By Brian Earnest & Old Cars Staff

We know that, technically, 2020 is still in the decade of the 2010s. Somehow, though, it still feels like we’ve moved on to a new decade when we start over at zero. And here at Old Cars, we like lists, so we thought the dog days of winter would be a good time to put together a list of some of our favorite cars that have appeared in the pages of Old Cars in the past decade.

We’ve had the fun and privilege of talking to thousands of cars owners about their cars over the years, and we’ve featured tons of awesome vehicles in this magazine. Trying to narrow them all down to a manageable list is kind of an exercise in futility, but it’s been fun looking back at the past 10 years and remembering the amazing folks and wonderful cars that we have crossed paths with.

The cars on this list have been included for any number reasons. It might be their status in the hobby (i.e. Jay Leno’s Model J Duesenberg). It might be because they have really cool back stories (there are a LOT of them). And it might be just because we thought the car owner was a fantastic person and we really dug them and their connection to their car (there are a lot of them, too).

Without further ado, here are a few of our favorite rides from the past 10 years:

1923 American (Owner: Susan Manherz)

Sue calls her old orphan touring car “Bud” and jokes that he’s an old, moody and sometimes cantankerous friend. He also might be the only survivor of his ilk on the earth. “In the 1960s there were three Americans known to exist, and all the owners knew each other,” Manherz said. “One was an earlier car that wouldn’t look anything like ours. It had a painted radiator shell and it was smaller. We haven’t been able to track it down. The man who had it died in the early ’70s and nobody knows what happened to the car. The [third] car was the same year as ours, but it was pretty much a parts car. It wasn’t complete. The guy who had it sold it, I know, and we’ve never found out what happened to it.”

The Manherzes have been able to trace the long history of Bud back to his beginnings, and they have discovered they are the fourth owners.Not many people who see the car probably realize it is the ultimate orphan, the last survivor of an obscure breed. “No, he’s not for sale. You figure, I could never get another one. If he was gone, he’d be gone for good,” Sue says. “And his personality grows on you. He’s part person.”

1928 Pontiac Landau coupe (Owner: Tom Schweikert)

Schweikert and his car are a match made in Old Car Heaven. The car needed somebody to love it, and Schweikert decided to go all out, turning the ratty barn-find Pontiac into possibly the nicest example in existence. This award-winning ’28 is pretty close to perfect. The car had belonged to a family in Indiana, there was a falling out of some kind, Tom’s brother bought the car for $900, then when his health failed Tom took the car and went all in on a meticulous restoration.

“I never saw another ’28 [Pontiac]. They aren’t common, and to this day I haven’t seen a finished ’28. I just had to figure out some of these things myself,” Tom said in the story. “It wasn’t easy to get everything in place, but eventually I did get everything right!”

“There’s no money, believe, me, no money that could buy this car. It’s part of my family, and after all these years, I know this car as well as I know the back of my own hand.”

If you ever see Schweikert at a show, stop and ask him about his Pontiac. He’s a great guy and he’ll talk your ear off, and the full story of this car is worth hearing!

1931 Duesenberg ModelJ LaGrande coupe, J-415
(Owner, Jay Leno)

Thanks to the magic of computers, the craftsmanship of Duesenberg historian and restorer Randy Ema and the passion of Jay Leno, one of the two lost 1931 Duesenberg Model J LaGrande coupes lives again.

Although the chassis started out with a LaGrande coupe body, all of the Duesenberg body parts were discarded in the 1940s when a new postwar-styled convertible coupe body was installed. To recreate the chassis’ original coupe body, almost every body part had to be made new (used front fenders from another car were sourced). Ema has nearly every Duesenberg Model J factory drawing, but not those for this car, so he only had a few photos for reference. It took many months, but Leno and Ema persevered and made this deserving car perfect again. It was a great score for Old Cars to get a chance to go see the car and visit at length with Ema. This car will no doubt remain one of the most noteworthy American cars in the hobby.

1930 Ford street rod (Owner: John Zick)

Zick conjured up some crazy dreams, and then he made them a reality with this spectacular green monster. You can’t help but love this thing when you see it up close – it’s got fun, clever touches all over the place, it’s loud and it’s actually drivable. This car is everything you want in a rowdy, one-of-a-kind street rod. Zick started with an original 1930 Ford body that he inherited from his stepfather. The heart of the beast is a blown 629-horse Chevy small-block.

Zick, went through a lot to get this thing built, and now he is having a blast.

1932 Buick Model 32-67 sedan
(Owners: Chuck and Dianna Nixon)

We were blown away by this fantastic Buick, which went from basket case to show-stopper. We featured this car on the cover of Old Cars and several other publications. The car had been sitting for decades, abandoned and alone in a Connecticut warehouse, and it needed a full restoration. In the end, the Nixons “swallowed hard and said OK,” according to Chuck, and thus began a three-and-a-half-year odyssey that ultimately produced a breathtaking result — a concours-quality specimen and surely one of the nicest, most-elegant prewar Buicks on the globe.

“Someday when I’m retired and wondering where all my money went, I’ll just look at the car and say, ‘Wow, there it is!’” Chuck joked. “But in no way could we be any happier with the car and the result. It’s been great.”

1936 Auburn Speedster (Owners: Curt and Janine Schulze)

This green beauty wasn’t one of those “numbers-matching” cars that are so coveted among collectors, but you’d never know it at first glance. The car was incomplete when it was purchased by the Schultzes, who own and operate their own Auburn parts and restoration business. Curt then found out the car had been in “some kind of horrific accident, because the frame and cowl had been changed, but the rear parts of the front fenders and the doors were still there and the Speedster rear fenders and golf door were there,” Curt recalled. “When I took the cowl off, I found the car was originally red and there had been a fire. And then what I suspect is, because it had some sheet metal flooring in it — makeshift stuff — that it probably sat outside for some time and rotted. The wooden sills were rubbish and a guy put new wood in the back and put some metal floors in that were very unprofessional. Whoever built the car, and painted it what looked like yellow refrigerator paint, was trying to build something on the cheap. He was doing the best he could in the ’60s or ’70s, or whenever the car was rescued from whatever fate had befallen it.”

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as they say, and the couple managed to pick up all the pieces, and find a lot of new ones, to make the Speedster great again. Curt did most of the work himself, and as Angelo Van Bogart pointed out in the story, this car was lucky to land in the hands of a restorer who was willing to do whatever it took to make the car correct and concourse-quality again. This car deserved a great restoration, and the Schultzes deserve the great car they wound up with.

1942 Chrysler Town and Country sedan
(Owner: Jeff Larger)

Larger’s Town and Country woodie is truly a unique survivor — you won’t find anything else around quite like it.

“Everything was totally original on it when we got it in the ’60s,” says Larger. “That’s really been a key and crucial thing with this car. Other than my dad putting tires and a battery in it in the late 1960s, he hardly did a thing to it. He actually ran on the original tires — which were really very unsafe — for the first couple of years he had it.

“The wood on the car is just perfect everywhere. It’s aged and has a patina that can only exist through time … You can see the grain of the wood. It’s not pretty and show-class like stuff that’s re-done. The age is all there. The leather, the cracks, the smell of the car. It’s a richness that only time can deliver.”

A 1941-’50 Chrysler Town and Country woodie of any kind is a prize, but the Larger family’s car is truly unique on many levels. To begin with, it’s a stunningly original and low-mileage car. When our story on the car appeared a few years back, the odometer showed just 24,000-plus miles, and only about 2,000 of those have come since Jeff Larger’s father Richard bought it second-hand in Cleveland back in 1966. The interior and wood are all original to the car. The drivetrain is also authentic, although at one point, it did have its Fluid Drive transmission rebuilt.

It is one of only 999 Town and Countrys built for the 1942 model year, and one of only 150 six-passenger versions.

Simply an amazing car. For car lovers who covet originality, this is a dream machine.

1947 Studebaker M-5 pickup (Owner: Terry Frye)

When Frye bought his used-up pickup in 2003, he realized he had so many things to fix that he wound up buying a second Studebaker pickup as a donor truck. From that point, he combed the country tracking down parts and networking with Studebaker enthusiasts to figure out how to put an authentic M-5 back together.

Frye is only the third owner, and his Studebaker is truly spectacular — an almost perfectly restored truck, and a very rare one at that.

Studebaker dabbled in commercial cars and various express and delivery bodies during its early days, but didn’t officially launch a pickup truck until the car-based Coupe-Express arrived for the 1937 model year. The trucks sold in small numbers until 1941, when Studebaker took a big leap forward and launched the M-5 series of half-ton vehicles. They were not overly fancy — no truck on the market at the time was, but they were handsome by almost any measure, at least for a pickup. Their classy, vertical grilles were painted to match the body, the fenders were nicely integrated into the fenders, the windshields were raked and there was hardly a sharp edge on the truck — everything was rounded and seemed to flow together.

Frye figured he’d need to do some serious parts hunting to get his truck finished, and that proved to be the case. Fortunately, he was able to get assistance from fellow Studebaker buffs, who are generally a very accommodating bunch. “Through the network, through the Studebaker people, I found a few older gentlemen that had them, and I started talking to them and asking for advice,” he said. “I adhered to that and the project went real good, and once I got to know these older gentlemen, I could call them and they’d say, ‘I don’t have that part, but call so-and-so.’ So once I got in the network, parts came to me pretty readily.”

When it comes to pickups, this was definitely one of our favorites of the past 10 years.

1948 Buick Super (Owner: Tom Pfeiffer)

Pfeiffer passed away a few years ago, but we really enjoyed getting to know him and hearing about his love affair with his beautiful Buick. Pfeiffer was actually a retired Ford employee, but he always had an affinity for Buicks. He had pretty much given up on ever having one of his own, but then a friend put his ’48 up for sale and Pfeiffer jumped on it. He eventually gave the car a complete restoration, doing much of the work himself. He drove the heck out of the car after he got it back together, piling up 25,000 miles in more than a decade while sharing seat time with an Edsel.

