1910-12 Oldsmobile Limited

[Steve Moskowitz]

Here is some more Limited "stuff".  First, the 75th Anniversary painting, second a one-of-a kind stained glass artwork on a Special but it represents the original art work, third a painting of the green Limited that you have seen here earlier, fourth the Ken Ebert's night scene and finally the condition that the Rich family bought the "original" you has seen in this thread before it was put in running order.

 

 

 

 

[BobinVirginia]

Wow! Fantastic, thanks for sharing! 

[dibarlaw]

I used to love to visit the decrepit Limited when it was at the Huntington, PA. Swigart Musem back in the corner.

[29 Chandler]

6 hours ago, Lozierman said:

While searching for Lozier parts many years ago I came across an ad in Hemmings that stated the seller had a large 6-cylinder T head motor for sale.  I immediately contacted the seller, and he described it as best he could over the phone, (pre-internet days).  I determined it wasn't a Lozier motor, but I decided it might work until I found the correct motor.  I had a Lozier frame and almost the rest of a chassis along with a Briarcliff body.  I sent him a check and he sent me photos.  When the photos arrived, I knew it wasn't a Lozier motor, but I wanted it anyway.  He crated it and sent it to me.  He lived in Maine, and I live in Washington State.

I had it for many years and wasn't able to identify it as it had no marking except some cast numbers including a serial number.  Many items were nickel plated.  I searched old copies of HCCA, the AACA and spent many hours in the main library checking out bound copies of Horseless Age, Motor, etc.  Never found it in any of the publications.  Finally, a local guy heard about it and he came to see it.  He owned an Olds Autocrat and identified it as an Olds Limited motor.

 

I was later contacted by a collector who had come to Seattle on a business trip.  He came to see it and was overwhelmed to find it was indeed a motor for an Olds Limited.  He wanted to buy it as he had the rest of an Olds Limited chassis and even had the casting of a body.  He said if he could purchase the motor, he could complete the 7th known Limited.  He already had two, so I assumed he knew what he was talking about.  I decided he needed it more than I did as I would not want to see my motor misused. 

 

Last I heard he was trying to sell his Limited project.  I don't know if it is now one of those shown in these posts.

 

I never did find the Lozier motor I needed, but I did find a few others during my searches.  These include a motor for a 1907 Thomas Detroit and a 1911 Pierce Arrow 48.  Both of these found homes that resulted in complete cars.  I eventually traded all of my Lozier parts for a complete, original 1913 Lozier Montclair touring.

What a great story! I am glad you finally fed your thirst for a complete running Lozier and the Limited engine found its proper home.

[58L-Y8]

The book, The Cars of Oldsmobile by Dennis Casteele, page 41 has a promotion photo of an Oldsmobile Limited touring with Bing Crosby in the 1939 movie "The Star Maker".

Here is the YouTube link to the movie, enjoy:

 

[dep5]

seen in the wild, Huntington, Indiana

Edited March 31 by dep5
add location (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

On 3/29/2024 at 9:37 AM, Steve Moskowitz said:

You have had two Limited owners respond here and one has many, many miles behind the wheel.  The white car is the one we restored at Ohlendorf's Restoration Shop in Beecher, Illinois.  It was the Old's factory car and had been damaged while improperly displayed at a theme park.  Olds gave it to me to oversee the restoration efforts.  I had the car for about 5 years and had a 9' tall trailer to take it to various events. A blast to drive at speed but NO fun at all if you are asked to use it at a concours for a style show.  Turning the steering wheel on this takes some mighty effort if you are not moving.

 

As to the paintings.  This is a constant source of confusion for people due to the quality of the oleographs used to make copies.  No one knows what happened to the real original painting that hung in Olds' headquarters.  It disappeared many years ago and was thought to be given to a retired employee. There were three early version's of the painting that today look like they are an original painting but they are not and at least two have been advertised as originals.  For Oldsmobile's 75th Anniversary they released a smaller version.  These generally sell in the $500 range plus or minus.  The very early ones can bring several thousand.  Ken Eberts also did a night version.

