Big Beat

In addition to those already named... For early stuff (1890s), can't forget Panhard. First car with engine in front, driving the rear wheels. Set the standard for the next 100 years. Chevrolet 490. Just a wee bit fancier than a Model T. The beginning of the importance of styling and of the GM system taking over the Ford system. The car itself wasn't all that special, but its positioning and marketing revolutionized the industry. Step-down Hudsons. Pretty much how all subsequent cars were made. GM's V8s got all the credit, but Hudson was responsible for the other half of what became the standard modern car later in the 1950s (perimeter frames, lower body styles, the beginning of modern interior layout, handling and performance in a postwar American car, etc.) Toyota Corolla. The Model T of the 1990s.

1970 Pontiac Catalina - bought from the original owner for $100 in 1993. 1983 Toyota Celica Supra - traded my friend a guitar for it in 1995. A few other marginal cars acquired free or almost free. This used to be pretty common. For the longest time the standard junk yard price in New York for any car you brought in was $50, so plenty of cars could be had if you offered the owner just a couple bucks above that.

As I said, good enough for OCCASIONAL wrenching. If I was using sockets every day, I'd probably upgrade, but I never felt the need. Just thought it would be fun to share an improvised, temporary solution that has already lasted a few decades. Few things in life are more permanent than a temporary fix. Your plumber sounds like my kind of guy.

When I was a kid, there was never any money for fancy tool organizers. So I made my own. These clear plastic bins are cut-down juice bottles. Drink the juice, peel the label, cut off the top of the bottle with a box cutter, rinse and voila. These days there are all kinds of organizers I can get but I still use them for sockets and some other small tools and nuts and bolts and stuff - just because I'm so used to them. I have a bunch of them lined up on shelves by the workbench, some of them maybe 30 years old now. Good enough for occasional wrenching.

Beautiful car. Great example of GM in all its 1970s glory, magnificence and cheap crappy plastic both. Nice sunflower seed stash, too. Environmental concerns about such cars are misplaced. They were valid when this car was new, and that is why nobody makes cars like this anymore. But gas consumption is irrelevant in an antique show car, and if you want to talk about big, heavy and wasteful, talk about all those huge, raised, 4-door, 4x4 pickup trucks that have basically replaced the full-size sedan. Plenty of Rams and F150s and Silverados on the road today that make this Cadillac look look a lithe paragon of thoughtful efficiency. Surface undercarriage rust can use a clean-up, but it all looks good otherwise. Wake her up slowly and carefully and post more pics for us as you do.

Freebies for kids at car shows. When I had a bunch of old car magazines to get rid of, I'd take them to car shows and give out a handful to any boy who was interested. One time I picked up a box of toy cars at a yard sale for $10, kept a couple of the nicer old Matchboxes, and the rest I also took to a car show and let children dig in and pick one out. That was a big hit.

I noticed it too, and it's not just Covid-related supply chain problems. I had a fan belt break on my '79 Chevy three years ago. I thought I'd just go pick one up. But nobody had one in stock and it had to be special ordered. Seriously, belts for a small block Chevy are a special order?! Parts that I remember hanging on the wall at every auto repair shop are not so common anymore.

One of those cars I considered owning at one point. But the more I learned about cars, the more I discovered other models that were preferable. So eventually the Edsel was crossed off the bucket list in favor of other candidates I'd be more likely to pursue if I were ever to get serious about owning a 1950s American car. All personal preference, of course. But to me the Edsel would always be something one evolves away from as experience is gained and tastes mature. The point is not to put down your taste in cars, but merely to demonstrate one of the reasons why Edsels are worth less than other cars of their era and are likely to remain that way. The four-door body style would not scare me away. In fact, I prefer it - one can get a car in better condition for less money that way, and it is more practical for taking friends and family to car shows and Sunday drives. I like to get others involved and interacting with my cars. So if my wife hates it, I wouldn't consider it. In fact, we agreed on letting her have the final say on the COLOR of the next old car I might buy - sidestepping for a minute the fact that she might be against any such purchase. As far as bargaining goes, being offered half price can indeed be insulting. I don't consider such buyers to be serious. However, an initial offer of 60 - 70% would be a reasonable beginning. The seller may be more negotiable than you'd expect. I would go look at the car in any case. Even if it turns out to be worse than it appears, or the seller won't budge on the price, the experience itself is worth it. The more candidates you examine, the more you know what to look out for. I looked at a dozen cars before I pulled the trigger on my Chevy.