Hopefully, whoever wound up with Tom’s Buick is giving it as much attention as he did.

1948 Chrysler Town and Country convertible
(Owner: Ken Buttolph)

We couldn’t do a “Best Of” list of any kind without somehow involving Kenny, the beloved late former Old Cars staffer who had a million friends, a million stories, a small stature, and a big personality. And Kenny went through cars faster than most people go through socks.

Buttolph actually owned this car twice, buying it for the first time in the early 1960s from a Wisconsin go-cart track owner. “We pulled a pop-up camp trailer with it,” Buttolph said. “We would take the Town and Country nameplate off the back bumper and put a hitch on there.”

He eventually sold the Chrysler and it sat mostly untouched in a nearby barn for almost 50 years. The car was so well hidden, a local woodie restorer internationally known for Town and Country restorations and reproduction parts did not know of its existence. It also hid underneath the nose of the nearby Old Cars staff, yet all the while, it was owned by the family of an employee working for a sister magazine to OC. Well, it eluded everyone but Buttolph, of course. In 2010, Buttolph had the chance to buy back the Town and Country he first purchased in the early 1960s, and he didn’t hesitate. “When the [owner] died, it was in the will for them to offer it to me first,” he said at the time.

Buttolph owned more than 1,000 cars in his lifetime, and this was one of our favorites. At one point, he actually owned two original, unrestored Town and Countrys. This one he owned twice!

1949 Ford Deluxe two-door sedan (Owner: Bob Brown)

Bob’s wife, Judy, became a first-ballot Wife Hall of Famer back in 1994 when she snuck off to the bank, borrowed some money and bought Bob a 1949 Ford two-door sedan for Christmas. That loan, and a meticulous, 10-year restoration, resulted in one of the nicest 1949 Ford Deluxes you’ll find — a squeaky clean black beauty that has become a bit of a show piece in a Lewistown, Mont., car/truck/plane collection at a gathering place known as Jack’s Hangar

Brown had the car in the shop for a full decade before it was done, along the way changing the paint from its original rust color to black, like Brown’s earlier ’49 Ford.“My original car was black and I wanted this one to be black, too,” he said. “We actually changed the color number on the firewall so it would match the color of the car.”

“It was fun to put it all together. Probably my biggest joy was just working on the car and working on the restoration. You realize when you do one of these projects … you think about the guys that were putting these things together originally in a few hours in the assembly plant. For them to get it all to fit together as good as they did is amazing.”

Another wonderful guy with a wonderful car.

1951 Buick XP-300 concept (Owner: Sloan Museum)

GM bigshots Charles A. Chayne, Harley J. Earl and Ned F. Nickles all had a passion for beautiful cars, and that led to the creation of the Buick XP-300 (originally labeled XP-9), a true dream machine.

In 1951, it was hard to imagine a 16-ft.-long convertible that glided only 6-1/2 inches above the ground. Part sports car and part space ship, the car had an “electric shaver” grille, a wraparound windshield, a tri-finned tail with the electric radio antenna protruding from the center fin and flashy side trim that would have looked right at home on Buck Rogers’ interplanetary cruiser. It even had push-button power seats and windows!

The XP-300’s beauty and innovation went beneath its aluminum skin. Four hydraulic jacks were hidden under the body work and elevated either the driver or passenger side of the car. Upon shutting the doors, steel bars hydraulically slid out so that the car was more rigid, as these bars completed the rollcage-like framework within the body.

Chayne reported that he attained a top speed of 110 mph in the car, which bears his initials on the trim panels at each front fender. It was also reported that Chayne and GM president Charles Wilson drove the car 110 mph, and he also wrote that Buick general manager Ivan Wiles then took it up to 140 mph.

1951 Dodge mail truck (Owner: John Butner))

Butner is a big ol’ bear of a guy with a soft spot for basket cases and projects that nobody else would want to tackle. He almost met his match trying to resurrect this lumbering 1-ton beast. “I really didn’t want to see it go to the crusher, and that’s where it was going,” Butner noted at the time. “I worked on it about a year and a half. I had times when I put it in a corner and walked away; I had to go think about it. I’d leave it sit for a week and then say, ‘Well, I gotta do something with it’ and I’d get back to it. I couldn’t just let it sit there.”

Even some of his best car buddies told him he had bitten off more than he could chew when he rescued the old Dodge, which was half buried and had to be excavated out of the dirt. There wasn’t much left to save, they told him, and what was left was not worth the time and effort.

“Guys laughed at me. They really did. They laughed. They said, ‘What are you going to do with that thing?’” Butner recalled. “I like it because every show you go to you see a lot of Tri-Five Chevys, and you see a lot of Camaros and Mustangs and all that stuff. And I appreciate that stuff, I really do, because I know what these guys have went through to put this stuff together. Still, I like to look at something different.”

Not long after he got the truck finished, Butner received a special request to be part of a funeral procession for a former postal worker who had just died. Butner didn’t know the man, but he happily obliged. “I told them as long as we weren’t trying to go anywhere fast,” he says. “This thing only goes about 45 mph.”

1953 Chevrolet resto-mod pickup (Owner: Don Boxx)

Boxx says he got totally carried away hot-rodding his ’53 Chevy hauler, which was actually pretty nice before he started monsterizing it. Once Fred Kappus and the boys at Fast Freddie’s Rod Shop in Eau Claire, Wis., got ahold of it, all bets were off. Soon, the 383 stroker was gone in place of a modern Chevy crate motor. That was quickly followed by all-new modern suspension and brakes … and, well, the genie was out of the proverbial bottle. Kappus has always envisioned building a uber-modern hauler with a steely gray paint scheme. This custom pickup was meant to look cool, but mostly it was designed for driving fun and exhilarating weekend runs on open roads. In that regard it seems to be living up to the hopes of both builder and owner.

“I like everything, but I guess the thing I like best about it honestly is just the speed,” Boxx says. “It’s just so quick, so fast. There is just nothing on the truck that is less than 110 percent. Inside and out, it’s flawless.”

1954 Lincoln Capri (Owner: Dan Staehle)

Staehle says he didn’t even know what a Capri was when he first heard about the beautiful, black 1954 coupe that he wound up buying. “A woman I used to work with inherited it,” he recalled. “When she first told me in ’88 that she had gotten this big Lincoln, I asked what kind of Lincoln is it and she said it was a Capri. I thought she’d say something like a Continental or something like that, because that’s what we associate with Lincoln. I thought, ‘Capri?’ So I went to the library, and I did some research from these cars.”

It didn’t take long for Staehle to dig into the Capri’s performance history, and read up on how the Lincolns cleaned up in the Panamerica race from 1952-’54. The races lasted five days and covered 1,908 miles, and established the Lincolns as some of the hottest street cars of their time.

This Capri had been rarely driven in the previous decade and remained in remarkably good shape. It needed a little bit of body and paint work, new wiring and some beautifying in the interior, but its overall condition reflected the low mileage on the odometer.

Staehle isn’t kidding when he says you can barely hear the Capri run. You need to stick your head under the hood to hear anything at all. “I did all the work on it … and when you do all the work yourself, it grows on you,” says. “It’s something I did, I really like the car, and I want to keep it.”

1955 Chevrolet Cameo pickup (Owner: Jeff Ralph)

Ralph had no real experience restoring an old car or truck, had never owned one and had no clue how rare a Chevrolet Cameo Carrier pickup was. All things considered, he’s kind of glad he didn’t know what he was working on when the whole saga first began. “When I first bought it, nope, I was totally clueless,” Ralph chuckles. “Now it’s a big deal!

“I had never restored a car before, and I said, ‘Well, it’s too late now, it’s gotta start going back together,’ so I’d take a piece, sandblast it, prime, pack it away, and I just kept doing that piece by piece. Pretty soon I got to the frame, and then it was just like a big Lego set — just start putting everything back together one piece at a time…I guess when it was done I still really didn’t understand how important it was or how rare they were, but as I started getting into it more and more, I kind of found out.”

Before he bought the truck from his boss, Ralph had been the one tasked with pulling the Cameo out of the shed where it had been sleeping for years. He’s not sure how long it had been since the pickup had moved, but it had clearly been in hibernation for an extended stretch.

The truck was a very low-option example. It was ordered with radio delete and has basically no factory options. “It’s got no power steering, no power brakes and bias-ply tires,” Ralph says. “It’s kind of a handful.”

1957 Chevrolet custom (Owner: Ray Hott)

Hott at one time had a collection that numbered nearly 100 cars. There were a bunch of show-stoppers in the fleet, but none of them sucked your eyeballs in more than this spectacular ’57 Chevy sedan. There isn’t much left on this car that was original, but we’ll forgive him for that. Hott and the crew at RPM Customs in DeKalb succeeded in putting together one of the most awesome customs we’ve featured in Old Cars in a long time. “We looked at the car — and it’s a post car,” Hott said, “which isn’t the most desirable of the ’57s,I just thought,‘What can we do to make this car really special? And this is what we came up with [laughs].”

Under the hood, the fancy Chevrolet has plenty of extra fabrication and custom shrouds to hide some of the mechanicals, and the 396 V-8 is sourced from a 1970 Chevelle. Inside is a custom, plush, ultra-clean tan leather interior that’s classy and cool. “It kind of kept evolving and we did a lot of things not really necessary, like we boxed the frame,”Hott added. “And the underside of the car is as perfect as the top side. It’s hard to find a flaw in it.”

