bryankazmer

Agree on the inherent balance. A straight eight is more susceptible to crankshaft whip, but the better ones had 9 main bearings to address it. I think the difficult issue is getting uniform flow to all cylinders. Hence Buick's duals and some aftermarket set ups.

All antique car insurance has restricted use rules. Know what they are - it's as important as the rate. Each carrier sets their own rules, but all prohibit daily driver use or for hire use. You'll need "regular" insurance to cover if that's what you need.

while I like both, I think Pierce was in a bit of a styling quandary, trying to balance new and old. The head lights in the fenders and streamlined pod parking lights were leading edge in the mid thirties, but some of the other Pierce trends, like often using wire or artillery wheels, were trailing edge. The overall effect seems to be that Pierce and Lincoln tend to look fairly streamlined, but not as much as Graham, Hupp, Cord. In the luxury market, the leader was the conservatively evolving Packard (don't bring up the Dietrich aerocoupe, it was an exception).

could it be single carb vs compound carb, which is I think how Buick referred to the dual carb set up?

I'd refrain here from using the subjective "upgraded" as a synonym for the factual "modified." Trying to keep the discussion civil all around.

Ironic that the go to options are from cars that were pretty much regarded as dogs when new

Not sure where you heard that but it's not quite true. Rubber is off-white (somewhat yellowish). Still is. The rubber compound had carbon black added because it's a reinforcing filler. The white wall material has titanium dioxide added to made it a cleaner, more stable white compound.

not knocking Asheville - it's on my potential list too, but the airport is regional/connector and Charlotte is more than an hour's drive away, so doesn't match the poster's stated criterion.

asheville has a lot of pluses, but doesn't meet the one hour to major airport criterion.

then he has discovered a great arbitrage opportunity

I think it's Rockne, Studebaker's companion car

Joe Dassin's L'Amerique now in my head from this , Sebastian

street rod - fully restored = oxymoron

that's a rodded Mercury, not a Lincoln

those are low end but realistic tooling costs. Extrusion tooling is much cheaper than injection molds, even with more tooling material options because few parts are needed. Compression molding is another possibility for mats. As far as materials, I had a call where I worked asking for material to make color-matched moldings for a 1970 Pontiac. We made these kind of things everyday for new cars, but one box held 1300 lbs. As a hobby support favor we ran a very small run of 700 lbs, but it was $10/lb.