DaveBerg
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Posts posted by DaveBerg
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The City of Mentor, Ohio is having a celebration Saturday May 17th, Noon to 4PM. They are hopeful to have some 1908 or near so Vehicles for display. While this is not an AACA event it seems to be a good cause and should be a fun day for everyone. For further information contact Marcey at this email. Bryant@cityofmentor.com
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Hello Harvey,
You will enjoy cruising around in that big 16. I had a 1938 5 Passenger and a 1939 9033 7P. I enjoyed driving both of them. I wish had kept one. I also had 1930 16 7P Imperial Limo that I am glad is gone. I have a few notes still in the files so if you get stuck finding anything for it give me a holler at davbergltd@aol.com and i'll try and point you in the right direction. Enjoy that car!
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Need an engine head for 1925 V-63 Cadillac. Anyone have such an animal they would like to trade for cash? Please let me know. Contact davbergltdAol.com thanks.
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Thanks for your thoughts. It is not my intent to join in the debate of the issue and I am not taking either side as to whether or not taking a deduction is the proper thing to do. I am merely stating the rule as it was taught to me in the AACA judging schools and the way I taught it in the judging schools I conducted during my years in judges training. It will be for you the judges and members to decide whether or not you like the rule or whether or not you want to see it changed.
As for the window sticker, I always assumed those did come from the factory so I guess a comparison in that respect would not work. As for the hubcaps, they may not have been on the car when it left the factory but they were authorized by the factory with part numbers and as such would qualify as factory authorized parts which of course we accept.
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I am entering this discussion very late and have not read all of the posts yet. Unless rules have been changed that I am not aware of, the way we handled nameplates, license plate frames, etc that did not come from or authorized by the factory was this:
If it was an AACA item or item from another Automobile Club we would not take a deduction unless the item was in a condition that would warrant a deduction. Keep in mind that was for condition without concern for the items origin. If it were an item that was not AACA or that of another Car Club, ie Joe Smith Chevrolet, or Jim's Fine Used Cars or United Bingo Club etc we would take a deduction not to exceed two points.
Now this is the way I was taught at the judging schools of the 80's and this is what I taught in the judging schools of the 90's. If this rule has been changed I simply missed that event and apologize. I do not ever recall the rule being changed though. So as far as I know it is as I have outlined above.
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Why not consider donating those bricks to the Crawford Auto Aviation Museum in Cleveland. This was once one of the great automotive museums in the country. They still have a nice representation of Electric Vehicles with the concentration on the Cleveland built vehicles. Just a thought, then all car hobbyists could see them.
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I'm pleased to hear that you are considering joining AACA and perhaps one of its regions in the Pittsburgh area. This area does have some really nice regions. some put on shows, some do driving tours, plus the array of picnics, get togethers and charity events. Any of these regions would be thrilled yo have you, dad and grandpa as members. If you want a foot in the door to one of these regions it would be my pleasure to take any or all of you to a region meeting as my guest. I very much enjoy my membership in several of the regions in the Pittsburgh area and even the ones i am not a regular member in will let me in the door without too much of a problem. I do enjoy the various meetings and as my crazy travel schedule allows I do try to attend whenever possible. What area of Western Pa are you in? Let me know if any or all of you would like to go along to a meeting. You can reach me at davbergltd@aol.com AACA would be honored to have all of you as new members.
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Well your initial thought of vintage is correct. The car is definately of the 1905 +/- vintage and it certainly appears to be electric. You may be correct in thinking it to be a Baker although I think there is a good chance it is a Columbia. Not certain though.
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John, your research is correct. Your vehicle is a Baker truck of the 1910 +/- era. To the best of my knowledge none of the Baker cars had solid tires. However, it was quite common for the trucks of that period to be so equipped. Sounds like it will make a very neat vehicle. Check your Antique Automobile magazine there used to be a company advertising in it that could re make your solid tires for you. I dont know if they are still there or not. Best of luck with it.
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I really liked the car corral set up the way it was this year. The corral is certainly one of my favorite things at
Hershey and I visit it several times if i can. I too always think the prices are ridiculous but then the next year I think back and say "Boy, I wish I had bought that ----- last year!" This year I really liked a 1954 VW Beetle closed car. It was nicely restored though not in a great color for me. Sort of a drab green. It was priced at 37,500.