1958 Dodge Lancer (Owner: Chris Cutts)

We’ve spotlighted a lot of big-finned MoPars over the years, so it was tough to narrow it down. We picked Chris Cutts’ car for this list because it was an old-school backyard restoration that he did himself the hard way. He had help from a local shop with the final bodywork and paint, but Chris put a lot elbow grease into his project, and the end result is a gorgeous Desert Rose and Gun Metal Gray cream puff.

“You see so many advertisements or old pictures of demolition derbys and you’ll see all these Dodges upside-down,”Cutts noted. “That’s what everybody was doing – ‘just get rid of ’em.’ They weren’t on the road for very long, which doesn’t help with availability of parts… It’s very hard to find stuff, which is why I have a few parts cars tucked away in the woods. With a restoration these days, you need two or three cars just to make sure you can finish one up.

“This is a 3,800-lb. car, and it floats down the road. It’s a little more nimble than a Chrysler would be. For an old car, they are a floating magic carpet ride.”

1958 Jaguar Mark VIII (Owner: Mike Kurtzweil)

We had to get at least one European car on the list, so we’ll go with one restored not far from Old Cars HQ in Central Wisconsin. Kurtzweil spent four long years doing a complete makeover of his stately Jag, and its truly one of the most beautiful cars of its kind you will see anywhere. The end product would make any high-end restoration shop envious.

“It came off the truck with no brakes on it, looked at the interior and thought, ‘Oh my God,’” he chuckles. “It had mice in it and everything else. You couldn’t hardly stand next to it because it smelled so bad from the mouse excrement. I knew it was a project. All the rust spots and everything had been puttied up so it looked halfway decent, but there was putty in the front and damage in the front of the car,” he recalled. “They had packed so much putty into the holes there was just clumps of Bond-O in the rocker panels and everywhere else. It had had a hard life.”

Queen Elizabeth was said to have one of these Jaguars in her garage. She would probably have no qualms riding in this one — it’s nice enough for royalty.

1958 Studebaker Golden Hawk (Owner: Joe Parsons)

This Studebaker was in Parsons’ family right from the beginning, first at his dad’s Studebaker dealership, and then with his uncle, who bought it back as a used car. A few years later, Parsons’ uncle won a new 1961 Plymouth Valiant in a raffle, and he didn’t have much use for the Golden Hawk. Eventually, the car was parked and left to sit at Parsons’ grandparents’ house.

In 1966, Joe was drafted into the U.S. Army and a year later his uncle died. “My grandmother was executrix of the estate, and she asked, ‘What do you want to do with your uncle’s car?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘I want it! I want the Hawk. I’m going to restore it!’”

“My goal was always to restore the Golden Hawk, and I had the foresight to go to South Bend in 1966 when Studebaker went out of business, and with all the parts books and stuff, I had written down all the pieces I needed for the car, from bumper to bumper. So I bought all that, put everything in boxes, sprayed all the fenders in oil and all that and hung them. I just rounded up everything I needed and kind of stored it all away.”

His Hawk was originally gold with white fins. It was repainted Red and Jewel Beige, a much rarer factory choice for the cars — only five were painted that way in 1958, according to Parsons.

The car has been a frequent guest at concours events and is an AACA Grand National winner with many best of class awards to its credit. “The Hawk will stay with me as long as I’m alive,” he says. “We have a couple people that want the car badly. One guy keeps saying, ‘Sooner or later I will own that car!’ but I’m not ready to let it go.”

1959 Ford Galaxie 500 (Owner: Tim Benson)

It seems only fitting that Benson is the stunning car’s proud owner, although it has been anything but a quick and easy journey. The car first belonged to a family friend, then went to Tim’s dad, Jim, and eventually to Tim. Then it endured a rather lengthy — and expensive! — stint off the road being restored. In the end, though, Benson achieved his goal: preserving the venerable Galaxie and getting to add to all the great memories he has of the car.

Benson found out just how challenging it can be to restore a 50-plus-year-old, full-size, chrome-laden 1950s cruiser. Even though the Ford was complete and in good shape for its age, there was nothing easy about bringing it back to like-new condition.

“Once you start a project like this, you don’t know where to stop. Basically, four years later, we redid the whole car. I’ve got about $60,000 or $70,000 into it. I probably spent way too much. There were times, I’m telling you, about halfway through it, where I wanted to call it quits because, ‘I’m getting buried here.’”

We really enjoyed learning about all Tim’s memories of the car from when he was a kid, and the deep attachment he has to the big Ford. It’s a great car that is in very good hands.

1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible “fuelie”
(Owner: Tom Dietz)

The red top-of-the-line Chevy is equipped with power windows and power seat and a 3.55 Positraction rear, as well as its two hottest options: thefour-speed manual transmission and, of course, that ultra-rare passenger car Rochester fuel injection unit on its 283-cid V-8.

“It is one of 26 made,” Dietz said of the fuel-injected full-size Chevy, “And from the last year for the fuel injection(regular production option 578) and the first year you could get a ‘four on the floor’ for a passenger car.”

Although the 1959 Impala has been perfectly restored, Dietz hasn’t let its primo condition stop him from enjoying the 283 engine’s 290 horses from time to time, or the car’s top-down pleasures.

“It’s like driving on your sofa, but once you put the top down and the boot on, there is nothing like it.”

1963 Chevrolet Corvette roadster (Owner: Steve Stone)

This is probably the highest-mileage Corvette that ever lived. In the fall of 2018, Stone was closing in on 600,000 miles!

The car has been driven almost daily for nearly all its life — most of which was spent in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The car has ventured to all 48 lower states — including 46 in the past eight years — and nine Canadian Provinces. It has survived trips of 7,100 miles in 2008 and 6,000 miles in 2007. And many of its miles in recent years have come with a trailer rolling behind it. The car is now on its fourth engine, it’s had the front clip wrecked and replaced four times, it’s been repainted four times and had the interior upholstery replaced twice. Even the frame hasn’t been spared; it rusted through and broke back in the 1980s.

If Stone has his way, his tireless ’63 will be still be criss-crossing North America years from now, long after he’s gone. And it’s certainly not going anywhere while he’s still around. It’s the only car he ever really wanted, and Stone doesn’t see that changing.

“I’ve had it this long and there’s no reason to change it,” he said. “It’s got what I want. It’s got power, it’s got simplicity, it’s got history. My kids were raised in it. They drive it. My grandson’s driving it now. It’s a family heirloom now. “

1965 Dodge Town Wagon (Owner: Bernie Pranica)

When Pranica needed something vintage to pull his 1964 Airstream, he found an ideal choice in his rugged and ageless Town Wagon.

“I found this in New Mexico. Apparently the truck originally came from SanDiego and spent its life on a Navy base …I think what it was used for was to go out on the flight line and take the pilots to and from the hangar … Consequently, there were only 34,000 miles on it in 2012 when I bought it.”

It wasn’t long after he got it off the transport that Pranica started remaking the big green Town Wagon. The Dodge needed plenty of work, but had no major issues and was exactly the kind of solid, rust-free, strong-running machine that Pranica had been hoping for.

The color of choice was the truck’s factory original Turf Green with white trim.Some new stainless bits and some nice-looking whitewall tires helped finish things off. If Shrek could have an SUV, this is the one he’d want.

1965 Ford Galaxie 500 (Owner: Ken Anderson)

Anderson has long been a devoted fan of the “The Andy Griffith Show” and all it stood for, but that connection reached a whole new level in 2010 when he added to his Mayberry memorabilia collection with the ultimate prize — a replica sheriff’s car. The ’65 Ford isn’t quite an exact match for the cars used in the show’s sixth season — when the series finally went color, but it’s close. Anderson’s car is a Galaxie 500, while the car used on the show was a base-level Custom sedan. But the car looks great, is wonderfully authentic, and more than fills the bill at the many appearances Anderson makes each in year, in full police uniform, spreading the Mayberry gospel.

According to Anderson, the Galaxie 500 had originally been all white and was converted to a Mayberry TV car clone by a man in Tennessee. The Ford has the proper black-and-white paint job, police decals, siren, vintage Motorola police radio, and single flashing red light on the roof. “Mt. Pilot Ford, Mt. Pilot, N.C.” is stenciled on the edge of the trunk lid for some added authenticity. He even has an authentic“JL 327” North Carolina license plates.

Many of Anderson’s appearances involve taking kids for rides and letting them crawl around in the car and test of the siren and light. “I guess I’m not as careful as I would be if it was totally restored,” he admits. “I want it to look like a police car. It’s my fun thing and I want to be able to use it.”

1970 Pontiac GTO Judge convertible
(Owner: Steve Demars)

We were smitten with this the immaculate “triple-black” ragtop and its perfect paint, perfect interior and that ominous 366-horse, 400-cube Ram Air III engine living under the hood. The fact that the car is nationally known and decorated and one the few ’70 GTO convertibles you’ll ever find with factory air-conditioning was pretty cool, too.

The Starlight Black GTO has traveled full circle in its four-plus decades of life. It began as a bit of a show piece for a Tennessee car dealership, became transportation for many years for its first owner — a woman — and was eventually taken apart and put back together again as a near-perfect specimen.The car was originally delivered to Benton Pontiac-Buick in Cleveland, Tenn., with a fully loaded window sticker and an asking price of 4,955.98. The woman who bought it probably had no idea that she was buying an unusual muscle car when she signed her name on the title, but she apparently liked the car, because she kept it until 1990. Demars kept track of it through the GTO Association of America and eventually got his hands on it.

“Five of them were triple-black with air conditioning, but we haven’t found another one yet,” he says. “People will say they know where one is, but we’ve never seen one. It’s got a little history behind it…. It’s not a car that people don’t know about.”

