Jump to content

Big Beat

Members
  • Posts

    201
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Everything posted by Big Beat

  1. I too would paint the fenders. It is very difficult to match up new paint and worn paint in a random spot, the difference will stand out like a sore thumb. Much easier when there is a logical line of some sort to set this boundary, like a painted panel (fender) next to original paint on the panel next to it (hood). I am all for original paint, but once you already have no choice but to paint a part, don't just half-paint it.
  2. That would be my take. The seller probably just ended up with the car and wants it gone. Either an estate situation or an occasional flipper of whatever he thinks he can make a few bucks off of. He doesn't know much about the car other than he was perhaps able to start it and drive it once up and down his driveway. He is not an experienced seller who knows how to market the car properly. He just wants someone to come and take it away without too much fuss and a zillion questions. Too many pointed questions equals a potential problem buyer from his point of view: he doesn't know enough about the car to make any claims. Nor does he want to risk losing the sale by pointing out every flaw before the buyer had even looked at the car, even if he does know about these flaws. And why take the time to answer any questions at all, if the guy on the phone sounds like just another tire kicker that the title issue alone will scare off, instead of someone ready to come right over immediately with a tow truck and some cash? This kind of situation can work out OK for a frequent professional car flipper and/or an experienced repairman. Such a buyer will not care about anything as long as he gets the car at the right price. He already knows how he will take care of the jumped title and has already restored six of these cars and has all the parts lined up. But for someone simply looking for a good car and trying to avoid issues, such a situation is rarely ideal. In the OP's case, I'd look for a car with some history and a more accommodating seller. I have been on both sides of such transactions. Sometimes as a seller I'm too busy to make every potential time waster feel warm and fuzzy. I'd just set a lower price and when the buyer is in front of me with cash in hand, then we'll talk. Sometimes as a buyer I don't ask any questions in advance at all, if the asking price is low enough and I know enough to tell from the pics that I definitely want it. Then I'll look it over and maybe tell the seller more about it than he can possibly tell me.
  3. My first car with a cupholder was a 1991 Toyota Corolla. It had ONE cupholder that slid out of the dash. Prior to that, in the days of bench seats, I had one of those aftermarket plastic consoles that held two cups, cassettes and some other small stuff that I moved from one car to another. If you took a corner too sharply, it slid off the transmission hump and spilled everything onto the floor.
  4. Very sad news. I have been a fan since the early 1980s, when most kids my age would have had no idea who Commander Cody and the Lost Planet Airmen were, and would have thought the music uncool if they did. I have seen Bill Kirchen live several times, he is amazing. Here is a pic I took of Kirchen and the Commander himself in 2016. He looked ill back then already, but he still put on an amazing show and graciously signed my copy of Lost In The Ozone. I am listening to it right now.
  5. Crushed and almost empty pack of cigarettes, church key type beer bottle openers, a screwdriver or two, some maps, small pad for notes of oil changes and such, tissue box, owner's manual, flash light, a copy of Hot Rod magazine or maybe Consumer Reports annual auto issue from the year the car was bought, receipt for new tires or battery, old registrations, spare fuses, some change or tokens for tolls, more loose change and old gum wrappers under the seat, a couple of rusty wrenches and some some small part that fell off in the trunk. Every old car I ever bought had most if not all of the above.
  6. Yes, Russian, same title as the book, The (Little) Golden Calf (Zolotoy Telyonok). It's available on YouTube but only in the original Russian without subtitles. The car appears at about 22:45 and frequently thereafter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6viGCs6gKQ For those curious about the story itself, here's a plot summary and some background info on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Golden_Calf
  7. Yes, of course. But what did it start out as?
  8. Here's a car that's a legend in Russia. Its identity has been debated forever, with no conclusive evidence. The pics are stills from a 1968 film. The action takes place in the late 1920s and the car is supposed to represent a jalopy that is already completely outdated by then, held together by prayer and its owner's skill of scrounging old parts and making them work. In the book upon which the film is based (The Golden Calf by Ilf & Petrov, a classic Russian comic novel) the car's owner owner calls it a Lorraine-Dietrich, but only because that name is on the emblem that he attached to the radiator and half believes himself. The humorous intent was to make it sound exotic and luxurious when it is merely barely running old junk. Russian car experts have looked at clues in the novel and came up with theories from Russo-Balt to Panhard-Levassor to 1908 Fiat. Of course, the truth will never be known because it is a work of fiction. And the authors, while describing an early antique car enthusiast and his car, were not really knowledgeable about cars themselves. When the film was made, the studio simply used some funny looking old car. Can at least the film car be identified from these pics? Just something different for fun.
