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I applaud your passion and desire to bring something back and have years of enjoyment from it! This is exactly what the editorial in the most recent AACA magazine was all about on page 10. Antique cars is a hobby and not an investment. Do you know how to make a small fortune in antique or classic cars? Start with a large fortune! 😃 Seriously, for the average hobbyist we should be looking more at ROE (Return on Enjoyment) and ROF(Return on Friendships) instead of always focusing first on ROI (Return on Investment). Of course, as you mentioned you don't have a lot of funds so you need to start looking at what all work you think needs to be done, what type of condition you want it in when it is done, and what all work you think you are capable of doing or know someone that can help. Then start to figure out the potential costs of materials and how much time you have. Then you can compare it to what needs to be done and you can start to determine if the car is right for you. From a project like the one you are looking at you can get years of enjoyment from bringing the car back and then years of more enjoyment with using it and having pride in the work that you did. A lot of connections and friendships can be made through the journey as well.

I just wanted to give an update to this event. The response has been great and we have a good amount of Cole cars confirmed and another list of hoping to attend! We also have the just found 1909 Cole High Wheeler that was not known to exist. It will be unveiled at the event. We will have the first model of Cole car at the event from 1909 and then we will have the last model of Cole car at the event from 1925 with many in between. The updated information on the event, the agenda, and more details is located here: http://colemotorcarregistry.com/cole-car-meetup-2019/ For those wanting to check out the Coles in one place or if you have a pre 1942 car and want to join the tour or the show, you can go to the Gilmore's site at https://www.gilmorecarmuseum.org/event/donald-gilmore-pre-1942-showcase/?instance_id=533. The show is not just a static show as you can drive your car around the wonderful Gilmore Campus throughout the show and then they have demonstrations, a 1 and 2 cylinder car race, car games, and other fun events throughout the day.

This is a good summary.

Great topic and conversation. Many do get confused with the term of original, meaning it is as it was as it left the dealer versus restoring a car to original appearance versus a resto mod or hot rod. I wish there was a 'standard' definition of this in the community. The other way I look at it is that the car is the 'original' paint, body, interior, and accessories as it left the dealer at original purchase. Also you need to take it to the next level such as there are many things on a car that are expected to be changed to drive such as tires, fluids, belts, etc for usual maintenance. From a public historic agency perspective here is a good example for reference. I recently acquired a 1925 Cole Brouette with a body by Willoughby. It was the personal chauffer driven car for Mrs. JJ Cole and she used it until the early 30's. It was then put in the basement of the Cole Factory building and the family maintained it and used it occasionally after that. The family owned the factory building until the 80's and kept it there and then moved it to the Cole mansion after that. It left the Cole family in 2007 to private ownership. The national historic register added the Cole mansion and the 1925 Cole Brouette to the Register in 1997 and their historians reviewed the house and the car and wrote up the history. The car is predominately original with interior, body, and paint original except for cosmetic updates to the paint over the years and then the park service notates that other things have been replaced for maintenance reasons. That is how they define originality. Now I am the next conserver of this car and my intent is to preserve it as original as possible and maintain it to keep it functioning and in the public eye.

Love the pictures and story from the original poster! Such a great memory. I am very fortunate that my 18 year old son loves the old cars and even loves the history of them. Here he is taking the 1913 Cole out for a drive last summer. He has a passion for and has built his own library of historical car documents and books. He also goes to every car show with me and loves talking to others to share the information and history. It it truly is a wonderful thing to get to share a passion with your children. Also besides my son, my 22 year old daughter drives a 1978 Volkswagen bus westfalia model as her daily driver!

Here is a driving school using Model T’s😀 https://www.gilmorecarmuseum.org/events-calendar/model-t-driving-experience-2018/

I guess we are lucky in Michigan. We have lots of lakes here so you can get ethanol free with no additives all over in Michigan. Marine engines do not like ethanol one bit. It costs about $4 a gallon during the summer on average. That is the only fuel I burn in the cars. It has really helped for both driving, maintaining, and storing the cars. Absolutely agree that getting the better the gas will save you money versus the repairs down the road!