1972 Ford Pinto (Owner: Mike Christenen)

Ford cranked out more than 3 million of the economy boxes in the 1970s, but attrition has taken a heavy toll and nice specimens are fairly scarce these days, particularly in winter climates like Wisconsin. A Pinto wasn’t even on the Christensens’ radar — even though they are a die-hard Ford couple. That is, until they spotted one a few years back not far from their home.

“We had the ’66 Mustang and we were showing that, and I thought, ‘ I’d like to have my own classic car.’ I didn’t know what I wanted, but I knew it had to be a Ford, of course,” Jude laughs. “I’m not a fancy person so I just wanted a nice little car and we happened to notice there was a Pinto for sale. I didn’t remember them at all. I just saw that Pinto sitting over there on the street and just thought, ‘This is the cutest little car I’ve ever seen,’ so right then it was like, “ I want a Pinto.’”

The little Ford has certainly filled the bill as a fun, bargain hobby car for the Christensens, who happily drive their shiny little Ford to weekend car shows around Wisconsin. The couple often caravans with the Pinto and one of their three other hobby cars — the ’66 Mustang, a 1973 Mustang Mach 1 and a 1974 Mustang II.

“It’s like being back in the ’70s,” Jude says. “No power steering, no power brakes … But I love driving it.”

1974 Chevrolet “Emerald Express” Van
(Owner: Scott Kauffman)

Kauffman was a child of the ’70s, so he grew up with his share of customized vans, most of them serving as daily transportation and weekend vacation machines long before minivans and SUVs took over. He dabbled with a variety of collector vehicles over the years and had some fun with a 1977 Chevrolet “shorty” custom van for a while, but nothing like the dazzling “Emerald Express” 1974 Chevrolet custom.

“The van was just so original! The tires were 20-plus years old. The [wheel] flairs had a few small chips and cracks. There were things that needed to be done. Nothing had been done to it in 20-plus years, but it was perfect because everything was there. It didn’t need anything. It had all been painted green up underneath and in the suspension. You could loosen every bolt on it … It was just an amazing example, especially for the Northeast.”

It took a little convincing and some negotiating, but Kauffman was finally able to pry loose the van and bring it home. “I said that if I can’t have it, that’s OK, but you need to do something with in it or you’re gonna destroy it,” he said. “If you just let it keep sitting outside like that, you are just going to ruin it. That paint and the lacing and everything, you can’t re-do that. If it all starts cracking and deteriorating, it would just be destroyed.”

The van was apparently a big hit on the show circuit in the mid-to-late ’70s, and Kauffman inherited plenty of plaques and hardware to prove it. The plaques show the van appeared at places such as the Susquehanna Valley Van Show, Baltimore World of Wheels, Hershey World of Wheels and others. “He only showed it in East Coast stuff, but back then there were van shows every weekend somewhere,” Kauffman said. “I’ve literally got a van full of trophies for it back in the day.”

1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS (Owner: Verlyn Rasmussen)

Rasmussen’s 1986 Chevrolet is his pride and joy and has always been coddled and babied. There are plenty of fourth-gen Monte Carlo SS’s around, but few can approach the showroom condition of Rasmussen’s car or the paltry 5,200+ miles on the odometer.

“I don’t want a restored car, I want an original car. Maybe that’s part of why it doesn’t have a lot of miles on it,” jokes Rasmussen. “I know what guys who restore cars go through. It’s not appealing to me with the waiting process. I’m not a patient person that way.”

Aside from a few oil changes, the condition of Rasmussen’s car is almost identical to the day it left the local dealership for the first time. He recalls rotating the tires once, and he sprayed the inside of the wheel wells a while back to make absolutely sure he’d have no rust problems — not that the Monte Carlo SS will ever see snow.

“I actually never did say, ‘I’ve got to keep the miles off,’ I just want to keep it as nice as possible, condition-wise,” he says. “When people see it, it’s a positive reaction to the car because it’s like looking at a brand new 1986 Monte Carlo SS, and not many people can do that anymore.”

The post 10 years of machines we have loved appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Robert Cather, of Lincoln, Neb., has had some cool cars in his 95 years on the planet, and here’s one of them: a 1962 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible in Black Cherry. The ‘62 Continental was also available as a fix-roof sedan. Both models were propelled by the 430-cid V-8, which used all of its 300 horses to move the nearly 5,000-lb. droptop. The push-button automatic and suicide doors were among the many memorable features of these road kings.

If you have a cool old car that you love, we want to see it! Email us a photo at oldcars@aimmedia.com.

Reader Wheels: 1947 Dodge station wagon

Reader Wheels: 1928 Chevrolet express pickup

Reader Wheels: 1961 Rambler American

The post Reader Wheels: 1962 Lincoln Continental appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

A tattered mid-1960s Checker taxicab didn’t reach its destination on this day. Checkers changed very little from year to year during this era, keeping the same utilitarian shape and styling for more than 20 years. Checker stuck to the taxi business between 1923 and 1959, then offered passenger cars from 1960 until 1982. It’s doubtful the cabbie collected a tip after this incident.

Wreck of the Week: 1966 REO semi truck

Wreck of the Week: 1961 Pontiac Bonneville convertible

Wreck of the Week: 1977 Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup

The post Wreck of the Week: 1960s Checker taxi appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Arnold Berns shares this photo of a 1909 Winton that had the distinction of being “the very first car in Sarasota, Fla.,” according to Berns. “In 1909, Dr. Wilson brought the very first car, which he drove from Tampa to Sarasota.

This was done in the remarkable time of nine hours, when there were practically no roads between the two cities. Sarasota was more of a settlement than a true city.”

If you have a cool old photo to share, email oldcars@aimmedia.com or mail it or a high-quality reproduction to Old Cars at 5225 Joerns Dr. Suite 2, Stevens Point, WI 54481.

The post Reader Photo: 1913 Winton appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and photos by Angelo Van Bogart

Then and now, a 1957 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz and a fuel-injected 1959 Chevrolet Impala convertible are incredibly rare sights, but in northern California, two such scarce machines once shared a garage.

“The people were up north in the wine country and supposedly had something to do with the film business,” said Tom Dietz, who now owns the fuel-injected 1959 Impala convertible. “The husband had the Biarritz and his wife had this car. She supposedly wanted a stick shift, believe it or not.”

Dietz isn’t exactly sure if the previous owner’s background story is accurate — he admits that when he bought the Impala in the late 1990s, he cared more about the car than the story. He does know that when the cars became available from the estate, the buyer had to buy both wildly finned converts to get the black Biarritz. Upon securing both rare General Motors drop tops, he immediately sold the red Impala to Dietz’s friend. That friend spent at least two years acquiring new-old-stock parts and had the Impala painted with 18 coats of hand-rubbed Roman Red lacquer before he realized it wasn’t the car for him.

“He partially restored it and said, ‘This is going to be too good for me,’” Dietz said. The 1959 wasn’t the National Impala Club member’s normal cup of tea, but he jumped on it.

“I am a big ’62 [Chevy] guy, especially the 409s, and he said, ‘You are going to love this one,’ and I said, ‘I need something different.’ I wasn’t a convertible guy until I saw this one.”

With the 1959 Impala Dietz received the small mountain of NOS parts, some of which probably weren’t necessary since the Impala had never deteriorated. “The stuff that came on the car was fine, but he wanted perfect, which is a tough way to go.” Dietz said there were many duplicate NOS parts as the owner wanted to pick from the best parts to put on the car. He even went so far as to polish the NOS trim before installing it.

“All of the front end trim is NOS, the tail lights, it even has NOS resonators — on the high-performance cars, you had resonators on the tail pipes so it has the resonators on the back with the part numbers stamped on it.” Even the continental kit and super rare triangular fuel injection badges are NOS, along with a few of its other options.

“It has the last bunch of NOS seat material,” Dietz said. “On the convertibles, that was a vinyl but on the [closed] passenger cars, that was a cloth material. It has the vinyl and it’s still soft.

“Another cool option is the speed minder where you set the dial in the dash and set it to a certain number and a light flashes and it buzzes if you hit that speed. Also a vacuum ash tray where the vacuum of the engine sucks the ash off.”

The red top-of-the-line Chevy is also equipped with power windows and power seat and a 3.55 Positraction rear, as well as its two hottest options: the four-speed manual transmission and, of course, that ultra-rare passenger car Rochester fuel injection unit on its 283-cid V-8. “It is one of 26 made,” Dietz said of the fuel-injected full-size Chevy, “And from the last year for the fuel injection (regular production option 578) and the first year you could get a ‘four on the floor’ for a passenger car.”

Both options are rare in their own right, but for different reasons. A handful of high-performance 1958 Chevys destined for racing applications are believed to have been fitted with four-speeds, but for 1959, Chevrolet formally made the Corvette-based gearbox an option on the big cars, and many buyers tried to get the Borg-Warner four-speed in their high-performance Biscaynes, Bel Airs and Impalas. However, demand was greater than expected and supply was hindered by a fire at Borg-Warner that year. Because Corvettes were given priority for the few available four-speed transmissions, very few full-size 1959 Chevrolets actually received them.

Conversely, very few full-size Chevy buyers wanted to mess with the optional mechanical fuel injection setup by 1959; it had developed a troubling reputation as being fussy. The exotic fuel delivery system had been available beginning in 1957 on Corvettes, Bel Airs, Two-Tens and One-Fiftys as an option costing a pretty penny, and only 1530 were installed on full-size Chevys that year. Very few people saw a factory fuel-injected full-size 1957 Chevy, and if they did, it was probably on a race track. For 1958, even fewer full-size Chevys appeared with the little-publicized option. Chevrolet gave it one more try and published an ad featuring a fuel-injected Impala in the March 1959 issue of Motor Trend that touted the benefits of fuel injection: “Take a young architect (that’s me) with a Corvette appetite, a one-car budget and a family of wife, three kids and a puppy, and you’ve got frustration.