Truthfully I felt that was awfully high for a closed car. Then again, come next year it might seem like a buy. However, I forced myself to leave that bargain to the next fellow. A friend sold a 1954 Buick Skylark Conv't he was asking 55,900 for. He took a hair less of course. The car was not without issues but it would be a real pretty driver for someone. I think that was excellent value. I look at the Car Corral like most any type of collectible show. There are good deals and bad deals. If you know what you want and the range you want to pay you'll be real happy. I have purchased several cars over the years at Hershey and taken five to sell in the corral. I never had to take any of those five home. I truly enjoy the car corral.
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GEE THANKS Terry, now she wants the building !
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We collect Auto manufacturer accessory cans, bottles, jars, tins, etc. Anything from any brand past or current. Probably anything from 70's up we either already have or dont want but please offer the older stuff. Send picture if possible or good description to davbergltd@aol.com thanks!
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My wife collects Michelin items. They can be new or old. Please offer anything you might have. I need Xmas gifts for her. Her feeling is that if we left Hershey with any room in the truck then we didn't find enough Michelin stuff. Contact davbergltd@aol.com thanks!
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I have a 1925 Cadillac 7 passenger Suburban. Which is merely a large sedan with two jump seats and no division window. It is the same V-63 setup as the 24 models. Depending on what you want to do with it you will either find it a great car or one you dont like at all. Its basically a top speed 45 MPH car. Anything faster may cause the car to sound as though it is self destructing. You will need to double clutch this car as there was no synchro in them yet. The pressurized fuel system can be tempermental but as long as your pressure gauge works and there are no leaks it is usually pretty reliable. Literature and manuals are fairly easy to obtain. Values of course are anybodys guess and depend largely on condition and body style. I have seen a few closed cars being offered recently in the mid and upper 20's but have no idea what they actually look like. A few years ago a gorgeous 5p open touring with one small patch on the top brought 30k at auction and that car was a great deal as the restoration, other than the top was beautiful. these cars dont come up for sale with any regularity and parts are pretty scarce too. the water pumps require packing with the original material or they will give you real fits. However when everything is sorted out you will have a big car you can drive and enjoy. Good luck!
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Good news our 1905 Columbia Electric is running. I drove it on the road for the first time 4th of July. Still needs a few tweaks here and there. Also I still need a set of electric lamps for it as well as an electric tailamp. Many thanks to those that helped with information on the wiring and other things for this car.
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Nothing along those lines is currently pending in Judging Committee. The subject has come up from time to time over the years but nothing that I recall in thats couple of years.
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Thanks for the very nice comments. Your board does indeed work hard at making AACA the great organization that it is. Often at great personal expense. Your comments showing the appreciation of the devotion of these many men and women will go along way. It is the only "pay" they receive. It doesnt stop with board either. All of the various chairpople, committe members, Region officers etc all play an integral part in AACA's operation.
As for the question on the Bugatti Childs Electric Car of 1927. In my opinion that vehicle would not be eligible for AACA judging as it was never intended as a road vehicle to be used as transportation. It was merely a toy for the wealthy, though I am unfamiliar with the traffic laws in Europe during that period and it is possible that there is some law or omission of others that could make it ok. I do know that at least one has snuck through the cracks and won an award at a National Meet. Fortunately that was a long time ago.
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That is an interesting point. Hopefully that will not happen. The problem was that virtually all of the vehicles that were getting sold with award badges on them were not getting returned anyway. So I suppose the same thing could have happened that way as well. Still I agree with you that is not something we would want to see.
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The rules on change of ownership were amended last year. Now when a vehicle is sold or changes hands within a family or not, it is up to the new owner to decide from the following three choices:
1) The vehicle can keep all of the awards it was won and they will transfer to the new owner. So if the vehicle is already a Senior winner all it could compete for would be Preservation awards.
2) The vehicle can follow the old rule and revert back to First Junior winner status. The next time shown at a National Meet it would compete for the Senior award in the new owners name.
3) If it has been ten years or more since the vehicle received its First Junior Award the new owner would have the option of #1 or #2 above or... Removing all awards from the vehicle and starting over again. This is essentially the old ten year recycling rule that we have always had. Now it applies to the new owner as well.