  9. For the past ten years or so, I have been labeling my stored parts. If someone has to list them for sale when I'm gone, they will know what it is. I have been both buying and selling on eBay for over 20 years now, and people have been bitching about it since day one. If it's not one thing, it's another. I remember when you could request payment by USPS money order (sure as cash with no PayPal fees), give difficult buyers negative feedback and not have to pay fees on shipping. Each time eBay changes something, it makes a small-time, specialized seller's life more difficult. But one has to roll with the punches. Like it or not, they are basically a monopoly because no other platform has the same worldwide exposure and critical mass. If you need to sell, you play by their rules. It's the cost of doing business. For every seller of Raremobile parts who storms off in a huff after yet another stupid change, there are ten new sellers who will gladly sell you a steering wheel cover that "fits" your 1902 Raremobile, so eBay doesn't care. As for buying, just play around with keyword searches and filters until you have most of the junk weeded out, and then save that search.
  10. Yes. That's how I ended up with my Chevy. Somebody outbid me and then failed to follow through. A few days later the seller contacted me with a second chance offer.
  11. I once made a funny sticker for one of my cars by taking a STUDENT DRIVER sticker and cutting out two letters in the middle, so that it read STUNT DRIVER. Very few people noticed and got the joke, however. After several folks asked about driving lessons, I peeled it off. I always wanted to get a custom license plate that reads "145 EAB". Only a musician will get that one (a 1-4-5 progression in the key of E, basically, the formula for many common blues and rock 'n' roll songs). I guess my humor is too subtle sometimes.
  12. Every time I see stuff like this, I remember "The Emperor's New Clothes". Agenda imposed from above and upheld by conformist mass hysteria works very well, until the sheep begin to realize the obvious. We already have "crypto" cars for free right here at AACA. We get to virtually restore them in the "Our Cars & Restoration Projects" forum and virtually drive them via uploaded YouTube clips.
  13. In 1953, this basically predicted the 1959 Cadillac. Toned down just slightly (like any concept car that actually goes into production) it would be no more overblown than most late 1950s production models, and more harmonious than some of them. It's one of those vehicles that needs an owner with an equally unique and oversized personality to match. And that's exactly the point of a custom like this. It' supposed to be outrageous, ostentatious, super-expensive, impractical and attention-grabbing. Otherwise, one might as well just drive a regular Ford or Chevy.
  14. I only have one old car, and STILL cannot find enough time to drive it as often as I would like, nor enough space in the garage to avoid piling stuff on top of it between drives. I cannot imagine how some people manage to have more than a few cars and a small stash of parts without having all that stuff overwhelm them. It takes discipline, and many people just don't have it. Discipline, to me, is what defines the difference between hoarding and collecting. The actual amount of stuff may be exactly the same, but a collector has the discipline to organize it, maintain it, keep the collection focused and move stuff along when necessary, while a hoarder does not. A collector has a plan for each car he owns and the discipline to actually follow that plan, even if it sometimes does get sidetracked or delayed. A hoarder has no plan and no focus, merely a desire to accumulate and vague dreams about getting to it some day.
  15. I have a set of wooden spool clamps that belonged to my grandfather and were brought over from Russia. As a small child, I liked to steal them and roll them around on the floor. Half a century later, I'm still playing with Grandpa's clamps. I have no idea how old they really are, but even 50 years ago they were already ancient.
  16. If the tire is so ancient or so unusual that it immediately appears different even to a layperson, AND you have a ton of storage space for all the cool old stuff you want to display, then perhaps an old tire may find its place among old oil cans and tin signs and other such junk. But that would probably be in a museum rather than your own garage. And it will be the first thing to get tossed whenever the collection needs to be downsized, because nobody will ever really find it all that interesting, valuable or compelling in any way. If it looks more or less like a current tire, then there's absolutely no point in saving it. Actually using such old tires isn't even worth discussing, just no. Maybe if you need an extra set of rollers in your paint shop. Whenever I feel bad about tossing useless old junk, I take a few photos of it, especially any lettering/nomenclature and close-ups of any remotely interesting detail. If you think you might ever need such reference, digital pics are much easier to store than the object itself.