“That is, you did — until Chevy came out with that terrific four-speed floor-shift gearbox. The minute I heard that, I knew Chevy had given me the makings of a family sports car that would be the greatest!
“Here’s how I ‘designed’ the sweetest handling five-seater that ever came down the pike: First, an Impala two-door sport coupe. Then the 290-h.p. Fuel Injection V8 and, buttoned on right behind it, that great four-speed box. (That’s the Corvette transmission, you know, with synchro on all four gears and that solid, direct floor shift.) The driveline ends up with Chevy’s limited-slip Positraction rear axle to give me real glued-to-the-road traction on gravel, mud or whatever.”

That “whatever” was probably traction on the drag strip where most of the full-size 290-hp fuelies were likely destined.

With just 26 cars believed to have been built — of which Dietz believes about 12 still exist — the ad clearly wasn’t effective. In addition to the fuel-injected 1959 Impala, Dietz has a 1960 Impala with the tri-power 348 that was also available in 1959 and he said the ’59 fuelie is king.

“The fuelie is superior without a doubt. To be honest, it’s not even close… I had four people in there and took it up to 5500-6000 rpm in first and ‘Bang!’ It barked the tires in second gear. With the fuelie, you got the spider valve right there and it’s spitting fuel right there, and going around the corners, the fuel doesn’t slosh around [like in a carburetor]. That’s why Zora Arkus-Duntov pushed for it. In racing, the European cars [with fuel injection] would pull away from them on the corners. But also the fuel economy — that is why Chevrolet offered a fuel injection unit, believe it or not.”

Chevrolet called the unit Ramjet fuel injection and offered two versions on the 283 after prodding by Corvette engineer Arkus-Duntov. The 250-hp Ramjet version is largely differentiated by its hydraulic lifters and different camshaft when compared to the solid-lifter 290-hp Ramjet Special version. The 290-hp unit had unique domed pistons with slipper skirts and a 10.5:1 compression ratio versus the 250-hp unit’s 9.5:1 compression ratio. Fuel injection units were unique to each engine with the 250-hp Ramjet unit carrying model number 7014800, 7017200 or 7017300-R and the 290-hp Ramjet Special carrying Model number 7017250. Fuel-injected 283s were also available on the Corvette, and the different bodies of the ’Vette and the full-size Chevy necessitated some differences in the fuel injection units between the Chevys, most notably in the air cleaner. Dietz said the fuel-injected full-size 1959 Chevy air cleaner is mounted to the radiator core support and has a long flexible hose that connects it to the fuel injection unit atop the engine. Also, full-size fuelie ’59 Chevys have painted steel valve covers while fuelie Corvettes have finned aluminum valve covers with “Corvette” cast into the tops. Dietz added that the air cleaner is different each year between the full-size 1957 to 1959 Chevys because of the difference in the car bodies from one year to the next, and 1959 is the only year the air cleaner was mounted on the radiator support.

Performance and fuel economy were just two of the fuel injection unit’s sales points. In its brochure, Chevrolet said the 250-hp unit provided “Instant throttle response from idle to cruising speed, with ordinary carburetors eliminated. Fast cold weather starts, high over-all-fuel economy: all features of Ramjet Fuel Injection — greatest engine advance since overhead valves.”

The pitch wasn’t enough and fuelie sightings have always been few and far between. It wasn’t just an issue at Chevrolet; Pontiac had offered it in 1957 and ’58 and even De Soto mounted a dozen or so units on its 1958 Adventurer models with little public interest due to big reliability issues. With so few fuel-injected full-size 1959 Chevys having been built, current and previous owners tend to network among one other. He said it appears most fuel injection units that went into full-size 1959 Chevys were the 250-hp Ramjet version.

“Chevy promoted it for its fuel economy, and I have talked to some people that had a (1959) four-door and a station wagon and they were both the 250 horse [cars]. Back then, nobody wanted the solid lifters except the Corvette people.”

Although the 1959 Impala has been perfectly restored by Ed Pogue from Enid, OK, Dietz hasn’t let its primo condition stop him from enjoying the 283 engine’s 290 horses from time to time, or the car’s top-down pleasures.

“It’s like driving on your sofa but once you put the top down and the boot on, there is nothing like it.”

*Editor’s update 10/29/2020 – This car has changed hands and is in a private collection. For more information on this Impala visit https://kennagelclassiccars.com/1959-chevy-impala-convertible/

_____________________________

Show us your wheels!

If you’ve got an old car you love, we want to hear about it. Email us at oldcars@aimmedia.com

The post Car of the Week: 1959 Chevrolet Impala ‘fuelie’ appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Talk about a bounty of choice! During 1958, Americans could choose from a range of different Hawk-named automobiles available for purchase. They could stroll over to their local Studebaker/Packard dealer and put their money down on a new Studebaker Silver Hawk or the even more awesome Golden Hawk. And, if they wanted something a little out of the ordinary, they could opt for the new supercharged Packard Hawk. Anyone looking for something even more risqué or off the beaten path could put their dollars down on a shiny new Humber Hawk.

What’s that, you ask? Never heard of a Humber Hawk? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most Americans have never heard of it either, even though Humber is an old brand that was around for a great many years.

The founder of the company that produced Humber cars, Thomas Humber, began building bicycles in Great Britain in 1868. Although his company concentrated mainly on the bicycle business, including the new low-wheel “safety” bikes that became popular in the late 1880s, the company also experimented with tricycles and was interested in expanding into other vehicle types. By 1897, many loyal customers began asking the firm to produce a motorized vehicle. The firm had built an electric automobile in 1895 as an experiment, but decided at that time to not get into automobiles, instead producing motorcycles. However, in response to the urging of its customers, Humber began building small numbers of automobiles by the end of the century with one-, two- and four-cylinder engines.

From there, the little company grew and in 1930, it built more than 6,000 cars.

From its modest beginnings, Humber went on to produce cars for England’s upper middle class. Humbers were viewed as large, quietly elegant and solidly built vehicles, and a good value.

The company went into commercial vehicles with the purchase of British truck builder Commer in 1925. Humber also bought the Hillman car company around 1928 and was then itself taken over by the Rootes Motor Co. Ltd. in 1932, becoming part of the famed Rootes Group.

Naturally, World War II radically changed Humber’s business. Although its cars were popular as military staff vehicles — General Bernard Law Montgomery had two Humber Super Snipes built for his use — the company’s most important products during this period were the Humber Light Reconnaissance Car, a four-wheel-drive vehicle actually based on the Humber passenger car, and the Humber MK IV, an incredibly rugged light armored car.

After the war, the company produced three lines of cars: the four-cylinder Humber Hawk, the six-cylinder Humber Snipe and the big Humber Pullman limousine, which rode an elegant 127.5-inch wheelbase.

By the early 1950s, Humber cars were imported to the United States by Rootes Motors Inc. of Long Island City, New York, the local agent. Sales were never very large, but especially during the 1950s, buyers seemed to like Humber’s well-appointed interiors and feeling of “old world” luxury. They really were quite posh.

The mainstay Hawk line was redesigned for 1958, losing some of its elegant look in favor of a more modern appearance that seems to have blended British and American tastes. The two-tone Series I Hawk seen here is a good example of what the company was offering in the United States in 1958, as the only models offered that year were the four-door sedan, station wagon and the Touring Limousine. All were powered by a 2267cc (138-cubic-inch) inline four-cylinder engine that produced 78 hp at 4,400 rpm. A four-speed transmission with column shifter was standard equipment on the Hawk; Laycock de Normanville overdrive or Borg-Warner automatic transmission were available at extra cost.

The front-engine, rear-drive layout was entirely conventional, and a generous 110-inch wheelbase was featured. Steering was by worm and nut, and suspension was independent coil springs up front with a rigid rear axle, semi-elliptic leaf springs and a sway bar out back. Brakes were hydraulic drums all around. Humbers could reach a top speed of 90 mph, quite good for a foreign car of that day, and could return up to 25 mpg.

Like many British cars, the Humber boasted a unitized body and chassis for strength with minimal weight. The new 1958 body lines were modern and attractive, with rounded front fenders, a low hood, semi-wraparound windshield and tall, squarish rear fenders. The beltline was low, providing a bright and airy greenhouse. Two-tone paint, with the roof and lower body offset by a contrasting idle color, was a nice addition, giving the Hawk almost the appearance of an American product. Whitewall tires were a popular option.

All four doors featured vent panes for outstanding ventilation, and on the inside were double-wide arm rests. The front seat had an adjustable back. Upholstery and trim were all of first-class materials.
Humber Hawks were produced up to 1967. Chrysler Corp. bought the Rootes group and discontinued the traditional Humbers, though a Humber Sceptre (basically a badge-engineered version of Roote’s Arrow) was offered up to 1976. After that, all the Rootes/Hillman cars were badged as Chryslers. But Chrysler got itself into financial trouble not long afterward and had to sell its European operations to Peugeot, which renamed the cars Talbots. All that renaming only confused the public and eventually, even the Talbot name had to be retired.

We couldn’t find any sales figures for Humber, but we can assure you they were never very high; Humber never really established its brand here in the United States the way Mercedes-Benz did during the same period. So you won’t find it easy to acquire a good used Humber. My suggestion for Humber hunters is to look in dry, warm climates for examples. British cars of this era were highly prone to rusting out and most of the Humbers that used to travel about the East Coast have since returned to the land, so to speak. But if you are lucky enough to find a nice Humber for sale, be sure to check it out — it’s really a very neat car and quite unique.

The post Foreign Flashback: 1958 Humber Hawk appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

This file has become rather large, so we offer several of the more unique images on this page to see if some of the remaining mystery can be resolved by our savvy readers. Do you know if there is more to the story? If not, just enjoy these automotive-related oddities that showcase the ingenuity and innovation of days gone by.