Yes, guitars, of course, but also vintage drums. I specialize in both, sometimes other instruments as well. The parts situation is the same with pre-war banjos, and sometimes an original clarinet mouthpiece is worth more than the clarinet, too. Nice! Mixing and matching parts is much easier on "standard" designs like this. One can totally personalize it and save money in the process. It becomes harder with older and more obscure stuff, where there is no ready aftermarket parts (and decades of bad repairs to undo as a result). For example, it took me five years to restore this Amati drum set (1960s Czechoslovakia) and the help of fellow collectors and restorers in six different countries to obtain the needed parts for it.

I restore musical instruments and that is another field where the whole is worth less than the sum of its parts. There's the same controversy over parting out restorable vintage instruments to maximize profit. Sometimes I too try to sell a project "as is" to keep it together, but it's a lost cause because half the time the buyer will part it out or do the equivalent of dropping in a small block Chevy anyway. Or not be interested at all, as in this case, if they truly understand the scope involved. The older I get, the more valuable my time becomes. I no longer feel I have to take on every single project that comes across my bench. When I was younger, I'd take on anything, just for the experience or for bragging rights, to be able to say I did it. By now it's all been done a zillion times and there's nothing left to prove to myself or others. If I consider something too far gone and restoration makes no financial sense, it gets parted out. The parts to keep other instruments (and Pierces) on the road have to come from somewhere.

Buyers make all sorts of lame excuses for backing out. It doesn't matter what they gave as the reason, it just means they changed their mind. They were daydreaming and tire-kicking, and then reality set in and they backed out. With either the real reason or a made-up one. Two minutes later, they'll discover another old car they like the looks of and go on to bother THAT seller. Some of them are complete idiots and truly don't have a clue. Some are just gathering information in their own annoying way and just might eventually pull the trigger some day. At least this one had the decency to reply and decline, some would waste your time and then just disappear.

Since day one. I'm told that as a baby I could distinguish the sounds of different engines. At age 4 I stole a car - I was left in one for a minute with the engine running and already knew how to put it in gear (the guy had to run after the car and jump in before I crashed it). Then came Matchbox cars, car books and magazines, walking up to drivers and asking them about their cars. At 10, I discovered dealer brochures and made the rounds every year to collect all I could. By then I already had firm opinions on various automotive matters and could identify almost any car from a block away. At 14, I started working after school and at 17 I bought my first car with my own money. In my early 20s, I bought my first old car and tried to restore it. Interestingly enough, my family never even owned a car when I was a child, so no idea where the obsession came from.

I had some luck selling a few boxes of magazines locally on Craigslist. Took a few months and the price was nominal, but they went eventually (in my experience, putting a token price on what is really a freebie weeds out a lot of time-wasters). In the past I have also taken magazines to a car show and gave out handfuls to any young boy who was interested.