  17. Englishtown is basically a big flea market with a lot of car-related junk. It's fun and I go almost every year. But the emphasis is on junk and it is all very random. As mentioned above, it is no Hershey by any stretch. You will find lots of parts - but probably not what you were looking for. Also plenty of rusty modified bikes, lawnmowers, buckets full of old tools, welded "art" made from old springs and mufflers, guys selling pocket knives and old license plates and used mechanic overalls, as well as all sorts of yard sale bric-a-brac that has nothing to do with cars. As far as complete vehicles go, there are always a bunch of projects as well as a small car corral and show, mostly hot rods and muscle cars but occasionally something more interesting. Here are a few random pics I took in previous years:
  18. There's also a lot of car related footage to be found in silent films. Here's one from 1914, featuring Charlie Chaplin and Barney Oldfield in action.
  19. My first attempt at a restoration project back in the early 1990s. As a teenager, my dream car was a GTO but they were getting too expensive even then. This was the closest I could afford to a proper wide-track Pontiac. 4-door hardtop, bought for $100 from the little old lady original owner. The car ran well and had fairly low miles and a dead mint interior. The back seat had never been sat on. I thought it was a perfect drive-as-you-restore project. Unfortunately, a few months later, as I was just starting to get a few things sorted out on it, the frame rusted through under the engine. I had no clue it was that bad as I had never lifted the car to check. I was living in an apartment in New York at the time - no garage, no driveway, no way to keep a non-operable car even long enough to sell it. I jacked up the engine, put a 2x4 under it and drove the car to the junkyard under its own power. 😪
  20. Genevieve, The Yellow Rolls Royce, The Great Race, Excuse My Dust. To a lesser extent, Christine (the book is much better). Here's a very cool Russian comedy (with subtitles) about 30 years in the life of a Zhiguli (Lada) car and its various owners: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2g-NuaOuNs
  21. To me, "garage", in reference to music, means only one thing: mid-1960s bands such as The Standells, The Music Machine, The Count Five and other such "nuggets". I still have several mixed tapes with such stuff that I made back in the 1980s and I keep an old boombox in the garage to play that stuff, among other music. My 40+ year old cassettes are still good to go, even if I don't play them in the house anymore. Until recently I still had a daily driver with a cassette deck, so the tapes lived in the car. But these days they're my "garage music". Radio... I have a love-hate relationship with radio. I love old tube radios, but I hate everything that comes out of the speaker, unless it's some obscure retro program. To me, nostalgia is not a passive thing, I always preferred to seek out, or to make, my own soundtrack.
  22. Some great stuff! My stash is quite a bit more modest. The model cars I collected as a kid in Russia in the 1970s. A few Moskvich, one Lada and a couple of pre-revolution Russo-Balt. I used to have more but my younger brothers destroyed most of my stuff in the 1980s. The 1929 registration for a '24 Hupmobile Touring was found when renovating the basement of my mom's house. I wonder if that car survived the scrap drives of WWII.
  23. A few years ago a young guy, probably still in his teens, walked up to me and my '79 Monte Carlo and asked "Is it real?". I had no idea how to answer that, so I said "no, but it's a pretty good fake, huh?" He walked away, nodding, like I confirmed his suspicions.
  24. Antique Automobile does have some minor value, especially if a complete run of a long stretch of years. It is of no interest to the veterans in the hobby, as they all probably have their own. But it may interest someone just starting out. I know I myself bought at least three guys' accumulations of old magazines when I first started going to car shows years ago. I didn't pay much for them, but they weren't garbage either, I was glad to have them to read and educate myself. I wouldn't want any now, though. If you know some younger guy who just bought their first vintage car, the magazines would make a nice gift. Otherwise put them on Craigslist at a very token price and see if someone comes for them. If you still have them a few months later, then donate them to a nursing home. The other titles... I would have recycled them already by now.
×
×
  • Create New...