Philadelphia’s Department of Public Safety Medical Division employed this expensive 1930-’31 Cadillac V-16-based funeral car with Fleetwood front styling and coachwork by an unknown firm aft the cowl. The Public Safety Officer (second from left) is joined by three adult leaders at a Boy Scout outing.

What at first glance appears to be a home-built world land speed record car at the Bonneville Salt Flats prepping for a run in the Family On Board category is deceiving. It’s actually, according to writing on the back of the photo, a four-person pedal car in Heyel, Belgium. There is a railing and post behind the pedal car.

Arnold W. Jennings and Frank L. Munn used the first letter from each of their
first names to create their business, A-F (Always Fair) Used Cars, in Nebraska.
The 1939 Ford Standard five-window coupe sports a rare sunvisor “awning”
over its passenger-side window. The Ford’s uprights on the rear bumper and some
rope also work well to support a shovel and ladder.

Despite the darkened nature of this vintage photograph, the Bevo Boat parked
curbside in front of the Fischer & Palace Theaters stands out. One of eight
promotional vehicles created by Anheuser-Busch to promote its adult beverages
(including its non-alcoholic beer “Bevo”), the faux boat on wheels roamed the
country from the 1920s through early ’40s.

A couple pose with their 1937 Hudson five-window coupe parked next to an
unidentified structure shaped like a distillery barrel. The gravel drive surrounding
the barrel appears to be a parking area for photo opportunities. Not sure if there
were free samples involved.

It’s difficult to see the car with the veterans parading in front of it, but the 1960
Mercury with the boy sitting on its decklid appears to be a rare six-door airport
limousine. The Merc has a wide “C” pillar and wraparound rear window. Lettering
on the flag points out this parade’s location as being Abercrombie, N.D.

Have some insight to share about these mysterious images? Email ron.kowalke@fwmedia.com.More Resources For Car Collectors:

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The post What is that?? Enjoy these automotive oddities appeared first on Old Cars Weekly.

Story and photos by Ron Kowalke

Many old car hobbyists have plans to travel to Arizona to attend the upcoming mid-January collector vehicle auctions, while others will monitor the action on TV or the Web. Either way, there is much anticipation of seeing rare and desirable cars being bought and sold at the beginning of a new year.

Many collector vehicles will be purchased at these Arizona auctions. Some will sell for fair market value, while others will attract record-setting bids. That’s not an uncommon scenario at most auctions. But, with a resurgent economy of late and the collector vehicle hobby showing resiliency during the worst of the economic storm, chances are good there will be a record number of high-dollar sales in Arizona.

While that healthy prognosis bodes well for those involved in the January Arizona auction scene, the reality is that the buying and selling of collector vehicles takes place all year round and in all parts of the country. The old car hobby is also populated by a good number of enthusiasts who indulge in their automotive passions on a strict budget. While a trip to Arizona in January — especially for those who reside in colder regions of the country — would be a memorable experience, not everybody can afford such a vacation.

But being on a budget shouldn’t preclude hobbyists from acquiring and enjoying the collector vehicles they want. Regardless of financial status, obtaining a quality collector vehicle for the “right” price just takes a sound strategy and a good deal of work upfront. The days of finding an original 427-cid/435-hp 1967 Corvette tucked away in the garage of an owner clueless about its worth are over.

One approach

Perry Merckx has been a friend of mine for more than 40 years. We enjoy many of the same hobbies — old cars, of course, ranking right up there.

Like many old car enthusiasts, Merckx enjoys most types of cars and learning about their history, but his personal collection focus is on “Blue Oval” products. His current stable of Fords includes a 1964 Galaxie 500 hardtop, ’72 Gran Torino fastback and a ’53 flathead V-8 and early-’30s Ford frame for a future hot rod project.

Merckx spent much of his youth as an auto mechanic, so he’s a “hand’s-on” guy. He does all of his own restoration work, including engine and transmission rebuilds and body work. This ability to tackle work that many hobbyists might find too intimidating stems from his vast experience working on cars. Also — probably more so — it’s been dictated by being on a budget, as Merckx is a family man with three college-age children. For Merckx to have and enjoy the cars he desires, he’s had to learn how to do things himself.

One smart thing Merckx has done is take full advantage of the inexpensive automotive-related night classes offered at a local technical college. He’s spent many nights there learning restoration techniques and making use of the school’s shop and tools. He not only learns new restoration techniques, but he takes components from his cars to work on during class. The instructors of these classes have the know-how that they’re willing to impart, and Merckx is not afraid to ask questions and take notes. Also, this knowledge of how to properly restore a car comes in handy when looking at cars to buy. An improperly restored car has the potential to cost its new owner money down the line to maintain its appearance or, worse, keep it operational. If you can’t afford expensive repairs, you can easily end up with a garage paperweight and a resale nightmare.

State car at an estate sale

Since he estimates his start-from-scratch Ford hot rod project will take several years to complete, Merckx is interested in acquiring a car from the 1930s to add to his collection. I’m not sure if he’s going through a mid-life “gangster fixation,” but he has a firm idea of what this particular acquisition must be. It must be a survivor-class car, original (including being numbers matching) and need nothing more to be operational than a good detailing. Because a popular ’30s Ford in this condition would likely exceed what he can afford to spend, Merckx has opened his search to finding the “right car,” rather than strictly a Ford.

A fan of estate sales and automotive business-closing auctions —where he often acquires tools and materials needed for his restoration work at reasonable prices — Merckx found a car this past fall at an estate auction that met his criteria. The car was also manufactured in Wisconsin and offered a home-state connection — a benefit he hadn’t considered. It was also a one-year-only model, which enhances its rarity factor and uniqueness.

A local auction company was presiding over the sale of a house and all of its belongings formerly owned by an elderly couple. Among the items offered was the couple’s 1937 Nash Lafayette 400 sedan that was promoted as being a running car.

Lafayette Motors began in Indianapolis in 1920 as a maker of luxury automobiles. Not long after that, the company moved to Milwaukee, Wis. The president and major stockholder for Lafayette Motors was Charles Nash, also president of the Nash Motor Co.

The luxury Lafayettes did not sell well enough for the brand to continue, and the company was absorbed by Nash Motor Co. The Lafayette Motors plant then was converted to produce Ajax automobiles.

The Lafayette name was re-introduced in 1934 as a separate low-priced companion car within the Nash lineup. It remained independent until 1937, then it became Nash’s entry-level model. It remained that way through the 1940 model year, then was replaced by Nash’s new unibodied 600 model in ’41.

The Lafayette was as well-maintained on the inside as it was externally.

Homework

The week before the auction, Merckx drove to the sale site to preview the car. This allowed for a thorough inspection of the Lafayette with no crowds to contend with. Prior to making this trip, Merckx used Krause Publications’ Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942 to research serial/body/engine numbers for the 1937 Lafayette. He also studied Old Cars Report Price Guide to find the value of this Nash in each of the six condition grades to be prepared for any condition the car was in when he arrived.

The Lafayette’s serial/body/engine numbers all checked out, so the car passed Merckx’s first requirement of being numbers matching. Merckx next crawled under, around and inside the car to inspect for hidden rust, body filler, non-matching paint patches, non-factory welds or frame crimping that would be evidence of collision repairs. He also looked for damage from rodents and fluid leaks, and then tested window cranks, hood latches, pulled the gas cap to smell for “varnished” gas and pulled and inspected the engine’s dipstick to check for gummed residue and the smell of burnt oil. At that point, he was trying to assess what might have to be repaired and at what additional cost, which factors into how much to bid on the car.

He determined, overall, the car was in fine shape, and, more importantly, operational as promoted. It retained its original paint, which had dulled over time, but that’s to be expected. There was also a chunk missing from the driver’s side armrest and some surface scratches and a few minor stone dimples, but nothing serious. The Lafayette also needed a thorough washing and detailing as it was last registered for road use in 1999, and had acquired “storage patina.”

Using the 1 through 6 condition rating scale explanation in the Old Cars Report Price Guide, Merckx determined the Lafayette’s current condition placed it squarely between number 3 and 4. The condition 3 value was $6,800 and 4 dropped to $3,020. Merckx calculated the split between the two to be just under $5,000, but due to the Lafayette’s overall good original condition, rarity and completeness, he settled on $5,500 as what he was willing and could afford to pay to acquire the car.

Joining him on the day of the auction to lend moral support, I watched as the Lafayette came up for auction. Starting at $1,000, there appeared to be a handful of bidders interested. By the time the bidding climbed to $5,000, only Merckx and another man remained in the hunt.

I’d like nothing more than to end this story on a happy note, but it wasn’t meant to be. Merckx’s bid of $5,500 was trumped by the other bidder, who got the Lafayette for $5,750. As disappointed as I was that my friend didn’t get the car he wanted, I admired the fact that he stuck to his strategy and didn’t waver when the price of the Lafayette went beyond his $5,500 threshold.

At what price the competing bidder would have dropped out is something we’ll never know. But getting caught up in bidding fever in the heat of the moment — thinking “just one more bid” — can easily cause a biddeer to pay more for a car than it’s worth or lead them to spend beyond their means. Nothing dulls the enjoyment of collector vehicle ownership more than being upside-down in a purchase.

A sound strategy doesn’t guarantee you’ll get a vehicle you are after. But, not investing the time and work necessary beforehand to thoroughly check out a potential purchase, and not coming up with a price threshold that’s agreeable to your budget, will almost certainly guarantee failure.

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Larry Mayes likes to joke about how he always hounded his mother not to put many miles on her luxurious 1981 Imperial coupe. Mayes sort of figured he might own the car himself one day, and he didn’t want Mom banging it up and wearing it out.

