jeff_a

Great War Truck, Thank you for the pictures of solid tyre installation and the engine rebuilding. Here's a rare pic of a Peerless lorry being driven at speed. From IMDB . Title "1918 Peerless Truck Mobile Gun Platform in Roadways, 1937":

This has a future in Judges Training Seminars. Think of all the deductions: Tires Wheels Powerplant Materials Lighting Paint Interior It does look like they got the transverse springs right. The tufted Naugahyde might qualify for a BarcaLounger Upholstery Award.

This Curved-Dash is in Mexico...maybe it will wind up in a cantina with a Pancho Villa mannequin in it. It would be more authentic with blackwalls.

Really nice Buick. Such a preservation of a 95-year-old car!

Excellent to hear about the sale! Lots of interesting things here about the 1927 Peerless Six-90 Roadster Coupe in these posts. Who knew how long it would take before it sold? Good to see so much interest and so many views on the view counter. There were some positive comments and a few that weren't, but that's not surprising. Not too many have studied the marque. I have a program to the 1954 Glidden Tour which included a blurb on each of the manufacturers represented, and in the one about Peerless it stated that it was a forgotten make. It's great to see SO MUCH written about one special car like this 1927 Peerless. As I read the posts a number of things come to mind. Not enough time to cover them all, but here are a few. Age of car/type of car affecting reliability. Like Indiana Jones said, it's the miles not the years. Buick -- Would a Buick would outperform this car, considering that displacement & HP were roughly comparable? A real apples and tangerines comparison here in terms of production. Buick and Chevrolet, the bread and butter of GM, accounted for 1,251,936 units in 1927, out of 1,624,790 total GM car sales, based on a look at The Standard Catalog. Even comparing Buick & Peerless is a David & Goliath exercise: 250,116 to 9,872. Neither were cheap cars. Buicks ran in the $1,195-$1,995 range and Peerlesses in the $1,295-$3,795 range in 1927. Average American income that year? $1,434. Buicks sported 4-wheel mechanical brakes and 4-bearing crankshafts(all 6-cylinder motors); while Peerless autos had 4-wheel hydraulic brakes and 7-bearing crankshafts on their 3 sixes, the Peerless 332 Cu. In. V-8s had 3-bearing crankshafts. 1927 Buick in similar condition Competitors -- Auburn/Cord/Duesenberg/DuPont/Franklin/Jordan/LaSalle/Locomobile/Marmon/Pierce-Arrow/Rickenbacker/Rolls-Royce of Springfield/Ruxton/Stearns-Knight/Stutz/Packard/Cadillac/Lincoln. Comps A) there are lots of makes sporting a boattail roadster B ) after a long search, only found 4 American boattail coupe candidates: Peerless(offered in 5 distinct models w/ 4 different engines in 1927)/Franklin Mod. 11(air-cooled six, 199 Cu. In., 33 HP, 4 thought to still exist)/Rickenbacker Eight Super Sport Coupe(flathead straight-8, 14 built, 1 exists, sold for $946,000 in 2014)/1928 Auburn Cabin Speedster(1 built for Los Angeles Car Show) Continental built auto engines starting in 1902, and aircraft engines starting in 1904 in Muskegon and Detroit, Michigan. A) 1st paragraph of thread says the model of the 1927 Peerless Roadster Coupe that was for sale(though a Peerless-built engine, not a Michigan-built Continental), but not the specific engine or its fascinating story of 1924-1929 production and use in over 14,000 cars in the Six-70 line. Peerless was such a profitable company there were many takeover attempts. Richard Lichtfeld pointed out one being from the Continental Motors Corporation of Detroit and Muskegon, where in 1926 they purchased a lot of Peerless stock and put Continental's President and Vice President in on the Peerless Board of Directors and talked of moving the whole company to Detroit. That's why Continental engines began to be used in Peerless cars in 1926. Another takeover attempt from Detroit succeeded in 1921, when about a dozen of the top posts at Peerless were taken over by some of the top men at Cadillac, including Richard Collins, recently its President. B )The Buick-built M18 Hellcat was the fastest American armored track laying vehicle of World War Two, and it was powered the Continental R-975 engine. The engines were built in Detroit and shipped to the near north side of Flint for installation on the Buick assembly line. Author's photo taken at the Virginia Museum of Military Vehicles. Source: The American Automobile Industry in World War Two by David D. Jackson C) Quote from John Katz's 3/22/99 review of a 1930 Peerless Custom Eight Seven-Passenger Sedan in Autoweek. This was a $3,145 car with the excellent Continental straight-8 _ _ _ "The silver-blue broadcloth upholstery suggests fine living room furniture, and hardware items such as window cranks and door handles are fashioned from sterling silver...The 120-hp eight idles quietly, winds freely, and hauls the massive sedan around with surprising ease. The four-speed Warner gearbox is fabulous, one of the quickest, most flexible pre-synchro units we have ever encountered. Brakes are cable-operated but smooth and powerful by vintage