Kimo
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Posts posted by Kimo
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Correct, but in my opinion this is a cheap way to create body parts since one can mold them to whatever shape you like and not have to have the artistic ability of the old time coach makers who could take a sheet of steel and hand roll and hammer it into shape. That skill is pretty much gone these days except for a few exceptional folks. Carbon fiber, fiberglass, etc. has some skill required to make, but compared to hand hammering/rolling steel sheets it is not comparable in my opinion and once you have some molds you can churn out as many parts as you relatively quickly.
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In a 1911 book on the law of motor vehicles, a chauffer is defined as:
"Chauffer shall mean and include every person operating a motor as a driver, mechanic, paid employee, lessee, renter, or employed in any capacity on a motor carrying passengers or freight for hire"
It goes on to describe the requirements for states and cities to issue chauffer licenses in the form of metal pins, with serial numbers, and each year being significantly different, and that they be worn on ones clothing when operating a motor (what they were calling motor vehicles.
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In most states these were for any motor vehicle operator who accepted payment for his services to transport people except for cab drivers who had their own 'hack' badges, though in some states they were for all or they started out for all then split between cabbie and everyone else. Until the 1950s when most states ended issuing these, private ownership of motor vehicles was not as widespread as it is today and so there was much greater demand for someone to drive you places. I'm not an expert on them and would welcome anyone adding to or improving on this description.
For most states and cities you can make a collection of one from every year they were issued for a most amount of money until you get to the very rare earliest ones where you have to pay hundreds of dollars when you can find them. The break point in what is early and rare seems to be a bit different for each state. Also interest in a given state or city also affects prices. And the population of drivers in that state or city in the early years affects rarity. Going by the serial numbers on them, depending on the state or city and the year that state or city issued anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of them each year.
Except for those very earliest ones, these are not at all rare - though they are not found in every corner antique shop either. Go to Ebay and you will see. I just did a quick search and almost 600 auctions with these came up just for this week. These auctions usually start at about $5 to $10 though you will see some that start in the hundreds which are usually auctions by people who simply are ignorant of their value or who are trying to catch unknowledgeable bidders.
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I would think it could be worth as much as $30 to $40 thousand given all of the work that seems to have gone into it and considering they did not have to recreate the steel body and instead used much more affordable composite materials. The starting bid price of $1.2 million is just plain delusional. While I would love an original, I am not sure I would want this reproduction as the shortcuts and 'updates' to the design make me feel I would look like a pimp or drug dealer driving down the road in it.
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I don't think anyone who has responded here is saying don't buy them, just that if you do you should do it with both eyes open and no expectations that it would not be a very expensive and ongoing undertaking starting the day you get them home. If you are good with that then go for it.
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I'd like to correct this common misperception. Moray Callum is the brother to Jaguar design chief Ian Callum. Moray was given the job of designing the 2000 Taurus redesign and, being surrounded by so much Jaguar lore via his sibling, he used the E-Type as an influence for the Taurus nose, a subtle homage' to the family business. His brother Ian then designed the new XK (X150) in 2006 or 2007 and logically also drew from the E-Type and the previous Geoff Lawson-designed XK8 (X100) for this follow up car. The X100 was designed around 1991-92 so you could also argue that the Taurus copied this car as well as the E-Type. Of course none of that will make the car any more beautiful to your eyes as that is subjective.
I also found parts availability and prices to be very good on the two Jags I personally owned.
Everyone to their own taste. I am talking about the shear elegance of the designs of Jaguar's earlier chief designer Malcolm Sayer. Below is a Sayer designed XKE V-12. Below that is the XK8 that is trying to copy some of the styling ques, but to my eyes falls far short.
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You may want to take a day or two and do some internet research on the price of parts for those two Rolls. Even if you are able to do your own work, parts are incredibly expensive and there will be many specialized tools you would need to buy as well. There is a reason used Rolls of that vintage go for so little money to buy - the price of owning and maintaining puts the actual cost through the roof.
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There is a great website that is dedicated to chauffeur badges with lots of photos. They have a page for each state and some for the cities that also issued these. Here is a link to the page for the Oregon ones:
http://www.chauffeurbadges.com/44.html
Depending on the age and the attractiveness, these kinds of badges can sell for hundreds of dollars for the very old and great looking ones from interesting places, to the $10 to $20 range for average ones (which are the majority) to less for the more recent and not very attractive ones.
