean the car and start to follow wires and cables and rods and examine the build design more closely. I will continue to post those discoveries here. If any of you photoshop guys out there want to take a shot at converting the Shlumpf museum car to look more like the Pierce Arrow by removing the "nose" and making it a coupe with a split windscreen that would be fantastic! Keep the questions coming.... we'll figfure this car out!

The numbers posted in post #5 were casting numbers. The second set appearing like the date casting numbers. I did not see any plates riveted to the frame but I will search more intently now that I know where to look. I will also check the engine numbers stamped where you suggest and measure the wheelbase. It does not appear that the frame was cut or altered length wise. Are there any other numbers or identification indicators I could search for?

The car has 35 miles on the odometer and had been stored since the 30's. I don't think the heads were so rusty they needed to weld them in in 1930 or 31 on a fresh build. I also don't think that they used a rusty old head on the build when they were using a new driveline and frame of a valuable car at the time.

Sure MODERN engines would not need welded plugs. But we are talking 30's metalurgy, 30's threads and 30's spark plugs. Fact is, the spark plugs are wleded to the heads. How do you propose I test the compression?

Here is Ab Jenkins land speed Pierce Arrow he broke multiple records with including the 50 mile, 100 mile, 200 mile, 500 mile and 24 hour speed records with in 1934 using almost identicle stock Pierce Arrow wheels.

There are way too many special features on this car for it to have been a "street speedster" or some other road going variant. There were never any lights or brake lights or even a rear window or mirrors to see out of on the car. The compression was so high on the engine that they literally welded the spark plugs to the head so that they would not blow them out of the socket on the speed run. The engine and trans are so low in the frame that with the air out of the tires, the trans is touching the ground. With air in the tires there would be about 4 inches of ground clearance. You would never have done anything like that on a 30's road car with the condition of those roads, but 4 inches of ground clearance is fine for sand. Four custom built intakes with ceramic throats for four seperate carbs. A custom modified exhaust manifold that again was ceramic coated inside and out. A machined and fabricated mechanical linkage for opening all four carbs with adjustments for each, extended controls to move the passenger compartment back to the rear axle area and aircraft grade body ribs with smoothed over countersunk aircraft rivets. A hood that opens outward like a clam but then unpins at each hinge, a special hand fabricated gear assembly to turn the 300mph speedometer and on and on. This was built to go fast, not run on the streets like the car in the 1936 Jimmy Stewart movie which was a road going movie prop. There is no doubt it was a land speed car. It may not have been sucessful, but they were trying to go as fast as possible. What the intent of the build actually was, we may never know. I too was facinated by the car on the show. I could not believe that they didn't even call in an expert or give it another hard look. The show keeps all of their finds confidential so that someone doesn't see the show and then go rob these people with hoards of antiques or sworm them with people trying to buy their stuff. In the show they deliberately tried to make you think the car was in the Daytona area when they drove three plus hours to get to it. I would have thought though that SOMEBODY would have tracked the car down before I lucked up upon it. The little girl was taking several pictures of the car and two professional photographers were taking photos of her doing it. There is one shot of just the arms and the camera coming out of the stroller! Prieceless! AB Jenkins set 40 records in an almost stock 1932 Pierce Arrow so speed records come in all shapes and sizes.

We took the car to it's firsrt car show fresh out of the mud less than 24 hours after extracting it from the backyard it sat in for 25 years. IT WON ITS FIRST TROPHY!! LOL There was a huge crowd around it all day much to the dismay of many a polished Ferrari owner.

I'm not sure what I will do with it. I know that a lot of research will be the first order of business.

The engine numbers are 44363 K*A*5 Trans numbers are T-74-178

Many of you have seen the American Picker's TV show where they discover a Pierce Arrow LSR car from the 30's. Well here it is unearthed and saved. Frame and running gear all appear to be 1929 Pierce Arrow with numerous modifications like the engine relocated to the point it almost scrapes the ground, lowerin blocks, custom controls, etc. It has a 300MPH speedometer! The body was originally canvass like the ol planes of the 20's and you can still see some of it on the aluminum birdcage frame. Any information, photos or history for this car would be greatly appreciated! More photos to follow.