Steve,

It is my understanding that some Oldsmobile dealerships were given these Limited vs Locomotive paintings in the late teens or twenties. The two at the RE Olds Transportation Museum are quite old and on a canvas. They are very textured. The one hanging in the conference room pictured below (you can just see it on the far left) is quite large as compared to the one I had in my office. I'll have to get a better picture of it and post it.

Scott

Edited March 31 by Stude Light (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

On 3/29/2024 at 9:56 PM, bryankazmer said:

I believe the building in the background is Olds Hall at Michigan State University

I know this post is about the Limited but since it was brought up.....here is an interesting story regarding Olds Hall for you MSU fans.

 

In 1907, the Michigan Agricultural College (M.A.C.), known as Michigan State University today, constructed a new building to house all their engineering disciplines. The following year they created the Division of Engineering.  In 1916, that building burned to the ground.

 

After the fire, there was a movement to have the entire engineering program of this state run college absorbed by the University of Michigan as there was no appetite to spend more tax dollars on rebuilding the program. Further, in the state legislature, there was now talk of annexing the entire college into U of M. Enter Ransom Eli Olds who saw the potential of the M.A.C. Engineering Division to become a world-renowned school. In a letter written to M.A.C. President, Frank Kedzie, Olds wrote, “I have great faith in the Michigan Agricultural College and see no reason why it should not become one of the foremost colleges in the United States.” As a sign of his confidence, Olds personally donated $100,000 to rebuild the Engineering building which was named Olds Hall. At the time, private donations were unheard of and it was the College’s very first significant private gift for a building. Olds Hall is still standing but now houses MSU's University Relations division as well as classroom space. In many people’s minds, Ransom Olds saved what eventually became MSU.

 

 

 

[Dan Cluley]

What a difference a decade made.

[Stude Light]

2 hours ago, Dan Cluley said:

What a difference a decade made.

Yes, from a very profitable company to one on the brink of bankruptcy 😉.

 

[8E45E]

Just now, Stude Light said:

Yes, from a very profitable company to one on the brink of bankruptcy 😉.

 

And if that useless management who drove it to bankruptcy five years after discontinuing the Oldsmobile brand in 2004, it would have had the status of being oldest U.S. marque.

 

Craig

[wayne sheldon]

13 hours ago, Stude Light said:

Yes, from a very profitable company to one on the brink of bankruptcy 😉.

 

 

13 hours ago, 8E45E said:

And if that useless management who drove it to bankruptcy five years after discontinuing the Oldsmobile brand in 2004, it would have had the status of being oldest U.S. marque.

 

Craig

 

This is all part of what makes automobile history so very interesting! And part of what makes history in general so very important.

If people do not learn from past mistakes, they individually or collectively will wind up back in a bad place that people before them had already worked their way out of.

When I first heard that GM was dropping the Oldsmobile line? I figured that GM and all the big three were headed downhill from then onward. Killing off Oldsmobile, the longest running American automobile marque, clearly meant that they did not appreciate their history, and in turn their legacy, and the millions of customers that had contributed to their greatness. One does that, and it is downhill from then on.

 

I don't recall the source of this quote. But it is one I have quoted hundreds of times through the years;

 

"A fool repeats his mistakes,

a smart man learns from his mistakes,

a wise man learns from other people's mistakes."

[kuhner]

Does anyone remember the one that was at an auction at Hershey, maybe 16 or 17 years ago. 

I can’t find the photos I took of it

[Steve Moskowitz]

On 3/30/2024 at 10:26 PM, Stude Light said:

Steve,

It is my understanding that some Oldsmobile dealerships were given these Limited vs Locomotive paintings in the late teens or twenties. The two at the RE Olds Transportation Museum are quite old and on a canvas. They are very textured. The one hanging in the conference room pictured below (you can just see it on the far left) is quite large as compared to the one I had in my office. I'll have to get a better picture of it and post it.

