oldcarfudd

How 'bout the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado? Built by F.O. Stanley of steamer fame, who had gone to Estes Park to recover from tuberculosis. Having done so, he built the hotel so others who came would have a comfortable place to stay. And then, to get people to the hotel from the railhead at the front of the Rockies, he commissioned the Stanley Mountain Wagon. There's an interesting article in today's New York Times about the place. It was the locale for the filming of the horror movie "The Shining". It has since become a popular venue for weddings with a horror theme; some invited guests are terrified to book a room there. This ain't my schtick, but it's interesting.

This should be mandatory watching for people on Horseless Carriage Club pre-'16 tours who grouse if the tour goes up an unpaved road in Vermont. Getting the car muddy wouldn't bother me. But I think I'd balk at the mechanical abuse.

Decades ago I had a '49 MG TC That could be - and sometimes had to be - crank-started.

WOW! (and other admiring noises)

Congratulations! That's a stunning car!

I have 5 brass-era cars. None is a trailer queen; they've all been on tour this year. They're slow uphill and slower downhill, because I don't let them get away from me coming down. That's OK; I don't drive them when I'm in a hurry. Horseless Carriage Gazette editor Tracy Lesher's boys sell packages of blinkie lights you can put on the back of a car to wake up the daydreamers behind you. The cars seem to enjoy the hills. Whenever I come to a serious uphill in my single-cylinder Cadillac, the car and I enter into negotiations as to how we're going to get to the top; somehow, we always do, and we always get to the lunch stop while there's still food. I've driven on back roads in Vermont, western Maryland, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania - places that ain't flat. My Model T is bone stock and goes anywhere; if I've got at least 4 gallons in my 10-gallon gravity-feed tank, it'll just about climb a tree. Get a T and join either or both Model T clubs and (if it's a pre-'16) the HCCA, and come on tours. It'll be a whole new world!

Too bad the closest car to the camera is an A! But the T clubs generally welcome As on their tours.

I drove one of those briefly about 65 years ago, when almost all of my very limited driving experience was in big American barges. The Minor was a lot of fun. I wish you and your wife much pleasure with it!

Nice 2CV for sale! In the second picture, what is the ultralight airplane?

Aston must have borrowed its rear seats from Ferrari Mondiale. Or was it the other way 'round?

Back in my long-vanished youth, I've had two closed collector cars, a '31 Ford Victoria and a '27 REO Flying Cloud. Both good cars, but I wouldn't do it again. Purely personal, but to me an open car is an adventure and a closed car is an appliance, and it doesn't matter whose name is on the radiator. As for appearance, raised cloth tops often look like afterthoughts . But unless I'm caught in a monsoon, my tops are never up, so it's not an issue.

A bunch of years ago, I was pulling out of a parking space with my 1913 Ford when I heard: "Pardon me, what year is your Model T?" The question came from a man whose father had been on the trip Edsel took from Dearborn to California in 1915. Edsel had given each participant a scrapbook of the trip. My interlocutor had his father's scrapbook, and none of his kids was interested in it. He and I had museum-quality disks made. One filled 11 pages in the Horseless Carriage Gazette. Another, together with the original scrapbook, were donated to the AACA Library. You never know!

Don't dates mean anything? GM bought Oldsmobile to eliminate Ransom Olds as a competitor? Olds left Oldsmobile in 1904 and immediately became a helluva competitor to Oldsmobile. GM didn't buy Oldsmobile until 1908, by which time Ransom Olds was already eating Oldsmobile's lunch.

Let's see, now - GM bought Oldsmobile in 1908, the 1910-1912 Oldsmobile Limited was the finest Oldsmobile ever built, but when GM bought Oldsmobile it discontinued the Limited. Run that by me one more time?

As to early Olds designs, the single-cylinder Oldsmobiles are popular and desirable on HCCA 1-and 2-cylinder tours, as are all the 2-cylinder REOs. There don't seem to be many 1-cylinder REOs, but the few that come on tours do well. On the bigger-car HCCA tours for pre-1916 cars, the 4-cylinder REOs are strong campaigners and well-liked by their owners. We see very few post-Olds Oldsmobiles.

That E-M-F is owned by Joe and Betty Swann, and is a regular on eastern HCCA tours. Joe does professional (and gorgeous!) upholstery and tops on brass-era cars.

If that's fresh snow in the desert, those guys are underdressed.

Why is it that a famous manufacturer can cobble together a bunch of parts and it's a show car, but if I do it, it's called a hot rod (or worse) and thrown off the field?

And a steam car, of course!

The background looks like a studio painting. It wouldn't surprise me if those two cigar-smoking dudes didn't even know how to drive.

Thank you for that tribute, and for that WILD business card!

I took my 1907 1-lung Cadillac to a cars&coffee today. The oldest car there by at least half a century. One fellow asked lots of questions, so I took him for a ride. He said: "Now I know why you drive this - it's FUN!" When we got back, another attendee, who had brought a neighbor in his Corvette, asked if I'd take the neighbor for a ride, and he had a blast, too. On my ride home, somebody followed me about the last 5 miles to my driveway, and approached me as I was going into the house. I showed him the car, and then my other cars, and then took him for a ride. Made his whole week. It's all good!

Also good to see that late T surviving in apparently good condition and in daily use.

More like 1909-12.

It's a good car. Maintained by Daryl Kendall in Chambersburg, PA. I've ridden in the car and toured in my own similar car with the Robesons.