jeff_a

As long as this commercial is just for late night on local cable, here's a scenario: WILLIAM SHATNER(or impersonator)ON PHONE: "Rent-A-Hack Taxi? I'm in West Warwick, the Narragansett Bay Bridge is out, and I need to get to Newport Furniture Mart to see what the discounts-off-list are for Adamsville furniture before they close at five!" TAXI SCREECHES TO A HALT. TAXI IS AN AMPHICAR. VANITY PLATES SAY: "EXONVALDEES". DRIVER, WEARING A WHITE, BILLED, CAPTAIN'S HAT, A CPO JACKET AND A KILT, RUSHES SHATNER INTO CAR. DRIVER: "I'm your driver. This is the fastest amphibian car in western Rhode Island." AMPHICAR "RACES" DOWN HIGHWAY [AT 45 MPH] TOWARDS BRIDGE, CLOSED FOR REPAIRS. UPON REACHING BRIDGE, TAXI GOES TO NEAREST BOAT RAMP & DRIVES STRAIGHT INTO WATER. TAXI MAKES IT MOST OF WAY ACROSS BAY - BEGINS TAKING ON WATER. SHATNER: "Can't you go faster in this thing, Scotty? We're about to sink!" DRIVER: "She'll only do seven knots, Cap'n -- and the bilge pumps are doin' all they can!" TAXI GROUNDS TO A HALT IN GRAVELLY SHOAL-WATER, 10 FEET OFF SHORE. SHATNER TO TAXI COMPANY ON CELL-PHONE: "I'd like to make a complaint about your service. I'm here in the Exon Valdees, and we've just run aground! I want you to send me the fastest taxi in eastern Rhode Island to pick us up at the west Conanicut Island ramp! And when it gets here, make sure the driver knows what my discount is gonna be at Newport Furniture!" NEW TAXI ARRIVES, DRIVES RIGHT DOWN TO EDGE OF WATER AT BOAT-RAMP. IT'S A MODEL T SPEEDSTER WITH "20" EMBLAZONED ON RADIATOR.

Leif, Thank you for adding the 1922 photo to our discussion. The headlights and front fender leading edges are "spot on" in regard to matching those on the mystery car. At this point, I cannot tell which it is -- Peerless or Cadillac. The photo set I saw of the '24 Peerless showed a removable panel on the splash apron -- similar to what's on the mystery car, but on the r.s. instead of l.s. I did look at The (new) Cadillac Database compiled by Yann Sanders and saw a lot of pictures of '22-'23 Cadillacs that look right. One of them was owned by a Discussion Forum member named Thomas Borchers (looks much like Cadillac in your post). Maybe he could give us some input. Can anyone tell what that emblem is hanging down from the headlight bar? The other people on this thread are some of most knowledgeable there are about early cars, and I respect their opinions. It would be easier to ID the car if some of the early 20's cars didn't look so much alike. I'm struck by how similar the Rentschler car is to a 1922 Lincoln (except for the radiator shell). Having read that coachbuilders sometimes supplied the same semi-custom body to more than one carmaker, I wonder if we could be looking at a Fisher body on a Peerless, or a Brunn Body on a Cadillac, etc. --Jeff

Dear keiser31, Green Dragon, Ivan, nz, Tom, and Peter, I've never seen pictures of a '24 Cadillac Sedan, but saw a set of photos of a '24 Peerless V-8 when it was for sale on e-bay a year ago. It had stirrup handles; but the visor supports, bumper and headlights were different. There's a picture of it right here on the AACA web-site. It's one of 7 Peerless pictures on the Photo Gallery up above. What's great is that <span style="font-style: italic">it's taken from the exact same angle</span> as Tom Rentschler's old photo. ----Jeff p.s: After going to "community", "photo gallery", and "other makes", I searched for "Peerless" to find the color photo of Dave Newland's called "1924 Peerless 8-66".

Don't forget that besides having "prominence", it has "Provence", what with those genuine California historical plates and being an electric start car built in 1899!