 

Scott

Scott, yes, the paintings were given as gifts by Olds Motor Works and what fools some people is that they are indeed very textured.  The process allowed for some very realistic looking paintings that would appear to be an original.  There has been a search for decades for the real original but so far it has not shown up.  The earlier art was indeed much larger than the 75th Anniversary productions which were done at a company in Lansing and sold to dealers.

[Steve Moskowitz]

1 hour ago, kuhner said:

Does anyone remember the one that was at an auction at Hershey, maybe 16 or 17 years ago. 

I can’t find the photos I took of it

The only Limited sold at Hershey in the last 20 years besides the prototype was the unrestored car from the Swigart estate (picture is included with my post about the paintings). That was 2007.

 

Dan, the picture from what I believe was the "celebration" at the  REO Museum of the last car to be produced at the plant. The red car was a Model Z owned by Dick Neller at the time who was the perfect man to own one of these cars as he was well over 6' tall

[Dan Cluley]

Yes, that was at the display of the last Alero.

 

I had thought it was a Limited, are they even larger?

 

[Steve Moskowitz]

The 1909 Model Z simply had the larger wheels ala the Limited.  Another precursor to the actual 10-12 production.

[BobinVirginia]

I’m amazed at the amount of knowledge that some members have on not only the cars discussed on the forum but the comprehensive history surrounding them. Thanks to all. 
 

As Einstein said, 

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know. 

Edited April 1 by BobinVirginia (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

While the Limited was the largest, there were other "fairly large" models of Oldsmobiles in that time frame too. Not only the Model Z mentioned above but also the Defender. There was a very nice example of 1913 Defender at the Old Car Festival this past September. Photo credit goes to @Jim Skelly though.

[wayne sheldon]

Many years ago, a friend was a well respected machinist and horseless carriage restorer as well as member of my HCCA Regional Group. One of our tours covered a bunch of scenic miles of California foothills, and ended up at his home and shop for a mid afternoon barbecue.

I forget which model Oldsmobile that it was, but one of the cars he was working on for a customer was the size down from the Limited. It was still huge! That "smaller" model Oldsmobile also had the double level running board, and was quite impressive.

[29 Chandler]

I always liked this ad and wound up using it in our club roster a couple of years. I covered the space below the image with a list of our club officers.

Edited April 2 by 29 Chandler (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

On 4/1/2024 at 8:18 AM, Steve Moskowitz said:

Scott, yes, the paintings were given as gifts by Olds Motor Works and what fools some people is that they are indeed very textured.  The process allowed for some very realistic looking paintings that would appear to be an original.  There has been a search for decades for the real original but so far it has not shown up.  The earlier art was indeed much larger than the 75th Anniversary productions which were done at a company in Lansing and sold to dealers.

I did some investigating on the Setting the Pace artwork at the RE Olds Transportation Museum.
 

Yes, there was an original painting that no one knows what happened to it.
 

Then there were the first set of copies made for the Oldsmobile dealers sometime in the 1920s. Quantities unknown. That is the one that hung in my office. It is on canvas, is very textured with some micro cracking in that texture. It measures just shy of 24” x 36”

 

Then there was a set of maybe 400 copies made in the 1950s that were distributed to dealers. These were a little smaller in size (I don’t know the exact dimensions). Those usually sell for around $200.

 

The other one in the Museum is quite large and measures 4’ x 5’. It is also painted on canvas but very little texture. It looks to be quite old. The canvas is rather stiff and brittle. Not sure of its history.