Sandow, here are a few "potentially" useful things to consider... 1. When asked about your daily driver, you mentioned you are "Looking to potentially make this vehicle my First Car". Be aware that no insurance company will insure your antique car unless you also have a modern daily driver in your name. Besides the obvious fact that having a 100-year-old antique as your only vehicle is a bad idea in general, it's just not going to happen legally. 2. We don't know your financial and living situation, but if you're like most teenagers, you are still dependent on your parents and don't have nearly as much disposable income as you will need to maintain an antique car properly. And even if you do, an old car shouldn't be your priority. At 18, you should be thinking about girls, college and starting a career. 3. Don't start out by looking for an ideal situation of a long-term owned, inexpensive car. That's not likely to happen. And even when it does - like when you're offered a just about perfectly suitable Model T in Canada above - you will not be ready to act on it. Instead, start out by gaining experience in the hobby, actively participating in clubs and events, making contacts and saving money. So that by the time the right car comes along, you'll truly be ready to buy it immediately. Success is preparation meeting opportunity. It's great that you have a serious interest in antique cars. But you need to slow down a bit and prepare yourself for antique car ownership. Buy a modern car and become a more experienced driver. Get your career going and become more financially secure. Get in a living situation where you have a dedicated garage to store your antique and your family and/or significant other are totally onboard. Get involved in the hobby. You can start by taking Ed above up on his offer - visit him and drive some cars! In the meantime, keep looking. At some point you will just fall in love with a particular car, and its price and ownership history won't matter anyway. It will likely not even be a car you ever though you would have wanted, but you'll know when it's the right one. PS. You mentioned you are also looking for literature. PM me. I have a whole bunch of old car books I can sell you cheap. Also some old car magazines yours free if you just pay shipping.

Photo dated 1914. What is it?

Any updates on the restoration?

I remember hearing about never changing automatic transmission fluid in an old car, but to just keep adding fluid as needed. Supposedly a worn transmission would quickly develop problems with new fluid, but might remain OK longer if left alone.

Not on a pole, but this Buick has been on the roof in Brooklyn for over 30 years. I took this picture three years ago.

Nice collection. It was interesting to see a Mercer right next to a Stutz so that the two could be compared. I never realized, for example, that the Stutz was a significantly larger car.

Toonces, is that you?

If I wanted to be really technical about it, I should say I collect not records, but music. But I usually use "records" as shorthand. That includes all formats, not just vinyl but also shellac 78s for example. And though "vinyl" seems to be currently trendy, we called records vinyl in the last century too. Nothing new there. Back in the 1980s I used to take a boombox and a bunch of cassettes on long trips. I still have most of my forty-year-old mix tapes and a few vintage boomboxes, so I've done that a couple of times in recent years, purely for nostalgia. The modern equivalent would be a portable Bluetooth speaker paired to a smartphone - a good option if you must have music in an old car without installing anything permanently, it's simple, reasonably cheap and easily portable. But as I said above, in a vintage car I usually don't want any distractions. I have all the conveniences I need in my modern cars.

I'm a musician and record collector. I play or listen to music every day. But when I'm driving my old Chevy, the engine and the sound of the open road are music enough. A drive in a vintage car is a break from the everyday and I don't want any distractions. The car has its original Delco AM mono radio, I think I turned it on twice in the 17 years I have owned the car.

Cars that were once common everyday cars, but have since mostly disappeared. Cars that have honest wear, maintained and repaired but never completely restored. Cars that are contrarian, against the grain, off of most mainstream collectors' radar. Cars that have an interesting story or some history behind that particular model that I have read about and can now see in the metal.

Well, even in New York back in the 1980s, we knew what "pink slip" meant, way across the country and despite the fact that we had no such thing. There was still occasional talk of "racing for pinks", though the paperwork involved titles, and they were brown. "Big slip daddy" sounds like a classic case of some square wannabe screwing up his chance to show off in front of guys who actually knew the lingo. No go, daddy-O.

Are your other two cars red convertibles too? 🙃 I would move the V12 Jag along. It's the kind of car that requires total dedication. You must be absolutely in love with it to put up with its expensive upkeep, otherwise it's just not worth it. And it sounds like you sort of like it but not really. Well, for the rest of your life you can always say you have owned one. Check it off on your bucket list and move on. The Ford is a practical daily driver. Not as exotic or as interesting, but there's something to be said for a car that provides lots of fun with little drama. And it WILL become a true vintage classic at some point if you hold on to it long enough.