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These are more common that you might think and most of them are fairly low cost to acquire. The fun part is to make a collection of one from every year from your home city or state. They were issued by most states (I think all but I am not positive) and by many larger cities over many years. The rare ones are the early years with the pre-1915 or so ones being the rare high priced ones, for the most part, especially from states or cities where cars and buses were not around in large numbers and where paved roads were still in their infancy.
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Jaguars used to be one of the most elegantly designed general production autos in the world.
Then Ford bought the marque in 1990 and from then until 2008 they ruined the designs. These Ford-guars were designed to look like variations on the Taurus. In 2008 Ford sold the brand to Tata in India and since then the Tata-guars have never recovered from the ruination of the the old Jaguar's elegance of design.
As others have said, the parts and maintenance costs are incredibly expensive and if you buy a used one, especially one that is well beyond its reasonable life expectancy for these fragile autos such as the one you are looking at, you should put aside several thousand a year for maintenance costs in the good years, and more than that for the bad years.
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I know, Will, I recall the story fairly well. I was just goofing around by putting in a shameless plug for a Hudson product. Still, as I write this, it occurs to me that I have no idea what the price difference was between a Ford V8 and a Terraplane 8. Anybody got a guess?
For folks like Bonnie and Clyde, I don't think price mattered at all. They did not pay for their cars, they simply stole whatever they liked best.
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That is a very nice land yacht! How long is it and does it fit in your garage? I've always liked those really big cars but my garage is too small.
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There is a letter dated 1934 in the Ford Museum in Dearborn that is purported to be from Clyde about a month before he was killed, though is could have been written for Clyde by Bonnie or it could be an advertising trick by the Ford public affairs office at the time. In any event it reads:
10th April
Mr. Henry FordDetroit Mich.Dear Sir: --While I still have got breath in my lungs I will tell you what a dandy car you make. I have drove Fords exclusively when I could get away with one. For sustained speed and freedom from trouble the Ford has got ever other car skinned and even if my business hasen't been strickly legal it don't hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V8 -- Yours trulyClyde Champion BarrowThere is another letter that has stronger certainty from John Dillinger that reads:
Minneapolis, Minnesota, May 6th, 1934
Dear Mr. Ford.
I want to thank you for building the Ford V-8 as fast and as sturdy a car as you did, otherwise I would not have gotten away from the coppers in that Wisconsin Minnesota case.
Yours until I have the pleasure of seeing you.
John Dillinger
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Another trick for cars that have those triangular vent windows in front of the main windows is to rotate them around far enough so that they become ram air scoops blasting wind into your face. One of my older cars was a 1970 VW Beetle convertible with no A/C which is the way they were made, and on days when I did not have the top down and the temperature got up into the high 80s to 100 or so I did this with the front vent windows. It worked pretty well especially at times when the heater cable was broken and the heat was on full time.
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I do own a restoration shop, but this one would be strictly to save it and pad my pockets a little.
All you need to do then is to go over that particular carcass with your calculator in your hand and a screwdriver to poke around with in the other and count up all of the costs and put a value on your shop's overhead costs for the number of hours it will take you. Plus add in anything else that you will need to sub out such as rechroming (unless you can do that sort of thing in-house). Then see what the overall cost to you will be and that will tell you how much you can pay for the car. Be sure to add in some profit margin and an uncertainty factor as buyers are not always willing to pay a going value since everyone is looking for a bargain in these times of flat or declining values on classics, especially the ones that are not household names with large buying audiences such as the Chevys of the mid 1950s.
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I think we may both be correct. I ordered my 1968 Pontiac GTO with a an 8-track from the factory. The dealer was touting them as the epitomy of high tech for the car.
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Fully restored to a condition where you could win awards with it you would be looking in the range of $35,000 to $40,000. Fully restored as a driver and not likely to win awards you would be looking more in a range of $25,000 to $30,000. Values on these are currently flat so you would not be expecting to get any increases over the next few years.
The question is what does this particular example need to get into condition to be worth these prices. Typically, unless you own your own car restoration shop and you are looking for professional quality results you could be looking at going into the hole for quite a bit more than it is worth at the end. On the other hand if you are a hobbyist and want one of these then who cares how much you have to spend to get it into the condition you want. The hobby is not about making money, it is about having fun.