“I didn’t want a lot of miles on it when I inherited it,” said Mayes, a resident of Mooresville, Ind., just southwest of Indianapolis. “Dad didn’t want her driving it to the store and parking it too close and he didn’t want her smoking in it — she smoked back in those days. And he didn’t want her to drive it in bad weather.”

“Finally, she just said ‘This car’s too good for me. I’m not going to drive it.’ She had a [Plymouth] TC3, and she loved that car, and she drove that everywhere. The Imperial had a blind spot that she didn’t like, so she just drove the TC3.”

Mayes’ badgering appears to have paid off because today the Imperial has only traveled about 15,000 miles in its lifetime. Everything on the car is original except the carburetor – it was swapped in as a factory-install deal for a balky fuel-injection unit — apparently a common practice at the time. Even the tires are original on this Chrysler timepiece. “Yeah, I like to say I’ve even got the factory air in the tires,” Mayes laughed. “But it’s getting to the point where I’m afraid to drive it because those tires are 30 years old now.”

While Larry’s mother may have preferred her little Plymouth, it was certainly a far cry from ritzy Imperial, which turned out to be a unique and mostly unsuccessful attempt by Chrysler to bring back the Imperial nameplate while at the same time making a splash in the shrinking world of expensive, high-end luxury cars. Chrysler had discontinued the Imperial nameplate after the 1975 model year, but from 1981-’83, they brought back the name for a fancy, bustle-back coupe that was a radical departure from anything else in Lee Iacocca’s world at the time.

Consider the Chrysler pricing scale in 1981. The only car in the Chrysler lineup that came within $10,000 of the Imperial’s $18,311 base price was the big New Yorker sedan, which carried a $10,463 base MSRP. The Imperial was even more expense than most of the Cadillacs of the day – eclipsed only by the Seville and Fleetwood Limousines. Chrysler simply loaded up the Imperials with everything it had, hung a big price tag on them and hoped for the best.

The results were mixed. For 1981, the company built 7,225 of the cars. After that, production tailed off badly to 2,329 assemblies in 1982 and 1,427 cars in ’83.

While that may have been bad news for Chrysler at the time, it’s probably good news for collectors like Mayes, who have managed to preserve these lovely experiments. Not surprisingly, Mayes doesn’t see many other early ’80s Imperials around — and he keeps a sharp eye out for them. “This one has 15,000 miles on it, and it’s as nice as I’ve seen anywhere and I try to look at any one of them that I hear about,” he said. “So far I haven’t seen one any nicer.”

Mayes’ father worked for Chrysler at the time, but he’s still not totally clear why is parents opted for the Imperial. The car was actually his mom’s company car, “but for that much money they could have had a Corvette” Mayes noted. “Between her and her boss and my dad, they chose the Imperial, I really don’t know why. My dad worked at Chrysler and it was supposed to be the best thing they had, so they bought it.”

The Mayes took delivery of the car on Oct. 21, 1980, after agreeing to shell out more than $19,700. “That was more than they paid for their house in 1963,” Larry recalled.

For that investment, a buyer got a big, luxury cruiser with a curb weight of 3,870 lbs., wheelbase of 112.7 inches and an overall length of 213.3 inches. The cars were propelled by an electronically fuel-injected 318-cid V-8 rated at 140 hp. The transmission was a three-speed automatic. The transverse torsion bar suspension and special unibody construction combined for what the company called “the quietest car in Chrysler history.”

When it came to amenities and looks, the Imperial screamed class and sophistication. The dash featured cutting edge digital instrumentation. Power steering, seats, brakes and windows were all standard. Ditto with air-conditioning, tilt steering and cruise control. The opera lights, hood ornament, wheel covers and even the key were decorated with fancy “crystal” stones. The cars also came with a fancy, leather-bound book/owner’s manual that was mean to be a keepsake. No-cost options included a special Mark Cross leather interior, a choice of stereo systems, spoked or “snowflake” wheel treatments and clearcoat paint. The only “for sale” option was a power moonroof, which tacked $1,044 onto the price tag.

Frank Sinatra was hired to be a pitchman for the reinvented Imperial brand. To celebrate the Chairman of the Board’s involvement, a total of 271 special “Frank Sinatra” edition cars were built in each of the first two years. The cars were offered in Glacier Blue with different interiors than the regular Imperials. They also included a selection of 16 Sinatra cassette tapes for new owners to listen to. Clearly, Chrysler was willing to try anything to impress perspective buyers.

Mayes said his mother had only put 9,926 miles on the car before its fuel-injection unit was pulled off in favor of a carburetor. “They had a problem with fuel injection on those cars, so in March of ’88 the car was converted over,” he said. “At the time we couldn’t re-set (the odometer) … I think it’s got about 5,300 showing on it now.”

In 1991, Mayes said his parents decided to park the Imperial in his garage, and following his father’s death a few years ago his mother transferred the title over the Larry. “But it will always be her car,” he said. “I’m just the caregiver at this point.”

Mayes has become so attached to the car, and to the early ’80s Imperials in general, that he now owns three of them. “I bought one out of a junkyard with 31,000 miles on it,” he said. “It was fuel-injected, that’s all there in one piece, and the car is really straight and in pretty good shape. I bought it just to have the wheels off it, and I always wanted a clone to the other one so I could have a driver.

“The other one I got out of ‘Kenny’s Klunkers’ A guy over in Illinois had one and he said he was going to send it to the scrapyard. Somebody had taken the drive train out of it for a street rod, so I bought the body and interior so that if anything happened to my other one I’d have body parts for it. Those three years are very hard to come by for parts.”

Mayes also has a 1999 Plymouth Prowler, a modified 1967 Dodge Dart convertible and a lovely all-original 1974 Cadillac Coupe DeVille in his fleet, so it’s not always easy to find time to get his pristine Imperial on the road. “Well, I’ve only put a little over 5,000 miles on it, so you can tell I don’t drive it much,” he said. “The problem is I’ve got too many cars to drive. It’s usually the one that gets put in the back and covered up.

“I start it up and run it every spring, and then again in the fall before I put it away again. And drive it a couple of times every summer … I enjoy getting it out and driving it, but I would like for it to be someplace where it could be seen more than just in my barn. I’ve shown it some. I’ve taken it to a few shows at the Chrysler plant, and I’ve had it in the Survivor Tent at Carlisle [Pa.].”

Mayes said he has a few small fixes on the Imperial that he needs to get around to at some point. The radio doesn’t work right, the headliner glue is starting to give out and the radiator drips, but the Imperial is more than roadworthy.

“It’s a really nice car. It’s a luxury car,” he said. “It’s a car to take out on a Saturday night or a Sunday afternoon, or something like that. Not a rocket ship, that’s for sure. It will get 20 miles a gallon on the Interstate … but it doesn’t get there quick by any means.”

He’s also hoping to get a reproduction window sticker for the Imperial. He says it is the only thing that is missing from the car’s past. “Dad took that window sticker to work one time after they got the car, I’m not sure why,” Mayes said. “And then he didn’t know what happened to it. He looked everywhere for it and couldn’t find it … I haven’t found anybody yet who makes those for ’81.”

At one point, Mayes considered giving the Imperial a shiny new coat of pearl white paint. Today, he cringes at the notion.

“I’m really glad we didn’t do that,” he said. “Because it’s only original once.”

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O’Quinn is an auto mechanic’s son who has grown into one of the most successful litigators in U.S. history with a passion for Duesenbergs (see the Garage DeLuxe YouTube O’Quinn interview). Upon entering the collection’s private showroom, one sees a glittering array of perfectly restored Duesenbergs. Even among such rarified surroundings, some cars immediately stand out. Such is the case of Duesenberg SJ-397 (Chassis No. 2405), known alternately as “The Rudolf Bauer Duesenberg” for the artist who designed the car for himself, or “The Last Duesenberg.” The twists and turns of this particular Duesenberg story are reminiscent of a Greek tragedy.

At first glance, the Bauer Duesenberg seems as perfectly restored as its stablemates. However, this car is parked slightly apart from its Indianapolis cousins, confirming its status as something special. I was allowed the rare privilege of closely inspecting the Bauer car in minute detail.

Its doors and engine compartment were opened, the hand-tailored luggage was removed from the boot for closer inspection and I was allowed to sit behind the wheel. At the time O’Quinn purchased the car, the price paid was a world record for any Duesenberg, save the Mormon Meteor, which makes my unrestricted inspection all the more incredible. The experience was sort of like being handed the “Mona Lisa” and told to look the old gal over.

Interestingly, the hood is louvered and the sides are covered with mesh so that details of the magnificent 420 c.i.d., dual-overhead-cam, supercharged straight-eight can be seen from outside the car. However, upon raising the side-opening hood, the top of the engine is completely covered by an aluminum panel. This would seem to negate any benefit of the hood louvers. Perhaps the attractive louvers allowed too much water onto the big mill, and the panels were added as a nod to practicality while preserving the artist’s flourishes.

The car delivers the illusion of lowness and great speed when standing, with an almost indescribable stance. Bauer accomplished this by emphasizing the large scale of everything, which tricks the eye into making the car look smaller. It appears Teutonic in the manner of a Mercedes 540K, but has a certain visual lightness that eludes the Mercedes. The car looks tailor-made for high-speed motoring along some picturesque sea.

Several things about the car were surprising. One might surmise the car has an older restoration showing slight patina. However, not only is this the last Duesenberg delivered, but the car is thoroughly original with only 10,843 miles traveled since new. The catalog from the auction where O’Quinn purchased the car made much of the authentic World War II “A” rationing sticker and 1943 New Jersey registration stamp. I discovered something even more interesting — an “Essolube” oil change sticker dated Oct. 14, 1941, with a mileage of 4,854. It seems the car traveled half its total mileage within 18 months of its delivery on April 25, 1940.