 

[Paul Dobbin]

 Winner and Grand champion of the 1994 Interstate Batteries Great American Race, a 1912 Oldsmobile Autocrat.   Owned & Driven

 by Newt Withers of Anaheim CA and Navigated by Wayne Stanfield of Santa Ana, CA in the 4300 mile event from Huntington Beach,

 CA to Wilkes-Barre, PA.   It raced again in 1995 Ottawa, Canada to Mexico City, Mexico.   A big car with a big age handicap in the

 Championship Division, which I competed in, against them.  In our 1935 Chrysler Airflow we didn't begrudge their handicap advantage.

 It was a great adventure to see those really old cars slugging it out for the 4300 miles, with no top in the July sunshine.

Actually in two other Great American Races there were two other Oldsmobile Autocrats.  In 1985 or 86.  Curtis Graf

drove a yellow one.   The several years later, a woman drove another yellow one.   As I remember. they were all 1912's.

Edited April 11 by Paul Dobbin
Added another paragraph. (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

The thing that I find amazing about these cars and the other cars in this market segment is how quickly they became an important part of peoples lives. Within a period of 4 or 5 years starting in about 1905 automobiles went from simple , small, and not really a practical device except for short , local trips to very large , very expensive , somewhat capable machines. Just think of all the cars marketed at this time { say about 1907 - about 1912 } in the $5,000.00 - $10,000.00 market class. Pierce Arrow, these Oldsmobile's, Locomobile , Sterns, Alco, Simplex , Stevens Duryea and many others. In most cases the number produced by any individual maker is not all that large for a given production year, but when you total up the number of cars sold by all makers combined { plus the high quality / high price range imports } it is actually a significant yearly number. All this in an industry barely beyond the stuttering , buy your fuel in gallon tins at the local drug store days. 

 Even more amazing when you consider that most people rich or poor still most of the time used trains for transportation of any real distance. 

I wonder what these cars , with their towering price tags were generally used for ? Weekend commutes between the country estates where the wife and kids would live and the businessman head of the household would stay at a in town Apt. or Hotel suite during the business week. Formal events where the Wealthy were expected to arrive in the latest and greatest fashion. Remember it is mainly the touring bodied versions of these great cars that have survived, but when new a substantial number of cars in this price range had formal , closed bodies. It's just that very few of the formal body cars have survived. But WW1 era , big city junk yard photo's are full of 10 year or old or so formal body cars being salvaged.

 What an amazing era. Pity so few of the great cars of this era survived . WW1 - The Great Depression- WW2, and just general ravage of time and obsolescence, all of these events took their toll.

Edited April 6 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[BobinVirginia]

@1912Staver

Nice to know I’m not the only person that ponders such questions about a car like the Limited. Cool stuff 

[Terry Bond]

Seen on the show field this morning in Charlotte.

Edited April 6 by Terry Bond (see edit history)

[Stude Light]

12 hours ago, 1912Staver said:

The thing that I find amazing about these cars and the other cars in this market segment is how quickly they became an important part of peoples lives. Within a period of 4 or 5 years starting in about 1905 automobiles went from simple , small, and not really a practical device except for short , local trips to very large , very expensive , somewhat capable machines. Just think of all the cars marketed at this time { say about 1907 - about 1912 } in the $5,000.00 - $10,000.00 market class. Pierce Arrow, these Oldsmobile's, Locomobile , Sterns, Alco, Simplex , Stevens Duryea and many others. In most cases the number produced by any individual maker is not all that large for a given production year, but when you total up the number of cars sold by all makers combined { plus the high quality / high price range imports } it is actually a significant yearly number. All this in an industry barely beyond the stuttering , buy your fuel in gallon tins at the local drug store days. 

 Even more amazing when you consider that most people rich or poor still most of the time used trains for transportation of any real distance. 

I wonder what these cars , with their towering price tags were generally used for ? Weekend commutes between the country estates where the wife and kids would live and the businessman head of the household would stay at a in town Apt. or Hotel suite during the business week. Formal events where the Wealthy were expected to arrive in the latest and greatest fashion. Remember it is mainly the touring bodied versions of these great cars that have survived, but when new a substantial number of cars in this price range had formal , closed bodies. It's just that very few of the formal body cars have survived. But WW1 era , big city junk yard photo's are full of 10 year or old or so formal body cars being salvaged.