Here is a place in Canton Michigan that opened a year ago and is full. They do antique, classic, to exotic and I believe the building used to be a chemical warehouse. They can store about 140 cars plus more motor cycles and have events all the time. Weekly cruise nights, cars and coffee club during the winter and they have one of those large inflatable movie screens for outside movies during the summer. Their Facebook page has lots of pictures, events, etc so you could check it out. Here is their website. http://cantoncarcave.com/index.html This is very similar to the concept idea that you are thinking about and they made their pricing not too far above what a storage unit would cost.

I have acquired two museum cars. One from an auction for a smaller museum that did not maintain the cars and the other that was on loan to a major museum that maintains their cars. My 1913 Cole came from a small museum and it was there for 10 years without much maintenance done on it at all. It cost me about $7k to get everything going and working again well. The car was fully restored before it went into the museum so cosmetically it was fabulous and it was even overhauled mechanically, but sitting that long without use necessitates a good going through again of all systems. Also, you don't want to start it without getting it prepped. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they didn't drain the gas out of it. So, I have had no issue with getting something from a museum but just be aware of the price going in to it.

This was interesting to see in the Wall Street Journal today. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-best-investments-of-2018-art-wine-and-cars-11546232460

Impressive work and I like it! I will have to think about doing this for my car.

I am in my 40's and a Gen X'er and got into classic cars 2 years ago. Since I bought my 1931 Model A at that time, I was bitten by the bug and purchased 3 more pre 1932 cars and a 50's car for my wife. All are 'stock'. Last year, my 22 year old daughter purchased a 1978 VW Westfalia bus that she pretty much daily drives. When people are younger, they buy what they can afford and what they know. Then as you are more stable with your income and you build some confidence around cars people tend to expand their horizon and get into new things. I started with newer specialty cars such as the Toyota FJ Cruiser, then a Dodge Challenger SRT launch edition, then a Porsche. Over the years I didn't have any idea that old cars were really out there and were attainable. When I made the transition to older cars it took support from another person in my neighborhood who owned a model A so that I could get some confidence with the car and working on it. After that I discovered that it wasn't bad at all and a whole lot of fun! Last summer I talked to people who were millennials at the car shows that had the 80's car or something newer and they were actually quite engaged learning about the older car and many mentioned that someday they wanted to get something like that. I only started going to car shows over the last two years, so I have no idea what it was like before with old cars attending. I would say though that most people who own the really old classics are getting up there in age and don't bring their cars to shows because it is some work, harder to maintain their cars, or just don't like the new crowd. I honestly do not think that the lower amount of old cars at car shows has anything to do what people like at the shows, I think it has much more to do with the people that own the older cars do not like the current shows or just cant get to the shows anymore. Whenever I bring one of the old cars to the local show or cruise night it typically has some of the bigger crowds and most engaging conversations (Except of course the common question of wow, how much is that worth?) It looks like the Hagerty data is showing that the younger people are getting into cars and of course they are starting with what they know and can afford. If the antique car clubs want to help more of the newer generations get into the older cars, then they have to find a way to connect with them and even make them aware. Too much information about older cars is in paper form, in people's heads, and in a library some where. We need that knowledge on the internet and searchable, we need sharing on social sites like Instagram, and we need parts swap meets online and not in a city somewhere. If that support and awareness network was in place, then the interest by younger generations would increase. As they say - If you cant find it with Google, then it doesn't exist!

is Halotron the same stuff? I saw Halon is not available easily any longer, however they say Halotron is the same but environmentally safe.