Definitely an antique! I may have ridden in it in Yesterdayland when I went to Dizzyland 50 years ago. I don't know if I believe the blarney about part of it being from a horse-drawn carriage or not, but there were a number of people who dabbled with building "replicas" of turn-of-the-century cars in the 50's. Some were home-built and some were actually manufactured somewhere, but the main theme was to use a lawnmower engine and then throw together something that looked kind of like a car. Most of the replicas I've read about were based on Curved Dash Oldsmobiles. I think someone who decided to build an accurate replica of a circa-1899 car would have his hands full -- whether it was an 1899 Packard or a 1901 Locomobile. Can you imagine the work it would take to construct, say, a 1903 Cadillac from scratch, to the same standards as the original? Maybe we should have an award similar to the Golden Raspberry Awards for worst acting: "Best Fake Car of the Year", "Worst Fake Car of the Year", etc. Any nominations from the floor?

GREAT PHOTOS & GREAT SCENERY! They're BAAAACCK! For anyone who didn't look at the pictures last year about this time, there are 35 great shots of the annual tour in the Belgian countryside that Peerless Club member Philippe Mordant's local club participates in every winter. The tour is in February, for pre-1931 open cars, and nearly everybody runs it <span style="text-decoration: underline">with the tops down</span>. As Wayne Burgess and I said a year ago, nobody does tours like this in the US. This year's tour just had rain the whole time. Last year it snowed a lot, and there was a really memorable photograph of someone going around a curve in a type 35 Bugatti with snow everywhere. There's a button you can click { "vers edition precedente" } at the end of the 2009 event pictures that lets you view the 2008 event [56 photos]. Look at the Royal Veteran Car Club of Belgium's site: www.rvccb.be .This winter tour is in the lowlands or fens ( fagnes ) in winter ( hivernales ): so is listed under "Fagnes Hivernales" on the RVCCB opening page. If one goes to "Nouvelles" on the left hand side of the page...you can look at two other tours with great photos: "Hain" and "Ourthe & Meuse". On the latter tour, there is even a picture of Philippe and Claudine's 1927 Peerless. What's great about these photos is that looking at them makes you feel like you are on a grand European tour! ----Jeff P.S.: Joyeux anniversaire, Philippe!! +++++ UPDATE +++++ They have labelled most of the tour photos now. In addition to a lot of foreign cars -- Buick, Ford, Oldsmobile, and Packard are seen, too.

If you don't sell the REO, I suppose it would be possible to make a Roaring Twenties "house car" out of it if you had the time. I saw a '28 Pierce-Arrow motorhome in Deer Lodge, MT ( at the Montana Auto Museum ) that had a front end that looked a little like your REO, plus beds, a kitchen, roof-mounted windows and a back porch.* I don't know if you have a Continental engine in your truck or not, but they were a company that built a lot of engines in the 20's. They started building auto engines in 1905 and aero engines in 1906...and they still build engines. Go back to, say, 1917. You had 125 U.S. companies to choose from when you decided to buy a car or truck, according to an article I read in a magazine from that era. Instead of every single one of them designing and building their own motors, a number of them bought them from engine specialists such as Continental, Lycoming, Wisconsin, and Northway. This was kind of the golden age of auto-making. From what I've read -- if you could dream it, you could build it -- and getting motors from some of the above saved you time in getting your car to market. Here are 10 or 20 vehicles you can find a Continental engine in: <ul style="list-style-type: disc">[*]DuPont [*]Jordan [*]Durant [*]Star [*]Elcar [*]Velie [*]Graham-Paige [*]Jeep (WWII) [*]Kaiser [*]Peerless [*]M47 Patton tank [*]M48 Patton tank [*]M60 tank [*]Cessna 150 [*]Piper Malibu [*]Checker (<1965) [*]AM General trucks [*]1986 Voyager world-circumnavigating-plane I think REO and International may have used some Continental motors, too.** After a merger they're called Teledyne CAE (Continental Aircraft Engines) and are based in Mobile, AL. They currently build gas, diesel and jet fuel powered engines. * There was a great color photo of this on the Pierce-Arrow Forum { 7/30/08 } if you want to look it up. The poster was Mika Jaakkola from Finland. ** I looked up a few things on the web and couldn't find any uses of Continental engines by International. I did find a story about a fire department in Illinois that bought a new fire truck in 1928 which was a REO with a Continental 6. Also saw that desertclassics.com has a 1928 REO Model FA 1 1/2 ton truck for sale.