 What an amazing era. Pity so few of the great cars of this era survived . WW1 - The Great Depression- WW2, and just general ravage of time and obsolescence, all of these events took their toll.

Keep in mind there were hundreds of car manufacturers at the time and many were making high end cars. The companies that survived were the ones that made the affordable cars for the masses. While I marvel at these early giants too, you have to wonder how they were planning to survive long term.

[CChinn]

In addition to Terry Bond and 63RedBrier’s photos, here is one I took of the Oldsmobile Limited at the AACA SE Nationals show field today. I have truly enjoyed this thread. Never knew about these vehicles until reading about them here on the forum. It Was added to my bucket list of vehicles to try to see in person in the next few years and lo and behold, right after getting my car ready for the show this morning…maybe within 5 minutes of starting to look at the cars displayed on the show field, this beauty was before my eyes. It’s a magnificent vehicle!  One of the many highlights of a great day in Charlotte. 

Edited April 7 by CChinn (see edit history)

[Steve Moskowitz]

Probably should mention that the body style (Tourabout) seen in Charlotte is not the norm for most surviving Limiteds.  There is the Limousine but most are 7-passenger tourings.  There was one race car but it has since been converted to a standard body.

[MikeC5]

You know you've arrived when you become a member of the brass club club.  Love those brass shifters!  What a beast!

[BobinVirginia]

11 minutes ago, MikeC5 said:

You know you've arrived when you become a member of the brass club club.  Love those brass shifters!  What a beast!

Indeed sir

[Tph479]

23 hours ago, Steve Moskowitz said:

Probably should mention that the body style (Tourabout) seen in Charlotte is not the norm for most surviving Limiteds.  There is the Limousine but most are 7-passenger tourings.  There was one race car but it has since been converted to a standard body.

About 18 months ago I seen a blue limited race car that I believe was factory modified and tourabout with a black top and interior that was being restored.  The owner told me that the blue race car was wicked fast and that he had it over 100mph.

[8E45E]

On 4/6/2024 at 8:26 PM, Stude Light said:

Keep in mind there were hundreds of car manufacturers at the time and many were making high end cars. The companies that survived were the ones that made the affordable cars for the masses. While I marvel at these early giants too, you have to wonder how they were planning to survive long term.

The Limited was Oldsmobile's 'halo car', and like Mercedes Benz with its 600 in the 1960's, probably lost money on each one they built.  Halo cars very rarely make money for their manufacturers, but it does put them on the map for innovation, or something similar that shouts, "Hey, look at meeeee!" to the public.

 

Craig

[raybelf]

Because of the less than stellar sales of the Oldsmobile Limited, some of the chassis/engines were repurposed. Several Limited fire trucks were used around Lansing and Grand Rapids Michigan.

[Stude Light]

1 hour ago, 8E45E said:

The Limited was Oldsmobile's 'halo car', and like Mercedes Benz with its 600 in the 1960's, probably lost money on each one they built.  Halo cars very rarely make money for their manufacturers, but it does put them on the map for innovation, or something similar that shouts, "Hey, look at meeeee!" to the public.

 

Craig

I totally agree. But the Smith’s plan for Oldsmobile was just halo cars which put them deep in the red.

 

I see that Cadillac has finally awakened and are offering a couple of high end “halo” cars rather than just rebadging Chevys. With time they may recover the brand image.

[AHa]

The Limited racing train photo can be purchased from MaryEvansPrints.com.

[Steve Moskowitz]

Just found this among my "stuff"!

[AHa]

Wish we could see a picture of the racing roadster 90 horse with large gas tank and small oil tank.

[West Peterson]

This is pretty cool. Looks to be the photos they used to make the famous painting.

[West Peterson]