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Board index » All Posts (58L-Y8)




Re: Concours d Elegance - Plymouth, MI
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58L8134
Hi

Thanks for posting the pictures, next best thing to being there.

The dark green '40 Darrin Sport Sedan is owned by Tareshawty. It's the other design Dutch tried in a effort to create a sports sedan with the verve less expensively than the dark red example that's Charles Blackman found in Mexico City and has been restored recently. That design, style number 720 is the more heavily customized with the sectioned hood and aluminum cowl. Notice this dark green car, style 730 has full hood section and largely unmodified cowl. It's still a good looking car, better if it had the runningboard removed and sidemounts deleted (my option).

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/29 18:59
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Re: Two '57 Clippers, ILL Auction, July 28th
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58L8134
Hi

If anyone attends tomorrow, I'd appreciate a report on the condition of the cars and what they sell for.

Even better, if you should buy one or both, we'll all be expecting a full report!

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/27 18:57
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Re: Madness plain and simple
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58L8134
Hi

Criminal if it's a real Individual Custom, simply a travesty if it's the more likely "fakey-do'.

Just conjecture, but I'd bet its mostly Gibbons repro parts, a replica V-windshield coachbuilt body and mounted on some F-100/GMC chassis. The track width is typical replicar fare: too small diameter/too wide width wheels and tires sticking out past the fenders.

Well, at least they didn't paint it pearlescent white with gold-plated trim.....though why not?

With a tip of the hat to H. L. Mencken, a slightly updated paraphrase: "No one ever went broke underestimating the taste or intelligence of the American public".

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/27 18:50
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Two '57 Clippers, ILL Auction, July 28th
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58L8134
Hi

Two '57 Clipper Town Sedans, George Zibert Estate Auction, Spring Valley, Illinois, July 28, 2012 (Spring Valley is approximately 10 miles east of Princeton on Route 6, 4 miles west of Peru, Ill)

Notice:
http://www.auctionzip.com/Listings/1476282.html

Pictures:
http://www.auctionzip.com/cgi-bin/photopanel.cgi?listingid=1476282&category=0&zip=&kwd=

One with 36K miles, look to be decent, solid, driveable condition. Help yourselves to a couple of nice cars!

Steve

P.S. Notice the Black, 36k mile car has a radio delete plate and no antenna. Hummm, black, blue interior, radio delete, suppose it was a funeral home car?

Wish they would at least wash them before photographing!

Posted on: 2012/7/26 10:26
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Re: Why didn't Continental make an OHV V-8?
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58L8134
Hi Su8overdrive

You've posed a question that has nettled me as well:

" Always wondered whether the proprietary Continental L-head eights, or the Lycoming L-head eights, used in various "assembled" higher end cars of the late '20s, early '30s had the edge."

Before I usurp your query as if it were mine, I yield to you starting the new thread first.

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/24 8:27
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Re: Why didn't Continental make an OHV V-8?
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58L8134
Hi

I spoke with a Kaiser-Frazer enthusiast about the V-8 Kaiser was developing and dropped to fund the Henry J. He told me the Kaisers insisted the engine have major commonents made from aluminum. In this case it was to be aluminum block, cast-iron heads. Apparently there were considerable issues which eventually nixed the project. Why they wouldn't simply use cast-iron throughout until the aluminum difficulties were overcome is unknown. Interesting, the two engineers who designed the Kaiser prototypes were later large responsible for the AMC's own new V-8 engine in 1956.

Postwar, Continental was down to Checker and Kaiser for customers. Truckmakers preferred big displacement in-line sixes, seeing no advantages in the emerging OHV V-8 for their purposes. The industrial equipment makers were the focus of Continental's business at the time. Their engines were well-engineered and built, were held in high-regard throughout that industry.

Continental-engined Full-Classics are some of the more interesting low-production offerings of the time. Though, I imagine at the time, some people still looked down on them as "assembled cars"!

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/23 18:52
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Re: Ok, I'm calling your bluff. Show me how Packards were "better".
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58L8134
Hi Gentlemen


Fine in-depth insights shared with civility! What a delight, as has been noted, is the clear-eyed realism freely expressed here, kudos to Big Kev for making this refuge available!

Now, to some points! For my discussion, I'll use the term 'premium' to define that market just above the upper middle segment but just below the all-out luxury one, as generally defined for each period. For example, in the '20's, the upper middle-priced segment was up to $2,000 beyond which a few of their priciest body styles such as seven passenger sedans and limousines arced into the middle of the next $1,000. The luxury segment began at $3,000 on up to rarified levels. Packard redefined the 'premium' market in the mid-'20's by offering the $2,585 Six sedan, something never before available from a luxury car maker. By the late '30's, 'premium' had been redefined as $1,600-$2,200 by the Cadillac 60, 'luxury' from there on up. The former was the showdown arena for volume market dominance, the latter icing on the prestige cake and additional profits in the coffer. Cadillac grabbed the baton........Packard stumbled.


The great irony: The very roots of their volume sales success in the '20's was the development first of the 'premium' Six, then spawning a 'luxury' Eight as an extension, successor to the Twin Six. Really quite a brilliant strategy. The first few years of the Six, they groped their way along, adjusting size, features and prices until they hit the sweet spot, which then blossomed into volume as never before. The Six carried the overhead and the Eight raked in the bucks while both enhanced the prestige handsomely. They were THE aspirational cars of the period. This affirmation of management correctness steamrolled until 1930, then turned to dreck.