Pat, Welcome to the Forum. Great truck! It would make a really good promotional vehicle for a business. Like a trucking company or even a furniture store or gas station. I'm guessing that it has one of those Continental motors. I suppose if it would carry a water tank around it would be nothing for it to haul an antique car. ----Jeff

"We'd like to welcome you to your first judged car show. You appear to be real serious restorers, so you'll understand the five-point-deduction on line eleven for 'possible use of plastic filler'. Other than that, and we don't know what category to put you under, you'll score mighty fine. Maybe even double digit!"

Wasn't there a guy who went coast-to-coast on a riding mower a few years ago? Talk about a Cannonball Run!

Martin, You're right -- it's a pretty nice car that your grandfather used to have. The grandest classic car I've ever seen was a white 1931 Stutz DV-32 Victoria. A number of Stutzes are listed for sale on PreWarCar.com . One is a 1928 8-Cyl., 7-Pass. Sedan in Australia for 39,200 British Pounds. Another is a 1929 Blackhawk 6-Cyl.in Holland for 28,500 Euros. There are some more listed, mostly open cars.

Cardinal, I looked at the photos of your '42 and '26 Buicks and thought they were both pretty nice. I don't know enough about 40's Buicks to comment much about the '49 vs. '42 engines. Once I went to an Eisenhower commemoration at the Presidential Library and there were quite a few WWII reenactors with WWII vehicles present. I remember a big sedan painted OD Green with a white star and "US Army" on the door representing a staff car. It may have been a Ford or a Cadillac. Could you legitimately do that with your 1942, or would that be a stretch because there's no documentation on Buicks being used like this by officers? --Jeff

I don't know what Mocha Stone Gray is. Sounds more like what you'd get on a '99 Lexus than a '29 Peerless. Ohio Blue, however, is when you take a quart of Proxlin Packard Blue, add 14 ounces of Basic Tinting Maroon, and a touch of Proxlin White.

Send me a mailing address I can reach you at ( via the PM feature on this site ) and I'll try to find a picture of our family's Elcar and mail it to you.

A new find on Paint colors for 1929! A set of original paint chips from Acme White Lead and Color Works for Peerless cars is on ebay for about 3 more days: <ul style="list-style-type: disc">[*]Stutz Royal Red [*]Obsidian Blue [*]Ohio Blue [*]Ivory [*]Polo Tan [*]Amber Brown [*]Buckingham Brown [*]Griotte Green [*]Opal Green [*]Mocha Stone Gray And another use of a competitor's name for a color...

1) Mi casa es su "P.O.C." (I don't think Peter will let us use cuss words in Spanish) 2) Let me tell you all a story about a man named Jed.

For those of you interested in 1924 Peerless Tourings, I just read that the Horseless Carriage Club Gazette has a photo of one in Vol. 21-4, page 47. I don't have any back-issues of the <span style="text-decoration: underline">Gazette</span>, but I think this would be from the late 50's.

Bryan, I guess there <span style="font-style: italic">is</span> interest out there in 1942 Buicks. Thanks for replying. I had the ad sitting around until last night, when it disappeared. The car may be long gone, of course, but it was in the Missoula, MT <span style="text-decoration: underline">Grizzly Nickel </span> shopper on Nov. 19th. The other information on it was that it had a straight 8, that it was a 4-door sedan, and that the body was "Exc.". Since this car is a '42, I guess you could say that it was the last-of-the-line of the progression of Buicks from when they were founded to WWII. If you had a big pre-war Buick collection it would be nice to represent the newer designs with one. I did look at a website about early Buicks yesterday and someone was of the opinion that sustained speeds of 95 were possible in a circa-1942 Buick and that Buicks of this era were called "banker's hot-rods". Somewhere I heard that '36 Buick Centuries were the first Buick that would do a hundred, and that the engine was given more horsepower as the years went by. I also read that Series 60 production for 1942 was 3,319 4D Sedans and 1,232 for Sedanets. The speeds listed above, if accurate, are pretty good for the size of the vehicles. I'm not sure if I'd want to try it myself, though!

