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I've wondered if that yard was still around, saw it on a trip to Colorado in 1975. There was a line of 1930's cars up front: Lincoln-Zephyrs, Terraplanes, Willys, Packards, Studebakers, lines of 1930's & 1940's cars visible beyond. Any still left from what I saw then must be a good deal more weathered after forty-five years. Hope some were saved.

Ed, Please, Do what you are able, there is an audience for the book, however unprofitable it might be. Think of it as a public service to the small automotive history cadre.

Ed, Don't wait too long, some of us may no longer be around then to appreciate your efforts and buy copies...

Ed. We'll still eagerly buy the book. When can we expect it to be available?

Magnificent! This is the first time I've seen this 1934 Pierce-Arrow Twelve sport coupe by Brunn. It was photographed in Delaware Park which was the place where Brunn took most of their new coach-built cars for documentation. The Albright-Knox Art Galley is in the park and also a popular place for such photos. This Pierce-Arrow perfectly illustrates what the designers were after: an unbroken sweep of the eye as it traces the hood length, all the marvelous details and ends in the jaunty spare mounting angle. Less is More, illustrated to a "T"!

Walt makes a good point, designers in that period wanted rid of side-mounted spares as soon as possible, the circular form/bulls eye interrupts the movement of the eye as it assesses a design. Its particularly disruptive when they sought to emphasize long hood length. Rear-mounted spares are a different matter, their jaunty mounting angle can add to the verve of a design. On the lack of storage space, it was declasse to be concerned with such trivialities in your custom coach-built luxury transport....simply send the accoutrements and paraphernalia ahead of your arrival with the domestics in their automobile...

The Packard Eight 2nd Series club sedan is by Dietrich, note the coachbuilder plate and thin A-Pillars.

The H-Series V-12 was a short-stroke, high rpm design to develop torque in a long-stroke, low rpm torque era. The 2 7/8" bore was the size of the standard tin-can!. The same buyer spending $1,500 for a Lincoln-Zephyr sedan with a 3 3/4 stroke could also choose from a Buick Roadmaster Eight 320 cu in with a 3 7/16 bore X 4 5/16 stroke or a Chrysler New Yorker 323 cu in with a 3 1/4 bore X 4 7/8 stroke or for somewhat more, a Packard Super Eight One-Sixty 356 cu in with a 3 1/2 bore X 4 5/8 stroke. All of the latter could be driven almost as if the car had an automatic transmission, the torque was great enough to obviate most gear shifting. What people forget is many people had problems with smooth clutch and gear change manipulation, welcomed anything that reduced the need to do so, especially in urban traffic.

The H-Series V-12 looks more impressive than it is in operation...

What an ironic prediction! Whimpering into oblivion with the end of the '33 Willys-Knight 66E is more like it.

A 1940 Lincoln-Zephyr sedan, $11,000 "1940 Lincoln Zephyr Sedan, owned since 1999. The engine runs and the car drives but it has been sitting for a while without much use so everything needs to be gone through such as brakes, carb, tuning, etc. Interior is original but the front seat is pretty worn out. The back seat and headliner are pretty good. Rust on the car is the driver’s side floorboard which is a little thin, and the pan beneath the radiator which is rusted on the passenger side. Needs a new muffler and a portion of the exhaust pipe going into the muffler. This Lincoln is not a 100 point show car, but it is a presentable driver. Clear Ohio title. Please see pictures and ask questions. Serious inquiries only, price is firm. Scammers, low ballers, or those trying to defraud me will not be answered." https://limaohio.craigslist.org/cto/d/upper-sandusky-1940-lincoln-zephyr-sedan/7122300977.html I have no ownership of or personal interest in the eventual sale of this '40 Lincoln-Zephyr sedan

We know that if you had an old used large open touring car in Colorado, you could always sell it to the Glen Cove resort on the Pikes Peak toll road for use as a sightseeing tour car. Note the Public Utilities Commission PUC numbers on the splash aprons. Climbing up and down the mountain wore out a good many of those. The Pierce-Arrows were sold off to the Rio Grande Southern Railroad to build their Galloping Goose railbuses after their Pikes Peak days. I like these photos when you not only know the date on which they were taken but even the time of day!

Now, for something completely obscure and largely unknown, even among old car people: the 1930-1932 Hupmobile Deluxe and Custom Eights Models H and U. With their best sales year in 1928, Hupmobile in November 1928 bought the Chandler-Cleveland Motor Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio to gain more production capacity in anticipation of greater sales for 1929 and beyond. With that purchase came the 1929 Chandler Royal Eight 85, upper medium-priced line around $2,000, on a 124" wheelbase, powered by a 340 cu. in. L-Head straight eight. The Chandler Royal Eight 85 was a step up from their top-line 1929 Hupmobile Eight Model M, 120" wheelbase, 268 cu. in. priced $1,825-$1,955. For the 1930 model year, Chandler was gone, in its place were these new Hupmobile Eights, Model H 125" and Model U 137" wheelbase, 133 Horsepower 365 cu. in. L-head straight eights, priced $2,100 for the H, the U aa a $2,495 7-passenger sedan, at $2,645 for the limousine. Clearly, Hupmobile was now trying to enter the crowded segment populated by Packard Standard Eight, LaSalle, Studebaker President, Graham-Paige 827 & 837, Gardner 150, Elcar 130, soon REO Royale, Nash Ambassador and Buick Eight 90. In the late 1920's booming market, this was the emergent lucrative segment most of the medium-priced carmakers were going to cash-in on, chasing the lead of Packard and LaSalle. Timing wasn't on their side... Once they were on the market, Hupmobile rode it out in hopes the Depression would abate and these become profitable as did so many other carmakers. From The Production Figure Book of U. S. Cars by Jerry Heasley, copyright 1977, for the three model years 1930-1932, Model H: 3,468; Model U: 690 (702 by other sources). While a few Model H examples do turn up, one at Hershey years ago, does anyone know of or has seen a Custom Eight Model U or U-237. The Model U had a luxuriously appointed body by Raulang of Cleveland. In addition to the sedans, a Victoria Coupe on the 137" wheelbase was added for 1931-1932 seasons.

