Are Rare Cars Best Preserved in One Collection or Spread out Amongst Several

[Buffalowed Bill]

I don't want to sound like I'm arguing, but when you speak of survival rate being low, you should be saying actual survival is very low. The rate would be the percentage of the production that has survived. So in other words we could expect that of the total production of 1933 Studebakers would be less then 1%, but the survival of the Speedways is closer to 15%.

 

There are  no breakdowns by body type in 1931, but assuming about 10% of production of Presidents were roadsters, the 54 survivors is about 4%. This is obviously much higher than would be expected. I don't have the number in front of me, but I seem to remember that about 22,000 model 54's were produced in 1931. I suspect that the survival of the roadsters is much less than 1% of those produced.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Buffalowed Bill (see edit history)

[wayne sheldon]

nzcarnerd and zepher,

Thank you for the additional insights. I really like that roadster, especially in its newer (probably more correct?) color!

I have read of much of Captain Eddie Rickenbacker's life, and his exploits during the Great War. That was one of the first things that made me really interested in the cars. 

So many wonderful cars! So many interesting histories.

[nzcarnerd]

1 hour ago, Buffalowed Bill said:

I don't want to sound like I'm arguing, but when you speak of survival rate being low, you should be saying actual survival is very low. The rate would be the percentage of the production that has survived. So in other words we could expect that of the total production of 1933 Studebakers would be less then 1%, but the survival of the Speedways is closer to 15%.

 

We don't know for sure because how many of each body style were produced because there is no breakdown by body type in 1931, but assuming about 10% of production Presidents that year are roadsters, the 54 survivors is about 4%. This is obviously much higher than would be expected. I don't have the number in front of me, but I seem to remember that about 22,000 model 54's were produced in 1931. I suspect that the survival of the roadsters is much less than 1% of those produced.

Re the Model 92 Speedways Presidents - eight of all body styles left out of 657 total represents just over 1%. There were also 1194 Model 82 'regular' Presidents built in the US in 1933 (according to my copy of The Standard catalog - which doesn't include Canadian production) but I have no info on the survival of those.

 

There was a total of 23, 917 built of the 1931 Model 54.

 

Survival rates area funny thing - I am sure you have heard anecdotal stories of certain limited production cars where the survival rate is over 100%. where there are ten surviving out of the five built etc.

 

Post WW2 New Zealand was very different place to today where our car imports are pretty much unrestricted and tarriff free.  NZ had a protected assembly industry up to the 1990s but there was a major change which is too complicated to go into.  In the 1950s the great majority of our cars came from Britain.  American cars were in demand but due to the country's low dollar reserves were always in short supply, especially in the first few years after the war. I recently read a car dealer ad from 1951 where a 1938 Chevrolet was advertised for twice what it sold for new. Most of our 1950s American cars came from Canada and due to the low numbers were, for each year all of the same model and specification with a small amount of local content added at assembly time. Our 1955 Chevs were plain Jane six cylinder sedans, many of which were repowered with V8s in their later life. Those '55 were great workhorses but there was demand from those with a little more cash for something a bit flasher so for 1956, and from then on, our Chevs were Bel Air sedans, all V8 with three on the tree, but with few 'extras'. (The Powerglide was made standard from 1961). Getting to the point of this paragraph regarding the 1956 Chev Bel Airs I don't know exactly how many were imported but there 845 registered new in 1956, of which at least 60 are known to survive - there  may be more put away in sheds - though only a small number are mint originals or correctly restored, most have been hotrodded at some time. From 1958-on the numbers were much smaller. There were only about 300 from each of the Big Three, plus a few others - Rambler, Studebaker etc - but imports of North American cars ended in the late 1960s was V8 powered stuff came available from Australia.

 

In recent years imports of used American cars has become unrestricted so there are now thousands of them and the local new models are only a small percentage of the total.