In conjunction with the Gilmore Car Museum Pre 1942 car show and tour, we will be having a meetup of Cole Motor Company Cars for the 110th anniversary of the company. The dates are May 17th and 18th. More details can be found at http://colemotorcarregistry.com/cole-car-meetup-2019/. The Gilmore has the largest Cole Motor Company archive in their research library and the CCCA museum on the Gilmore campus has the collection from Helen Cole, granddaughter of JJ Cole. Besides the meetup of the cars and owners, we will be having a talk on the history of Cole, Cole artifacts, and some presentations on the cars. We have a good core of Cole cars slated to attend, however we are looking for more owners willing to bring out their cars so we can get together and keep the spirit of these fine automobiles going. If you know anyone that would be interested, please pass along this information. Thanks, Kevin

Wayne, Thanks. Our Cole coupe is on loan to the Gilmore right now as well and my son and I were noticing some styling similarities between our Cole and the Model A. The Cole is more square at certain points. Cole never went to production with the 2 person coupe and only built the one we have as a test car and for his son. It has a wheelbase of about 6 inches shorter than the standard Model A and that appears to mostly be in the cowl area. The model A also has a nice straight line for the front and the back of the car, while Cole dropped the back end a bit lower than the hood line of the car. Here is a picture of a Duesenberg Model A coupe and the prototype ad for the 23 Cole Coupe. JJ Cole put disc wheels and some other embellishments on ours including two spares as it was the balloon tire test car and Cole used it at the closed auto shows as a display car for the balloon tires and other advancements.

You picked a special one at that. That 1927 model a was Augie Duesenberg’s personal car that he drove until he passed away.

As others have said, it is in southwest Michigan by Kalamazoo. The Gilmore is a great museum and is said to be the largest auto museum in North America. Besides the main Gilmore museum, on their campus they also have the Classic Car Club of America Museum, the Pierce Arrow Museum, the Franklin museum, the Ford Model A museum, the Lincoln museum, the Cadillac-Lasalle museum, and a pedal car museum. Definitely worth a stop if you are even close to the area. It is a destination for many people around the world as they had about 123,000 visitors last year.

Some more pictures. I have more but it won’t let me post them,

My son and I had the opportunity to go to the opening champagne reception the evening before the exhibit opened. There were 18 cars there that evening and they said they would be rotating some in and out throughout the life of the exhibit as owners need them for events. A few of the owners were gracious enough to let the small gathering of people sit in the cars and take pictures. They also started the Mormon Meteor up for us. We also had a presentation on the history of the cars. It was an amazing evening and it is a wonderful display. The Gilmore did a great job putting this together. it is a must see exhibit and I would try to get to this in person!

Just adding this content to this thread for archive history purposes. If someone does a search and finds the thread, I want them to be able to find the registry website. I wanted to let others know that my son and I have taken over the known Cole Motor Company Car registry from the now defunct Cole Motor Car Club of America and are in the process of updating the known car information and seeing if we can find more survivors. My son and I own two Cole cars. One is a 1913 Series 9 touring car and one is a one of one 1923 2 person coupe that was a test car that JJ Cole built for his son. Both cars were Cole family cars and we have picked up quite a passion for the car brand and history. We built a friendship with Leroy Cole who was the leader of the Cole Motor Club and registry until it dissolved in 2010. He transferred to us all known information about the cars as well as lots of Cole history and documentation. He also passed on the bulk of his extensive Cole library to the Gilmore Car Museum research library. Our goal is to update the registry as well as to share and expand the knowledge and history about the brand. We have created a website that we will continue to update and add to. I have posted the known car registry on the site minus any personal information and will make updates to it as we obtain it. I also will be adding more pictures and other information about the cars as time goes on. The link to the new registry website is http://colemotorcarregistry.com/. If you own a Cole or know someone that owns a Cole, I would love to hear from you as another goal is to create a network for Cole car owners. Thanks, Kevin

I have added some new pages to the website with not often seen pictures from the family photos. The two new areas I have added are about Cole Racing and the original Cole High Wheeler. Kevin

Thanks! Yes there were a good number of Coles found at the time and now it will be good to know how many are still on the road as they say.

Thanks for sharing! This is going to be the biggest challenge, which is tracking them all down again after they changed hands.

Thanks Ron. Yes the 1923 Coupe was at the Orphan car show in 2009 when Leroy Cole owned the car. May have been there another time as well. I do recognize some of your wonderful cars on your list to what I have seen around the area. Preserving the history as well as the cars is important. Kevin