Hugo Pfau wrote in his old "Cars & Parts" magazine articles that this unusual windshield style was referred to as a "Brewster' windshield in the trade. As noted, it was to reduce the reflections from the vertical windshield and also allow ventilation when some panels were hinged. Others picked up the design, Holbrook in the case of the Packard, Judkins, for many of their berlines, even production body makers built this style. '20's Auburns have it. Its an odd-looking thing, fortunately disappeared when the raked, slanted windshield took hold.

The one-off 1930 Gardner FWD was a prototype which never made production. Gardner was one of the struggling small carmakers the crooked, crazy promoter Archie Andrews tried to con into building this Ruxton FWD cars. Both Moon and Kissel got involved to their ultimate demise. Andrews wasn't done yet, inserted himself onto the Hupmobile board, while a prototype FWD Hupmobile was built and still exist, his shenanigans and the legal fights he embroiled the management in brought the company to its knees by 1936. When Archie Andrews with his Trojan horse FWD 'straw' car and boys showed up at the gate, best thing to do was pull up the drawbridge!

Correction: I credited Hibbard & Darrin as the coach-builder of these two Duesenberg J's. Then, had second thoughts, checked in Duesenberg, The Pursuit of Perfection by Fred Roe: Franay, the town car, page 137, along with the other Franay town car, Car 2384, J 369 in the middle view of the three . The convertible phaeton, Car 2465, J446, page 201. Lesson: When it comes to crediting a coachbuilder: Always check one's memory against a reliable source.

That pair of Hibbard & Darrin Duesenbergs deserves close-ups:

Margery's Roamer has it all: showy light color, cycle-fenders, step-plates, side-mounts, wire-wheels, whitewall tires, and a polished aluminum hood! Wonder if it was the four passenger Sport model? Whichever body style, its the very picture of WW1-era upscale sport luxury and style, even if it was one of those "assembled" cars. At a glance it would be easily mistaken by most of the public as a Rolls-Royce. It does have 'a certain insouciance' about it... I wrote this when Craig posted a Roamer photo in the Orphan of the Day topic on the Studebaker Drivers Club Forum: Ahhh, Roamer! It was the prefect early example of a assembled car developed to sell the sizzle rather than the steak. While it's pretentiously styled with a luxury, sporting bent; the prosaic, proprietary powerplant delivered less-than-satisfying performance than their appearance promised. Yet if found currency with the celebrities of the day, not unlike the du Pont.The advertising was even sillier, naming itself "American's Smartest Car", using tony phrases to describe it such as possessing "a certain insouciance". But it was the frivolous, Roaring Twenties, so it was just exactly in tune with the times.

Interesting, this would be the third pre-war Roadmaster I've seen or am now aware of that has had an automatic retrofitted. Years ago, I encountered two different Roadmaster sedans, a 1940 and 1941, both which had Dyna-Flow and related parts fitted at one time. The backstory on the 1941 was its owner drove it through 1949, kept it in nearly showroom condition and intended to do so for much longer. He then had his Buick dealer replace the 1941 engine and transmission with a new 320 engine and Dyna-Flow along with other rebuilds and updates. Apparently, motivation also came from his wife who wanted the ease of driving an automatic transmission equipped Buick.

The Antique Studebaker Club is your best resource for information on pre-WWII Studebaker Presidents. The 1929-1930 Model FE was the 135 inch wheelbase with seven passenger body styles for the most part. https://antiquestudebakerclub.org/ Your chassis has the 337 cubic inch L-head straight eight, which will give you a high power-to-weight ratio in a short, light-weight speedster. Good luck with your project, please start a project blog under the Speedster topic section so we can follow your progress.

Wow, a 1932 Graham convertible sedan! Truly wish the 837 was still in production and they would have built a Blue Streak versions.

In the early decades, to establish dealerships in smaller rural towns and crossroad, anyone who bought a car and was willing to represent the make could get a franchise, that's how eager companies were to build a dealer network. Wagon repair and blacksmith, even hardware stores took a franchise for a variety of makes, except Ford who wanted them to be exclusive. The entrepreneur taking on the dealership better have a garage or at least small shop and be mechanically handy or have someone who was because cars were frequently shipped only partly assembled on pallets to save shipping costs. Farm implement dealers were a good choice given their location and familiarity with complex machinery. Upstarts of all sorts even into the 1920s like Durant granted dealership to any little crossroad operator just to get coverage. Of course, most didn't make enough to survive long on sales as the industry shook out, fell back to used cars after their make failed. Even our little town of a few hundred had a Star-Durant dealership in the 1920s out of a one- stall garage. In trade publications, in the lower right corner were clip-out invitations to apply for a dealership by mail. Wonder if I'm ever going the hear from Graham-Paige? I sent my notice of interest regarding their offer of dealerships in profitable areas in years ago...

A better look at the '10's town car and '20's speedster What's its:

The Standard Catalog edited by Kimes and Clark list: [CH} In-Line, L-head. Eight, Cast-iron block B X S: 3 1/2 X 5 in.: 384.84 cu. in. C.R. 5.2:1, Brake H.P. 125 @ 3200 R.P.M.

Seems if a '32 Chrysler Imperial CH would have been an ideal police pursuit car, same engine and 125 horsepower as the CG/CL Custom Imperial but built on the 135" wb and somewhat lighter weight.