That dreck was the next opportunity to repeat the strategy again. This time, first with the 120 becoming the bread-and-butter overhead carrier, and second as springboard for a new, downsized but completely-unique 'premium' Super Eight, something to be truly aspirational, to maintain their dominance in the emergent 'pocket luxury' segment. Perhaps by extension a Twelve for what was left of the true luxury carriage trade. The pale and belated response embodied in the 1939 Super 8 reveals how the wheels had come off management's mojo to meet an emergent market demand, much less lead. Upgrading a '38 Eight Deluxe fitted with a decade-old-technology engine in a one-year-old hand-me-down 120 body, generously copying from the Cadillac 60 playbook, was not what might be expected from a market leader. The 356 did redeem the subsequent Seniors to a degree. Clinging to the separate old Senior format as long as they did, in the face of waning sales, demonstrates management still hoped that type of buyer would revive. The world was quickly moving on, in order to lead, they should have boldly fielded a completely new model line by '37 or '38 at minimum.

Advertising: From "Ask!" to "The One for '51", from tony to tone-deaf, from marvelous to embarrassing! Nothing else I can added to the cogent comments made.

A 120-122" wheelbase Buick Century sparring partner: A horribly missed opportunity, not only in the pre-war market that held the Century a hot car at a great price, but also postwar as proof Packard still was full of stuff for the fight. Packard had great precedence in the Speedsters 626 and 734; hot engines mounted in high-quality, light, compact chassis'. A 356 or 320 version of the 282 in the 110/Six chassis with stylish, unique sport sedan, coupe and convertible, priced to meet the Century would have done wonders for image. A postwar Packard version on the order of the Bentley Continental is lovely to contemplate.

3-Box 'sport' sedan proportions and wheelbase length: As much as I like the 60 Special, GM C-Body Torpedoes and the Clipper, I have to admit there are certain angles from which all can look somewhat "plump and stubby". All three push proportional relationship of the axle-line to top-quarters/trunk intersection to the hilt. All three could benefit from 3-4 more inches of wheelbase committed to the moving the axle reward, allowing less door cut depth and a few more inches of trunk length. Of the surface development, the 60 Special generally the exhibits svelte surfacing of the Cord 810 whereas the follow-ups are expressions of the Rubenesque, full surfaces being popularized by GM. Each has it's appeal. In all cases, the new direction was a breath of fresh air in the stale sickroom of the touring sedan pall.
The 125" to 127" wheelbase shook out as the ideal length to build the owner-driven luxury sedan by the late '30's. Heck, Packard sold it's greatest volumes in the '20's on those lengths. The bit more size 133" wheelbase is about as far as most folks will go when seeking out a luxury sedan to live with daily. All would opine it's for the additional interior room, but few would admit it's the more impressive length that attracted them first! As Beuhrig noted, proportions were all important when making a design work on either wheelbase aesthetically pleasing.


Of the misused term 'sport': generally it was employed as an easy shorthand to differentiate from touring or formal, indiscriminately so. It's simply another term for club sedan, with a dash of cache. As with so many other descriptive automotive terms, use seemed to depend on whatever the maker decided would sell more cars. It is amusing to consider how the prosaic, ubiquitous Chevy sedan could ever be called "sport"!

The functional merits of various power trains: Your experiences and impressions are of great interest since I've never had the opportunity to drive these interesting cars. Thanks so much for sharing them with this novice.

Steve

Posted on: 2012/7/12 19:11
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Re: From the Hallowed Halls
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58L8134
Hi

Thanks Bobby for the explanation for Rollson to produce their versions of Darrin's designs. Slowness of delivery of Darrin Victorias was certainly the main motivation. Rollson also saw the opportunity the Darrin's popularity and scarcity generated.

Rollson was no doubt familiar with the Darrins less than solid build quality and somewhat slap-dash construction. I still recall my surprise the first time I saw the inside wheelhouses of a '40 Darrin Victoria. The metal stamping had been cut into pie slices, lapped over one another in succession to rotate the rear body down and around the axle-line, then hammer welded back together, pretty rough. They don't call 'em "cut-'n-paste' customs for nothing!

They may also have been tapped to repair some build solidity into Darrin's delivered to the NYC area in order to fix the shaky front fenders and hood and shore up the cowl so the doors wouldn't fly open at inopportune times, such as on hard lefthand turns when the curve might make the curvy blond bombshell passenger suddenly disappear!

The Custom Limousine looks better to me than the LeBaron version with it's too high-domed roofline. Unhappily, both suffer from the usual overcabbed look at the rear.

Steve

Posted on: 2012/6/26 7:33
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Re: From the Hallowed Halls
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58L8134
Hi

The convertible victoria was built in 1940, a photo of one is in a Rollson article by Hugo Pfau in an old Cars & Parts magazine. A left-over convertible victoria body was acquired by J.S. Inskip after the war, modified and mounted on a postwar Roll-Royce Silver Wraith chassis....its not a nice aesthetic match-up.

The 1940 Sport Sedan pictured is a glorious automobile, so glad it survives and has been restored. Whether a 1941 version every saw the light of day is unknown

Two 1940 Sunair sport sedans were built, one a knotchback, 3-box format, the other a fastback. The latter survives, the car Flackmaster notes as needing a new owner. Have never seen photos of any 1941 versions built.

The convertible sedan design looks nice except where the diving beltline results in a very uncomfortable rear doorhandle placement.

Steve

Posted on: 2012/6/25 18:28
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'39 Six Coupe, Ayr, ND Auction, June 29 & 30
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58L8134
Hi

Nice-looking '39 Six Coupe, lots of other collector cars, antiques and collectible as this big auction in Ayr, ND, next weekend, June 29 & 30, 2012:

http://www.auctionhopper.com/cobrand/index.php/steffes/auction/85560

Steve

Posted on: 2012/6/23 6:50
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