standards. Extra-long springs -- mounted in rubber-cushioned shackles -- and hydraulic shock absorbers yield a comfortably firm ride, much like a modern sports sedan. Still, with a 138-inch wheelbase and slow-geared cam-and-lever steering, it's best to plan ahead. In overall refinement, the big Peerless easily equaled a Packard, at 80 percent of a Packard's price." D) Some say it's the highest development of the piston engine: The Rolls-Royce Merlin V-12. Rolls-Royce built 82,117, Packard built 55,523, and Continental built 797 (Source: Grace's Guide To British Industrial History). Below is one of the 1,649 Cu. In., 1,000 HP, supercharged Continental Merlin engines: Extinction in 1932 -- The Peerless company, under a couple of names, hummed right along from 1865 until about 1971. They had $1,000,000 profit in 1923...but $2,000,000 in 1946 selling brewskis; they just kept changing their business model. GMs 7 car lines in 1927 included 4 that went kind of extinct. Free -- A) While it's true that 7 or 8 billionaires have owned Peerlesses, most owners are not that encumbered by wealth, but they tend not to be free or cheap, either. The cheapest one I've ever heard of is described on the AACA Peerless Forum "Peerless Research Findings" thread...I think it was $2,250 ten years ago(a Condition 5- sedan turned into a Jed Clampett pickup). B ) The person described in one of the posts as getting a Peerless for free + some labor sounds like it's based on my own self, though driving 2,600 miles towing a car-hauling trailer + 300 miles driving my friend and fellow buyer around + bringing all my tools to California + providing an awesome Tundra pickup for the project for 9 days + hauling two 3,000-lb. cars down a 12% grade + one to the shipping facility, plus $1,500 of import/export services and funds over the next 4 years, doesn't sound free either. C) The sellers of the '27 Peerless in the OP have kept the car in a garage for decades. The cost in unknown, but considering that houses cost money & a garage where I have lived costs $14,000, it's hardly free. Horsepower -- One of the posters pointed out that the advertised HP ratings of the five 1927 Peerless models were all pretty close: 62, 63, 70, 70, and 70, despite major differences in displacement. Chevrolets were 26 HP and Fords were about 20 HP. Luxury A) One of the posters opinion was that Peerless was in clear decline when they could not continue engineering on their V8 line, and the Collins 6 line. Meanwhile Packard and Cadillac kept moving forward. Starting in 1926, Peerless invested a fair amount of money in a "multi-cylinder project", aiming for eventual aluminum V-12 and V-16 cars about 1932. This would have been a killer car.........if the Wall Street Stock Market Crash of Oct., 1929 hadn't come along(didn't do anything good for the stunning Count Alexis de Sakhnoffsky-designed 1930-1932 Eights, either). One V-12 and three V-16 cars were built and driven Cleveland-Pasadena with 1931 straight-8 temporary bodies; only one vee-sixteen was completed and driven back in 1931. B ) true luxury contenders 1930-34 did use V-8s, V-12s and V-16s...but also straight-8s...quite in vogue once Duesenberg won the French Grand Prix in 1921. Market -- One of the posters felt that "more popular cars are better supported & have a bigger market". Well, yeah. More books on Model A Fords and more for sale. Fewer books on Duesenberg Model As and fewer for sale. Restorations of Peerlesses Recently -- I think 7 have been done since 2010 by Old Wheel Restorations in Odessa ,FL. A 6-60, a 6-61, two 6-81s, a 6-90, a Standard Eight, and a Master Eight. Sales -- always volatile A) Peerless outsold Packard in 1920 B ) Peerless outsold Cadillac in 1927...though to be fair, that was the year that the LaSalle was born. C) Surprisingly, if you add up the sales of cars from 1900 to 1932, that gives you over $300,000,000; pretty good for a marque starting out with a little one-cylinder car of 2 3/4 HP. Selling potential -- A) one opinion was that the problem is this will likely go unsold for years B ) Another opinion was that we will likely never know when this car sells C) No one really knew what would happen, but it sold a month & 3 days after Piotr M listed the sale on the AACA Forums. Style -- Some critiqued the square styling of the back of roof and the roof visor. The squareness of the back of roofs in closed cars was an icon of the age, just like my '92 Jeep Cherokee and '89 Wrangler hard top were angular there, and the built-in roof overhang in front was common in luxury makes such as The 3 Ps in 1926 & 1927. There was also an observation about the rear quarter windows on the Peerless Roadster Coupe. Here's what Peerless had to say about that in the Six-90 sales brochure: Value A) asking $25,000 for $3,000 car B ) Using the phrase "$25,000 greedy dollars" could have been appropriate in the right context, and dollars do represent other people placing value on things, subjective and objective, but these days people spend that kind of money on everything from catered birthday parties to sports jerseys. I heard of someone spending that kind of change on bumper chrome!

