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1917(?) Locomobile chassis


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Not mine. It's on FB. Seems a little overpriced, but I know nothing about Locomobiles or their chassis.
Mel Hardy to Restin "N" Rustin (1977 & older)
8 hrs · 
 
 
Locomobile chassis for sale
$58,000
40347

1917(?) Locomobile Model 38 chassis with buffalo shocks. Great beginning of a speedster. Chassis is all that’s for sale. $58,000. Make an offer that’s reasonable and I might consider it. Trades are possible.

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4 hours ago, George Albright said:

Looks like a fire truck chassis.

 

Locomobiles were very sturdily built cars.

Their sales literature at that time said that they

designed the car with quality foremost--using

bronze where other manufacturers might use steel;

using high-alloy steel or forged steel where others

might use ordinary steel.  Then, they said, the car's

price happened to end up wherever the quality took it.

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It is what I particularly like about them. I see them in the same light as the contemporary RR.

In any case, they didn't build fire trucks. They did rebuild used cars as fire apparatus. They had the ongoing problem that came from extreme quality. Their cars were practically indestructible with satisfactory maintenance and they were so expensive they had to be prepared to take older ones in trade if they wanted to sell new ones. So, they rebuilt them with new bodies, or with truck bodies or as fire trucks and resold them at a discounted price with a "new car" guarantee. RR of American had the same problem which is why so many limos and sedans were rebodied as tourers or roadsters. They were probably the first choice for making a big car into a tow truck and more than a few of the surviving examples have had the tow rig removed to rebuild the rear half of the body. They also had what was probably the best styling in America for the mid teens and early twenties...a very awkward time in automotive design but nothing looks much better than a 1917 Sportif.

 

I do think the price is optimistic. I'd have loved to find a project like that 10 years ago but at a price that reflected the hundreds of hours it would take to put it together and get a reasonable body on it. It's way to big to make a "speedster" - which seems to be the standard suggestion by sellers when the chassis has no body...

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By the way, what was the contact information

in that ad?  (Phone number, for example)

Copying that information into this thread will make

this topic much more useful in the future.

Locomobile frames probably take some time to

find someone who wants one!

 

I, too, agree that it's overpriced.  A year or two 

from now, he'll probably still have it.

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1 hour ago, mercer09 said:

I would be all over it if the price werent so steep.

 

easier to find a done car and pay a bit more....................

 

BTW nothing to keep one from shortening the chassis for a speedster.

STuTZ Bearcat wheelbase is 118 inches, and yes it would make a great period raceabout 

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11 hours ago, John_S_in_Penna said:

By the way, what was the contact information

in that ad?  (Phone number, for example)

Copying that information into this thread will make

this topic much more useful in the future.

Locomobile frames probably take some time to

find someone who wants one!

 

I, too, agree that it's overpriced.  A year or two 

from now, he'll probably still have it.

I asked & here's his number - It’s 859-420-4866

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George A. has it right, let us know the wheelbase, that can possibly give a better/clearer picture of exactly what it is.

the photo sales album for the NY City Locomobile dealership on the upper west side just above Columbus Circle a few blocks west of Central Park

had huge photographs of many body styles on offer to customers all mounted on linen. It is of the just post WWI era and sits about 14 inches away from my left elbow as I type this.

It may be the basis for a lot of images for a possible  story I will do for Hemmings Classic Car magazine soon, and go along with factory portfolio images like John S. in Pa. shared with us, plus

other individual 8 x 10 period photographs I have of Locomobiles of that era.  Locomobiles were/are wonderful automobiles and I love their design/styling. I have a radiator and shell for one leaning against the inside of my garage I have the pleasure of looking at every time I go in there.

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