The car also sports a huge Buell air horn that looks as though it was made from the bell of a trombone, perhaps for a locomotive. On anything else, it would look ridiculously huge, but on this car, it’s just right. I fought an urge to honk it, but was afraid I might be the recipient of a withering look at disturbing the calm in this temple of Duesenberg.

The car’s purple upholstery was described by Bauer as violet, and the top is silk. Bauer spared no expense in constructing this masterwork. In fact, the final toll was more than $20,000, an astronomical sum in 1940. Bauer said it was his intention to shock and provoke discussion, at which he certainly succeeded.

Earlier, O’Quinn executive director Gayla Miller had shown me original Bauer artwork, much of which is very geometric and colorful and somehow very pleasing, even to my untrained eye. During the 1920s, much of Bauer’s art depicted the risqué German Cabaret scene with many of the works being very erotic, and some almost cartoon-like. In an odd way, the purple interior makes perfect sense in the context of Bauer’s art.

The artist
Rudolf Bauer was born in Lindenwald, Germany, (now Poland) in February 1889 to an engine fitter. At an early age, he demonstrated an almost savant-like talent for making art. He left home and settled in Berlin at age 15 to begin an art career over the objections of his father. As a young man, Bauer supported himself by completing elaborate cartoons and magazine illustrations.

He eventually participated in a group exhibition at Der Sturm (The Storm) in 1915. During the late 1910s and early 1920s, Der Sturm was the center of the Berlin art world. Also during this time, Bauer met 25-year-old Baroness Hilla Rebay von Ehrenwiesen, an art student, and his soon-to-be-lover (and, according to Bauer, his future betrayer). Hilla Rebay was the aristocratic daughter of a Prussian army officer. Bauer was shy, arrogant and brooding, and Rebay unrelentingly ambitious. He was from a poor family, she from a background of privilege. It is not difficult to see how their obsessive relationship eventually disintegrated into one of estrangements and finger pointing.

By around 1922, Bauer had been exhibited in the U.S. Worcester Art Museum, Smith College, Detroit Institute of Fine Arts and Vassar College. In 1927, Hilla Rebay traveled to the United States and shortly thereafter met philanthropist Solomon R. Guggenheim, who awarded her a portrait commission. Rebay encouraged Guggenheim to start a collection of Non-Objective art, with Baroness Rebay facilitating; Bauer became Guggenheim’s favorite artist and soon his man on the ground in Berlin. Though they had not yet met, the works acquired by Bauer for Guggenheim are now considered the core masterpieces of the Guggenheim collection and include paintings by Kandinsky, Klee and Marc, among others.

Rebay brought Guggenheim to Europe in 1930 to meet the artists in person, including Bauer and Kandinsky. This cemented Rebay’s relationship with Guggenheim, with her soon becoming his art advisor. Through the introduction provided by Baroness Rebay, Guggenheim purchased several Bauer works and, more importantly, awarded him a stipend that allowed him to open a museum for his work and other painters of what had become known as the “Non-Objective” school, headed by Bauer and Kandinsky. Bauer named his museum Das Geistreich, or “The Realm of the Spirit,” though the name can also be interpreted as “ingenious.”

By the time the Nazis came to power, Bauer had become a rich man due to Guggenheim’s largess and an attentive audience in the United States and Europe that snatched up Bauer works as fast as they were completed. Bauer lived as lavishly as a Guggenheim, and spent huge sums on every aspect of his life to the constant dismay of Rebay. He apparently had rarified taste in motor cars, too, including Bugatti, Isotta Fraschini, Mercedes and Duesenberg. Starting in 1933, Bauer and Rebay began hurried purchases of artwork to prevent them from being destroyed or falling into Nazi hands. This provided funds so many Jewish and non-Jewish collectors could escape. This and Bauer’s relationship with the Jewish Guggenheim inevitably led to trouble with the Nazis.

Bauer did not himself travel to the United States until early 1937. The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Gibbes Museum in Charleston, S.C., near the Guggenheims’ winter home where the Guggenheim collection was having its first public debut. This was part of an extended stay by Bauer that generated huge amounts of publicity. During the same period, the Nazis hosted an exhibit of “degenerate art” featuring art by Bauer and his contemporaries. For some time before this, Bauer’s work was the only abstract work that could be seen openly in Berlin. This apparently lulled him into a false sense of security of potential consequences. To the Nazis’ dismay, the display of “degenerate art” proved hugely popular with the public, eventually being seen by more than one million people.

Bauer originally inquired about ordering the car around the time of Duesenberg’s closing in January 1937, but didn’t make up his mind until August. Actually, the engine and chassis were originally utilized in a 1931 factory demonstrator whose engine was damaged. The body was removed and the chassis cast aside at the Duesenberg factory, eventually becoming the property of Chicago Duesenberg re-seller Henry Felz. After Bauer made up his mind, Felz reportedly sold the chassis back to Augie Duesenberg, who personally supervised its construction with the assistance of former Duesenberg employees and a number of outside craftsmen.

The intention was for the completed chassis to be prepared for shipment to German coachbuilders Erdmann and Rossi for body construction to Bauer’s design. After completion, the chassis was duly coated in Cosmoline and wrapped in burlap. Unfortunately, Bauer’s arrest by the Nazis put the entire project on hold. Some contend that Bauer’s sister fingered him to the Nazis due to a lack of support and jealousy of his success, and he eventually spent a year in prison. The intervention of Baroness Rebay, with assistance from her uncle (a German general), along with a large suitcase of Guggenheim’s money, secured Bauer’s release, along with his intact household.

The pièce de résistance
In 1939, Bauer made a triumphant entrance in the United States. One of his first acts upon arrival was to arrange completion of the Duesenberg. He specified several options for the car: a long wheelbase chassis with a supercharger on the 420-cid straight-eight engine, Marchal headlamps, a special instrument panel with additional instruments, four-blinker directional lamps with violet glass, a special radiator emblem, three custom black-leather suitcases and several other features, including Vogue tires.

Due to the ravages of the Depression, bankrupt body builder Rollston morphed into Rollson. Rollston was the body builder of several famous Duesenbergs, including the 1933 Torpedo Sedan, aka “The Twenty Grand.” It proved to be an inspired choice for the renamed Rollson to bring Bauer’s sketches to life.

Bauer’s sketches to body builder Rollson specified the absence of running boards, smaller wheels, a vee windshield, cycle fenders, dual rear-mounted spares, a canted and streamline grille and numerous other custom features. Of the completed car, Bauer wrote J.L. Elbert for his 1948 book “Duesenberg: The Mightiest American Motor Car” and said, “I made a design of the car and did supervise to some extent the construction of the Karosserie, which took seven months. Although the finished car did not measure up to my expectations, especially in the finer details, I still regard it as the finest auto I have seen. Speaking of Duesenberg, I… possess two more Duesenbergs, both phaetons, one black, the other blue-green in racing style with special pistons.” No doubt he was convinced only a German body builder could execute a car built to his lofty standards.

Then came the betrayal. Hilla Rebay presented Bauer with a contract from the Guggenheim foundation written in English, neither of which Bauer spoke or wrote. The contract stipulated that Bauer could live in a palatial Guggenheim home in Deal, N.J., complete with staff. He would also have a large trust fund established for his use, but with several “kickers.” The Guggenheim foundations would own any future art he produced, and upon his death, the trust would revert to the foundation. The foundation also paid the astronomical bill for the Duesenberg. Regardless, when Bauer understood what he had signed and that he owned nothing, including his work, he was furious.

The impetuous Bauer responded by marrying his housekeeper, Louise Huber, who had been personally selected by Rebay. Rebay responded by calling Huber a “tramp and whore.” Then Bauer filed a futile libel lawsuit against Rebay. After 1940, Bauer never painted again and lived in virtual isolation. When Rebay was replaced at the Guggenheim foundation, Bauer’s artwork was basically consigned to a basement where it remained for 45 years. Bauer and Rebay did not speak for the final years of Bauer’s life.

Bauer died in 1953 and the car and Bauer’s other Duesenberg were acquired by Bill Pettit, who preserved it and stored it for 45 years while adding approximately 1,000 miles to the odometer. Pettit claimed it was the best-driving Duesenberg in his stable. Interestingly, Gary Cooper tried unsuccessfully to acquire the Bauer Duesenberg before the purchase by Pettit, and now, O’Quinn is the fourth owner of the car. The last Duesenberg is a stunning example of the artist’s vision, and has eclipsed the value of his artwork by a large degree.

Art reunited
O’Quinn and his longtime companion, Ms. Darla Lexington, have acquired several Bauer artworks from the Weinstein Gallery of San Francisco. No doubt inspired by the car and Bauer’s story, O’Quinn and Lexington purchased four: “Presto XI,” “Composition 115,” “White Cross” and “Symphony in Three Movements.” We look forward to the day when O’Quinn and Lexington will exhibit the last Duesenberg with Bauer’s other artwork.

Author’s note: The Bauer Duesenberg will be featured at the 2010 Glenmoor Gathering of Significant Automobiles. Special thanks to Briana Tarantino of the Weinstein Gallery, and Gayla Miller and Firat Ozsoy of the O’Quinn Classic Car Collection.

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Duesenberg (Special Edition)
By Dennis Adler, Introduction by Jay Leno

With only 435 of the model J cars still in
existence, the Duesenberg-the Rolls Royce of
American automobiles,” is demanding a hefty
price tag, selling for upwards of $1 million!
Many of these surviving cars-each custom crafted, a unique statement of
elegance, luxury, and hand-built quality-are captured here in full-color,
landscape photography by leading professional photographer and widely
recognized author, Dennis Adler. LEARN MORE >>

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