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When were 4-track players around? Were they generally available as original equipment on cars like 8-tracks?
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I had a 1968 GTO - I bought it new back in the day. It had an 8-track cassette player in the dash. I don't know if you know what an 8-track is, but think of an old cassette player, then increase the size of the cassette by about 10 times and that is what an 8-track cassette was. It was the first practical tape player for a car. I remember blasting at top volume a Steppenwolf tape over and over again that included Born to Be Wild and God Damn the Pusher Man. My other favorite was an Iron Butterfly tape that included In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - another real classic of those earliest heavy metal tunes that you had to play at high volume as you cruised down the road in your 'Goat' as we called GTOs back then.
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If you have a well equipped garage and personal skills that allow you to do your own restoring, and if you do not value your time or depreciation on your equipment, etc. you can find old cars like this one and have fun restoring it and in some cases make a profit reselling it. But most people need to contract out many steps in restorations like re-chroming, upholstering, engine work, professional quality painting, making missing parts, etc. In these cases it is what Tom has so clearly described - it is a hobby and resale value is not going to be a factor if you want to get more out of financially that what you put into it. What you will get out of it is the fun and satisfaction of restoration and owning and driving the result of your work - at whatever the level of restoration. For example, it is very common when you buy a fully restored vintage car that the owner will have receipts showing they spent far more on restoration than what they are selling the car for. Their value for their money spent was on the fun and satisfaction of restoring and owning and driving the car.
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Do you have overall photos showing the entire car to go with these close up photos? A photo of the entire car from the front, side and back would be useful.
Also, do you know what marques of cars were most commonly sold in Norway in the 1930s?
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Keep calling around until you find a company that will insure it and tell you the value they are insuring it up to in case of an accident. Get that number in writing. That said, it sounds almost like your car is worth just a minimal amount ($3,000 to $4,000 thousand) and you may want to take that into account when you decide how much collision insurance you really want to pay for, considering the deductible. Of course, since you are using it as a driver you will want substantial liability insurance since a car that old that has not had all of its mechanical and safety parts fully restored is a bit of a risk to drive.
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I wish you the best in this matter and however it turns out have you thought about learning a lesson from this cases on how to do business better in the future by drawing up a new standard contract, with your attorney's help, that will include a clause or two about what happens in cases of non-payment or arrearages should the client pass away while you are in the middle of a long term restoration? More than a small percentage of antique auto owners happen to be in that group of men who are getting on in age - no offense to all the great guys here but if we are honest with ourselves I think that this tends not to be a hobby dominated by teenagers and twenty-somethings - and some restorations can take many years as you have seen.
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Hi Perry.
Your Waltham automobile clock was made in 1926. It is actually a large size pocket watch movement that is size 37, which translates to the movement being 2.3980 inches. It has 7 jewels which makes it lower quality as the high end Walthams of the day generally had 17 to as many as 23 jewels. Jewels are tiny laboratory made, cup shaped rubies that are used wherever the pinions in the watch rub against each other to make near frictionless connections that do not wear down very easily like metal to metal ones. Automobile clocks are generally these lower end ones as they were not intended to last any longer than the car itself.
Your clock is designed to run for 8 days on one winding. If it still runs, I recommend that you do not run it unless you get it professionally cleaned, repaired, and adjusted. The reason is the old oil and dust has become very abrasive and will do some serious damage if you run it for very long without a professional cleaning. Do not take it to a discount jewelry place that charges $25 to $50 to clean it as that will be next to useless. All they do is dunk it in a solvent in an ultrasound machine. To actually clean it, the watch will need to be completely disassembled by a real watchmaker, each piece cleaned, worn or damaged parts replaced, properly reassembled, and then be adjusted to keep accurate time. It will cost a couple of hundred for that - keep in mind you are paying a very highly trained professional for many hours of his time plus hard to find parts. Taking it to one of those mall stores that 'clean and oil' a timepiece for very little money would be like having your old engine steam cleaned and expecting that to make it run like new.
Best,
Kimo
Headlight and Hood Ornament ID Questions
in General Discussion
Posted
Are you sure? All of the Packard swan hood ornaments I have seen from 1939 to the early 1950s when they were in use seem to have the swan's neck curving downwards to almost touch its breast. This one look more like an aftermarket bird that is trying to look a little like a Packard to gain more sales.