Derek, Thanks for answering my question about 1942 Buicks. I didn't know if they were just a little footnote to Buick's history or not. Amazing they got so many cars built in just 5 weeks of production, if you're saying that close to 100,000 cars were put together between Jan. 1 and Feb. 5. In addition, I wasn't sure if I should ask my question in the Pre-war or Post-war Buick Forum, since '42 is really neither. I suppose it's possible that a lot of the 1942-model-year cars were built in the Aug. to Dec. period after a model year changeover before the first of the year, which carmakers have been doing for a long time.

Dear Victor, Don't be discouraged by a tough project like that. It sounds like a great car! My grandfather had an Elcar, too, which he traded an aircraft for ( a Travel Air biplane ). I'm not sure of the model, but it was a 1926 cabriolet with a Lycoming straight eight. He had it until he died eighteen years ago, when it sold at an auction in South Hutchinson, KS. I remember that after he owned it about forty years he had it repainted and had a new top made. Somehow he found an older man to hand-fabricate the new soft top who had actually built them for Elcar back in the old days. When he tore the fabric apart for a pattern, according to my grandpa, he found his own name written on the inside, still intact. It's such an incredibly rare car { and now regarded as a Classic by the CCCA } that it would be kind of neat if a new body could be made. I know that would be difficult. I can't even guess what it would cost to have a custom-made replica of an original body made -- based on a surviving original. As I recall, my Grandpa Brown had it painted Turquoise with Black top and fenders about 1975. Best of luck. Maybe there's a body out there somewhere. Ivan Saxton from Australia knows about someone down there who put a body from another car (Rolls-Royce maybe) on a Twenties Elcar in the not-too-distant past. ----Jeff

I saw an ad in a local paper back in November in which someone had a '42 Buick sedan for sale for $3,500. Model not listed. Are 1942's considered rare or desirable among Buick collectors? Just wondered because I've never seen one. ----Jeff

I was kind of hoping the car was one of the factory race cars, originally, and was just fitted out as a road car temporarily prior to being rebodied as a race car. What made me think that were those huge exhaust ports on the left side of the hood ( on Stude8's 1st post ). I re-read some of the posts in the Pollard thread and it sounds like the car was an '04 Touring to begin with. I think the provenance may be: 1) Tom Lester 2) Richard S. King 3) John Price Maybe someone reading this knows one of the above gentlemen & could tell us more. So, maybe this would be like buying a car similar to what Richard Petty raced in the 70's ( i.e., a Plymouth Superbird, Dodge Magnum, or Chevrolet Monte Carlo ) putting decals, a roll cage and other racing paraphernalia on it and displaying it as a NASCAR racer(?). Not the best analogy, really, but people are selling "tribute cars" all the time based on somewhat rare models from the 60's and 70's. Of course, they are only 30-something years old and 1904 Peerlesses are 100-something years old.

In the discussion about Barney Pollard's car collection in the general discussion area a few weeks ago someone was talking about one Peerless that had been re-bodied. I believe this is the same car. The streamlined version of the car has been around: the 2004 Greenwich Concours, the Daytona Birthplace of Speed event in 2005, and the London to Brighton Veteran Car Run in 2007. The Peerless won "Most Awesome High Performance Car" at Greenwich and was described as having an 11-liter motor with a 6" x 7 1/4" bore & stroke. My records don't show them as members of the Peerless Motor Car Club, but I think Richard S. King of Connecticut and John Price of Utah have been owners recently. I saw a picture of the Green Dragon (on msn live image search) at the London-to-Brighton with "The Honourable John Price" listed as driver. John's the U.S Ambassador to England. Two other Peerless owners in the '07 London-to-Brighton were Malcomb Barber and Evert Louwman*. Malcomb owns an "ought-three" Peerless 2-cylinder and Evert a Peerless 1911 6-cylinder Raceabout. As you know, London-to-Brighton cars have to be pre-1905 to go in the 60-mile event -- so Evert drove his 1895 Peugeot instead. *I believe he has an extensive auto collection, much of it housed at the Dutch National Motor Museum in Raamsdonksveer, Holland.

There is a story about it on the online Old Cars Weekly. Whatever it is, it's being restored/completed this summer. It may be simply a "confederation" of spare parts someone amassed, or an unfinished project of the Tucker Co. if one were to imagine that's possible. It looks like the entire front clip had to be fabricated from scratch.

I've been following the progress of the new site ( www.peerlessmotorcar.com ) but hadn't seen the model list until yesterday. Thanks! ----Jeff