We realize the judges manual needs some help and I suspect our VP Technical Matters and VP Class Judging will be correcting anything improper for next years edition. The manual changes generally have to be in place by October of the year prior to publication. If something is decided at the Class Judging Committee meeting at Hershey it doesnt always get into the manual right away. Or sometimes in a rush to get something new in you forget to take the old something out.
I hope this helps to clear it up some.
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This topic certainly does not upset me at all. It does appear very possible that AACA has allowed in some vehicles that should not have been allowed. Quite honestly when it comes to the various makes and types of these mini bikes, trail bikes etc., I admit to a keen lack of knowledge. I have already advised our VP Technical Matters, Jim Raines to look into the eligibility of these vehicles. Further, I have notified VP Class Judging, Hulon McCraw to follow up as well. I would suspect at the next Class Judging Committee meeting this will be a major topic. We will no doubt get very well into it during the winter months in order to come up with a proper solution. Several of the points made here as well as references to Federal Law will be studied hard by those involved. I like to think our Class Judging system is pretty good, however, we are not perfect. We may well have let this one get by, simply by not paying any attention to it until someone said something. That something, thankfully, is what happened here.
The topic is a wonderful one. It has not upset me at all. The only thing that bothered me was that I was contacted and asked to provide on the forum an explanation of the rules we follow pertaining to admitting vehicles for judging. I attempted to do that in a clear manner. When I explained that some jurisdictions did not have laws pertaining to two wheel vehicles that essentially gave them a free hand and made them eligible by omission. When someone stated that "they dont buy it" that, then I take that as either I am lying or that because they didnt like that portion of the rule that we should not obey it. In either case it does no good for the discussion of the issue, simply because it has already existed and been followed as it should have been, regardless of however right or wrong one might think it is.
I actually think that every so often we should do a "sweep" so to speak on all of the judging classes and just take a look at what is allowed and not allowed. What is fair and what is not. The subject of tractors is an interesting one. Requests to include them have come before judging committee before, though not for a number of years. Personally, while I have never leaned either way on them, i kind of like them and think they are very interesting. I would not be opposed if some day they should become eligible. Fear not though to those who do not think they belong as this is not an issue on the table nor has it been suggested in a number of years.
We realize the system needs to be tweaked every so often and this discussion will allow a good head start into doing just that, albeit perhaps a little late.
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Something to keep in mind. Obviously with the coming of the internet many new ways to scam people have surfaced. While you have to be very cautious in all of your dealings, especially those with persons from another country. This does not mean though that every person residing in a different country is a scam artist. I made an internet sale of a nice vehicle to a man from Switzerland. I told him I needed a bank wire for the exact amount of the transaction and gave him my account information. What I did was to go to my bank and open a new account with $10 in it. this was the information I gave to the buyer. He wired the funds as instructed prior to the shippers picking up the car. Thankfully it was a nice clean deal and I hope he is enjoying the car. Had it been a scam deal the worst I would have lost would have been the $10 in the account. So often times common sense and a few small extra steps will keep you safe. Buying a vehicle from another country is a bit more problematic. I would suggest hiring a well known broker to handle the transaction and when they tell you how much, dont cringe, just pay them and sleep at night. The cost of being careful is never as great as the downside for not being careful.
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I suspect what may have happened here is that at the time some of these mini bikes first started to show up at our meets, whenever that was exactly I do not know. However when they did and then looking back 25 years or more to their date of production, there were no laws preventing their usage. Given that they were allowed. So far so good.
Then would come the previously mentioned law prohibiting their use on public roads as transportation. I was not familiar that such a law existed. It is simply not something I would have paid any attention to. Seemingly no one else involved did either for quite a lot of years. We simply accepted the vehicles for judging because we had always done so. No one ever questioned or complained and everything went along as normal. Now it would seem we have not only been accepting vehicles in error but have been doing it for a dozen years or so. I believe the Federal law mentioned was said to have been enacted in 1970. 1971 vehicles would have been eligible in 1996, thus making this the 12th year of possible improper eligibility.
I am going to ask Jim Raines our VP Technical Matters to investigate this situation and report his findings to the Judging committee at its next meeting. From that it is probable to assume that some changes will need to be made. I do not want to speculate at this time what type of changes those might be. I can only assure the membership that if we have made a mistake, which has happened before and will no doubt happen again, we will take whatever steps necessary to fix it in the best interest of the membership.