Yep...that's him...Mahalo!

Don't forget Elvis, AJ. I think every car he passed his hand over was Elvis' Car. Many have pictures of him standing nearby to prove it.

The model number and horsepower aren't necessarily linked in Peerless cars, just like a Galaxie 500 isn't 500 h.p. The 6-81 was mostly a 1929 model, with a 248 Cu. In. six advertised at 66 h.p. 1930 was supposed to be a straight-eight-only year with the Standard, Master and Custom models. The 1929 orders for the 2 lower-priced models(6-61 and 6-81) were so good, it was not possible to complete all of them in that model year......ending 8/31/29......so Sept. 1st and later cars were titled as 1930s. The key to the mystery is looking at the "How To Identify Your Peerless" thread Philippe Mordant of Belgium posted here on the Peerless Forum. The Second Series of the 2 models are the 1930s, about 4,050 of the 9,007 6-61s; and 751 of the 3,575 6-81s.........according to these serial numbers. The 3 lines of inline 8s were behind schedule, especially the Standard 8s, so this was a way to fill the gaps. I've seen a Scranton, PA dealer ad in Feb. or Mar. of 1930 stating "the 6-61A, a model of conservative price, was still being built".

Thanks for putting that photo up. I saw it on the Detroit Public Library digital collection. It shows a dozen workers and three rear entrance tonneau motorcars. The one in the foreground may have a one-cylinder Peerless engine of Louis Mooers design. Sources differ on the cars built and the cars sold in 1902. The PEERLESS AUTOMOBILES IN THE BRASS ERA: 1900-1915 book says 90, and The Standard Catalog says 238. They may have had some of the 1-cylinder Motorettes patterned after De Dion Bouton for sale early in the year -- in addition to the radically innovative front-engined models shown above. The April 15th date of the bulletin coupled with the "when the year's production of cars was less than a dozen" does not tell us much about the last 9 months of Peerless production.

I gather she was in a TV series similar to a U.K. version of "Cheers".

I cannot tell you how mortified I am to be seen behind the bar in a pub. This stewpot with the lager's logo seems to be emanating the aroma of some vulgar meat & potatoes concoction. I could use a belt right now and a Black Label beer, No. 1 in Great Britain sales, would hit the spot. Just who is this woman I'm standing with? No doubt the proprietress, who will display our photograph until the end of time in this ghastly place.

This would be a good one for "Caption Needed". I'll start: Oh dear, they used to make such fine motorcars going back to before Rolls-Royce started, and their corporate history dates to 1865. Too bad Carling Black Label is all that remains. I would prefer a 1904 Limousine!

1926 Peerless Six-80 Roadster. This one was for sale in 2019.

A spectacular Peerless. Not their largest or most expensive model for 1913, but still up there. Here is a Model "48-Six" winning the Class "A", Best In Class award at Pebble Beach in 2010:

Neat that this thread has gotten 1,800 views.

