Posted on 06/28/2007 3:01:48 PM PDT by Daffynition
The world’s oldest running car is set to cross the auction block at Pebble Beach in August.
The catchy-sounding De Dion-Bouton et Trapardoux was built in France in 1884, and amazingly, it’s a three owner car. Among its many credentials, “La Marquise” is a steam-powered four-wheeled car that is believed to have won the first automobile race.
Top speed on the car is a startlingly high 38 miles-per-hour, which must feel decidedly exciting given its primitive construction and solid rubber tires. To reach that heady speed, drivers need to first stoke the car with coal, wood, paper, or other readily combustible materials, and then wait for around a half-hour to generate enough steam for the car to get rolling.
The De Dion-Bouton et Trapardoux is expected to hammer for between $1.5 and $2 million.
[That’s called “character” in a truck]
And sometimes - in a person too, lol.
I guess the 1960s weren’t too bad. At least my back didn’t hurt. But if I could get a hold of H.G. Wells’ time machine, I would be laying on the throttle to the past as I approached the 1960s. Lol!
I visited a restoration shop the other day. Guys who runs it is an absolute perfectionist, he looked at my car (Impala) and said “I’d gut it!”
I kept tellin him ain’t gonna happen.
He showed me a car they were working on painting, something like an 8,000 dollar paint job, I said no way, the first 14 year old that gets near it will key the heck out of it. So he says “No 14 year old will ever get close to this car!”
So basically he’s talking about a car that will remain under lock and key, the guy will drive it not very often, and when he does, he won’t even be able to park it at Wendy’s and go inside to grab a burger.
Hope I never get that anal about it!
This restorer dude has done 100K restorations. We’re talkin museum pieces.
My late Father-in-law used to work at a shop that restored early auto’s, including steam. His aspect was taking completely rotted engine parts, figuring out what the part actually was and what it did (they even did restorations on cars pulled from under water for 80 years) and then machine exact replicas from identical type metals. I was told they did the restoration work on Leno’s Stanley.
I was perusing an add for a mine for sale in, IIRC, Arizona, a couple of years back and a neat aspect of it was that the fully functional ~100 gpm dewatering system was a steam engine built about 135 years ago. There was only one or two others still in existance.
I love uncovering bits and pieces from the age of steam metal detecting, and stumbling over the monster cores of the engines or devices they powered while prospecting. One of my regular haunts has an 1890’s McFarlane Brothers jaw crusher and power sluicer sitting forlornly in a gulch. I’d love something like that in the front yard (when I get one) but it’s mass is just to great for economical recovery, and since my last trips in the fall some knob torched the remaining flywheel off of it.
I just posted ‘my edition’ of H.G. Wells’ time machine above! Jump in and go back to...Tie-die shirts, Woodstock, and psychedelic ‘things’, snicker.
Think those were all ‘60s things.
.
Super firearms book
Coffee table size - nice clear photos of handguns & longarms
“Age Of The Gunfighter”
by Joseph G. Rosa
whitney-Kennedy lever action page 176-177
I recall the 1960s well but Woodstock, drugs and turned-on, tuned-out and burned-out hippies were not a part of this country boy’s deep east Texas world. Still I would not go back to that era for love, money, or a gun pointed to my head.
True, I grew up in deep South Texas where life was simple. Those are just things we’ve always heard about in the ‘60s.
Bump devolve.
.
LOL!
Jungle Jim Forever!
[Jungle Jim Forever!]
Depends on where you’re headed, Mr. Bonga Wonga!!
.
Antique car owners & collectors look for as original a paint job as possible
A reworked body job and primo spray paint job is not at all what those old vehicles had and can destroy an authentic antiques value in a flash
“Better than new looking” is cute - but gets into custom car territory
[Better than new looking” is cute]
I’ve seen ‘cute’. I also saw a limousine covered in bright copper pennies in Vegas! From cute to Vegas ‘tacky’, lol.
.
Uber-Tacky!
Yep, but they’ll do anything out there for ‘show’.
Well I’m not part of the “matching numbers - all oem parts” group. I want it to be pretty close to original, but more than that, I want it to look nice, be MECHANICALLY SOUND!!, and have all (or at least 99%) of the accessories work.
My problem now is getting the vacuum hoses right... hook them up one way and some stuff works but not the rest, swap it around and the other stuff now works but not the first!
I’ll figure it out.
.
“Pennies From Vegas”
The 1960s were probably like any other time in American history except by then we had the news media telling us each evening what our fellow citizens somewhere else were doing. There was good and bad as in the 1960s as in any era but in keeping with the automobile topic of this thread, the Big Three began their long slide to the poorhouse not withstanding some great muscle cars. The French-designed Simcas zipped around larger Chevys and Fords on the new freeways like sparrows around hawks and Studebaker found a temporary refuge in Canada. I would say that the 1960s were a pivotal point for American automakers.
Or, "What happens in Vegas - stays in the rumble seat", or something like that, lol.
I'm trying to stay on topic, snort
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.