Stearns-Knight - what year?

[nzcarnerd]

Front brakes and balloon tyres say not before 1925.

 

Maybe someone knows this specific car?

 

[wayne sheldon]

I am about ninety-eight percent certain I know that car! It has been almost forty-five years since I have seen it, but it belonged to a very good friend of mine.

A 1925 Stearns Knight oval window brougham is what they called it.

I would love to see more photos of the car, to be sure it is the same one. The one I knew had an incredibly beautiful interior, I believe it was original. Overall, the car had had a good quality cosmetic restoration outside, but like most, had several minor, or not so minor, issues. The visor needed repair when he bought it, and the front bumper was too small. I had a Studebaker with a slightly wider but otherwise identical BiFlex bumper on it, so we traded bumpers which was an improvement for both cars.  He had the bumper he got from me re-plated in nickel. However, the plating shop LOST the clamp medallions for it! I had an almost identical BiFlex bumper that was badly bent (apparent collision damage), but the clamp/medallions were in good condition. So I gave him those clamp, medallions to replace the ones the plater had lost. I still have the rest of the bent bumper in my junk pile! I figure if I want to use it on a lesser car, I could easily make good clamps and straighten the bumper. But I have never had an appropriate car that I wanted a bumper for, so there it sits buried in my junk pile.

The engine had some issues common to Knight engines, and my friend had it rebuilt by another mutual friend that had previously rebuilt a couple other Knight engines. Once he was done with the engine, there were no more problems from the engine as long as my friend had it, and he drove it quite a bit after that.

 

I rode in it a number of times. Great riding car, but low geared then. If it had an overdrive or higher gear ratio installed? It would be a great car for nickel era.

It is one of about a dozen cars I have known in the past that I occasionally search for on the web, hoping to see a photo of it. I have seen photos of a few other Stearns Knight oval window broughams, but all different years or colors, and usually slightly different body details.

 

I hope it is the same one. It is always nice to see memorable cars decades later, still in nice shape.

[dibarlaw]

I have several photos of this car since I believe it is in the AACA museum.