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Sorry my error. I tried to explain it as best I could. It is not my intent nor desire to enter into a debate. The State of Pennsylvania is certainly not the only jurisdiction that counts. It can be ANY jurisdiction at the TIME of manufacture. Additionally if something is permissible merely because it is not banned, then so be it. Whether you "Buy it or not" is totally meaningless. It simply is that way. It seems to me that you have two choices in the matter: 1) You can accept the rules the way they are or 2) You can contact the VP Class Judging and ask the the he/she have the judging committee look at the issue again. Now as I stated before It is not my intent to argue or debate so I will leave this issue to each of you to think of in whatever manner you see fit.
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Sorry for the delay in responding. I have received emails from several of you asking for my opinion on this matter, so here goes. As I understand the rule as it was explained to me a zillion years ago it goes something like this.
Any motor vehicle produced for purposes of transportation can be eligible for AACA judging provided it was legal to operate on the public roads of any jurisdiction in its country of manufacture at the time of its production.
Now the key words and phrases are ANY, TRANSPORTATION, and TIME OF PRODUCTION.
So to answer some of the questions as they were put I can offer the following:
Tractors or other farm equipment were not produced for transportation. Therefore they are not eligible. There certainly could be an argument made that since some states did and some still do issue plates for certain tractors that they could be construed as transportation. This is issue has never come before us but certainly could. If and when that time comes, if not sooner, we will deal with it.
Mini-Bikes, Dirt Bikes, Trail Bikes etc... This is a tough area. I agree that argument can be easily made that these bikes are indeed transportation as opposed to a farm vehicle. Where these get sticky is that many states did not have laws that allowed or prevented two wheel vehicles from operating on their roads. Given that then technically since they were permitted to operate, even though only by omission, and since they are obviously transportation of some type, then they do qualify. I am not for a minute suggesting this isnt a little bit of a grey area. I am merely stating the theory as it was explained to me. The first time I saw one of those miniature Indian Motorcycles on the field I questioned it just as you are doing here.
Mom's Rascal Scooter: Now this may have been included in one of the posts as humorous and it was, however, this is a lot closer to the truth than you might realize. There were companies that manufactured vehicles for the handicapped with every intention of people using them as road transportation. Perhaps the most well known manufacturer was a gemtleman, handicapped himself, in the Dayton, Ohio area named Lucerne Custer. Custer built amusement park rides and decided that he wanted to build a vehicle the handicapped could use for transportation. If memory serves me correctly, he started in the late teens or early 20's and went up into the 1930's. He built a scooter type vehicle in both one cylinder gas or electric. Both were street legal in "certain" jurisdictions. Hence they are AACA eligible. FDR, Eisenhower, and a number of other notables owned them. There was even a story told to me once by long time Vintage Car Dealer and an encyclopedia of automotive history, Leo Gephart of a man who owned one and drove it from somewhere in the northeast to Florida each year. He could take it into his motel each night and recharge the batteries! There are a few of these around in museums and collections and are most interesting. I have one myself. Now does that mean Mom's Rascal Scooter can be in a class? The answer is maybe.... and here is why.
Depending on when that Rascal was built will determine if it was legal for road use in a jurisdiction at the time of production. As time passes we find traffic laws evolving and such usage prohibited. Research will need to be involved. My opinion is that I doubt anything in this line of vehicle post WW2 to be eligible but you never know.
Question was made of the Auto Red Bug electrics. At the time of their production there were certain municipalities who still did not allow gasoline vehciles at all. The most notable was probably the resort town of Jekyll Island, Georgia. An Auto Red Bug buckboard was the common form of transportation on those roads. Seems absurd today but to answer these types of questions you need to think back to the times in question.
I hope this helps a little to clarify why we accept certain types of odd vehicles and not others. The debate on tractors and manure spreaders we can save for another time.
New guy
in General Discussion
Posted
Welcome New Guy, We have a 1939 Dodge D-11 Business Coupe that we bought back in 1974. One of the best collector cars I've ever owned. We have put many thousands of miles on it and its never not brought us back home again. I'm sure that you'll enjoy yours as much as we have enjoyed ours. If you need any help finding anything for your Dodge let me know. I might know where to send you to shortcut the search. Much of the trim and hubcaps are unique to 1939 as that was Dodge' 25th anniversary model. Different than both the 38 and the 40, except for the mechanical stuff. Best wishes.
Dave. I can be reached at davbergltd@aol.com