Re: Weight Distribution- Convertible Coupe

Posted by su8overdrive On 2023/4/14 21:05:16

Don't read too much into what FDR and other leaders rode in. Such fire trucks/parade floats were meant to impress, convey power, dignity and usually had sidemounts simply as tire technology made such prudent. That, and in the event of a double blowout, albeit unlikely, it wouldn't do to have such an imposing barouche stranded on a crowded public street while Secret Service and local cops scurried around trying to find a nearby shop stocking 7.50 x 16 or 8.25 x 16 tires.

Remember what a paltry slivver of the auto industry such outsized automobiles were.

Such white elephants went for a song on the back row of big city used car lots not just because they were too big for routine driving and slurped gas, but because there were no longer tire sources.

Off subject, but some then young greater NYC/NJ/CT junior execs enamored of these cars launched the Classic Car Club of America in 1952 hoping to attract others so smitten. No one used the term "classic" until LA car buff lawyer Robert J. Gottlieb coined the term in one of his Motor Trend columns the preceding year. Before that, car mad adolescents and others referred to such as "fine cars."

When a Duesenberg first owned by Greta Garbo became the first car sold at auction to approach $100,000 in 1972, every old car became "classic." Then the me-generation boomers wanted their Mustangs and muscle cars to bask in the fiscal trickle down, so they, as well as Coke, pizza, and soon anything out of Kelley Blue Book became "classic."

Another case of spreading semi-literacy. Cole Porter, Louis Armstrong, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, the Beatles, the Four Tops, Paul Simon and Joan Baez aren't classical music, but will survive the ages long as Vivaldi, Chopin, Brahms, Ravel, Villa-Lobos.

Further afield, but what does it tell you about the CCCA mindset that most Buick Roadmasters aren't "Classics," but the same car on a longer wheelbase with fancier interior (Limited) is? As well as the 1941-on cutrate Series 62 Cadillac, which shares every body panel with Pontiac, simply as oldsters prefer driving HydraMatic golf carts.

Why is this overview important? Because for too many years, the CCCA's arbitrary list of accepted wheels has second-tiered a field of better road cars, many of equal quality. The paucity of old sports cars underscores the CCCA lauding sheer size as much as anything.

But then some of us are catholic in our autoholia, and big tent politically, believing in democracy in all endeavors.