John-Mereness You said it's not too far from where you are. If you look at it, check to see what the r.s. looks like. There's a chance it's not as nice looking as the l.s., since one of the old photos shows a missing running board there. The Peerless Roadster Coupes and Roadsters in 1926, 1927 & 1928 all had a unique rumble seat step plate on the r.s., too. They're a little hard to find if you don't have one. Thanks for saying this Peerless may be a "super solid car" and "low mileage decent original example" and have some pluses over some of the restored junk out there. I guess cars that haven't been taken apart and reassembled have more of their as-built characteristics than some restored ones. I remember reading on here years ago about someone visiting a "museum" where the cars seemed to have been painted with a kitchen broom. I guess that transformed the car into a restored one instead of a cow pasture find...the other extreme where a shiny finish is everything and hell with the mechanicals. The $500 thing you mentioned($500 to get it running....you could have bought one for that in 1962) brings back some memories. My Grandfather told me that around 1942, a fellow pulled up to his jewelry store in a Duesenberg, J-580, and offered to sell it for 500 bucks. He was already collecting antique cars and seriously considered it. The fuel consumption, the conceivable repair and parts issues, and it being The War Years led him to say no. Plus he already had a CCCA Classic with an out-sourced engine(Lycoming Straight-Eight) less than 100 feet away. The car stayed around our hometown until 1972 owned by another "car guy", at which point it was sold at an auction for about $10,000.

Like I said earlier, there are three of these known. Well, 2 until Sunday, when someone from the Pierce-Arrow group posted about it and Tuesday when I got a PM about it. One was restored about 12 years ago and shown at the Concours le Mirage then. One was for sale on Barnfinds.com about 5 years ago(prices of $29,000 and $39,000 were quoted), it was in much worse condition and missing a lot of parts. It sold and is being restored right now. Then there's this one. So there's not one on every street corner. I know a chap in Turkey who had a 1928 Peerless Model 6-80 Boattail for sale 4 years ago. Technically, Peerless' boat tail coupe body style was called a Roadster Coupe. Price was $45,000...don't know current status. {photo by Mustafa Balta}

Where did you find someone who got a Peerless free for some labor? Sounds neat, but It wasn't me. Unlike a prewar GM or Ford, not a normal, common, or average car; nor a junk car. There are almost no prewar boattail cars around, and certainly not many Peerless Six-90 examples. There were a few Packard, Auburn, Duesenberg, and Stutz boattails sold...but they weren't Coupes. Interestingly enough, there were five distinct models of boattail Peerlesses available in 1927; the 6-60, 6-80, 6-90, 6-72, and 8-69; available in both Coupe and Roadster body styles. There were 4 different engines in the 5 models, though their HP ratings were surprisingly similar: 62, 63, 70, 70, and 70, respectively.

I've never heard of this car. It is one of five models you could get in "Roadster Coupe" form in 1927 - each a mechanically different auto. This one seems remarkably complete and original, is one of three on the planet, and may be a motorcar that could be judged in the HPOF class one day. 58L-Y8 gives a good account of some comparables in the relatively new field of owner driven luxury cars, which Packard started with the Single Six and Peerless and Pierce joined in on in 1924. I wish I knew more data about the car for the KPAIE registry.

If you follow the link, it goes into some detail about previous owners, gives serial numbers, and even names the winning bidder. The Locomobile was bought new in San Francisco and was in that area 90+ years. I think it sold on consignment to settle an estate. This recently-restored 1929 Eight-125 7-Pass. Sedan {straight-8, 114 HP, Peerless' most luxurious offering for 1929} that made the rounds of concours events about five years ago, was used in that show. No idea who was at the wheel in The Untouchables...it's been 60 years since I saw an episode.

I saw this on B-A-T today: (nice-looking 8-80 Sedan, sold for $30,000 last fall - lots of photos) https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1928-locomobile-8-80/

I hope your friend wasn't Ron Carey of Calgary. He fits the description well. Regrettably, he died at the London to Brighton Run two years ago. He once sent me two free admission tickets to the Heritage Park facility in Calgary, to which he donated many vehicles.

That makes three books about Peerless cars. The Development of the Peerless Automobile From 1902 to 1915 by Clarence Faaborg, 1949, 112 pp. The History of the Peerless Automobile Company by Richard Lichtfeld, 2009, 29 pp, softcover. Peerless Automobiles In the Brass Era: 1900-1915 by Alex Cauthen, 2020, 278 pp, hardcover.