I think Vic might have rolled his eyes...

I meant to post about this one over this Summer, but it somehow got filed away. Back in August, I headed down for the big Pebble Beach Monterey car week to enjoy a few days of seeing old friends, checking out rare antique & classic cars, and trying t... <BR><BR>To read the rest of this blog entry from The Jalopy Journal, click here.

 

Wow, $210,000 and it didn't meet reserve. History aside, I immediately thought of how many times I could build the car (doing the majority of the work myself) with a $210,000 budget. 4 or 5?
Maybe at a shop rate north of $100 hr. the owner has a lot in the car if the build was hired out, but man, it's an A Hiboy on 32 rails, not a Dellahaye.
Next stop, Barret-Jackson?

 

The Ship of Theseus rears its ugly head again! Model T guys rage about this all the time - what makes a vehicle a particular vehicle? The chassis? The engine? The body?

Hot rodders say this is a &#8216;29, and it&#8217;s probably registered as such. But if we were talking about a Harley-Davidson, it would be the engine that counts (&#8216;48 Mercury?). And when you&#8217;re talking about vintage race cars and (potentially) custom-bodied Classics, it&#8217;s the chassis that determines a vehicles identity - making this a &#8216;32 Ford.

It&#8217;s an interesting quandry. The lawyer in me says that the right answer is that this is a &#8216;29, since that&#8217;s what it appears to be and that&#8217;s what the state (and, perhaps more importantly, the police) would recognize it as.

I realize that in modern times we also have to deal with &#8220;special construction&#8221; titles and whatnot, but I&#8217;m setting all that aside because it gets too technical and seems primarily tied to enviornmental regs and TAXATION.

-Dave

 

Reminds me of the time that Duntov was at a show and commented about how delighted he was to see "7 of the 5" original Grand Sport Corvettes in attendance

 

at least 4 or 5

and that is a good point,
the car is beautiful,
even in pictures you can see it's near perfect.

but not out of reach for the home builder with ambition and a keen eye for detail.

 

That in a nutshell kind of explains the appeal of traditional hot rods, I think.

-Dave

 

Sold on a bill of sale only. I don't see the issue here. Ken Gross is a respected automotive historian and his write up of the history appears to disclose most of the changes to the car over the years. If I could plunk down that kind of money, I'd certainly be doing my homework on the car long before it went across the block. Anyone who doesn't lends credence to the old adage that a fool and his money are soon parted.

 

That is a HUGE red flag to me. No title? Why the hell not?

It's not like this is some car pulled out of a junkyard or something... it ought to have a title.

 

X's 2

 

Nice car...but "Likes did build soild, fast cars, and this one was restored to an absolutely stunning period-correct perfection, including another class flathead motor, the original tonneau cover, tow bar, trophies, timing sheets, etc."???

I don't see the "stunning period-correct perfection", I see a modern work of art, not an old hot rod. But my eyes don't work as good as they used to.

 

I don't know what it is, but the whole pebble beach and Hot Rods thing just sticks in my craw. It's like treating a boxer like a ballerina. It's a shame when a certain car or bike ect. become revered for there value as apposed to what they represent. I know everybody has to earn a buck and I'm not criticizing the buying and selling of cars, but in my mind, when that car was built, the Dusenburg crowd laughed at it.

 

Bruce Meyer got the Pebble Beach and hot rods thing going several years ago. And that is an effective way to describe it: boxer/ballerina. There is a considerable amount of artist license associated with restoring these cars. Squirrel is right, it isn't now what it once was. Nor is the SoCal belly tank or the Pierson Bros. coupe or the Doane Spencer roadster. But at what point do you say the car has crossed over from being the original car to an overdone restoration? I don't know on that one. Looking at the original photos attached to the Ken Gross description, the car was awfully nice way back when.

 

I can say #3 is safely tucked away in Vic Jr.s warehouse in Torrence, next to the copy Jr had made before the original was returned to the family. Have a picture of me sitting in it on my laptop.

 

Its a overrestored 29 on 32 rails with history.If some one wants to glorify it and pay to much for it so what! Eventually its true market value will be determined and it will be lower than what was turned down at Pebble.The attempt to recreate the original lettering looks silly and out of place on such a high end restoration.

 

A beautiful car with some history but there are a lot of beautifully restored and over restored rods out there with a bit or a lot of history behind them.

For 210K I think I could have a damned nice A V8 on Deuce rails plus a few other nice rigs and the garage to keep them in. I might not be able to brag that the car had any history but I'd suffer through it and not have to worry about changing an Icon if I made a change to it.

 

At $210,000 I think that is history breaking alone. What other Model A is worth more?

 

Buyer beware!...,always. The car definately has value, but in these days of, shall we say "marketing ploys," hold on to your wallet (especially at Pebble Beach.) I was over at Monterey on the Labor Day weekend just touristing, Cannery Row and the Aquarium was jammed...,what recession?

 

That's how I feel about it.
It distorts history.
At some point in the future, that overdone restoration will be seen as the example of how things actually were back in the day and that super perfect example will be a distortion of the truth.
Sort of like seeing a beautifully restored WWII fighter plane in a museum and at first you think 'wow, what a gorgeous old plane' but then you realize most of it is brand new skin, structure, paint, etc.
I'd like to see the scars, wear and damage from being in a war. Even if it is just the fragments of an original plane and not the whole thing. At least it is the real thing. That is history & that's what I came to see.
Even if much of the original is still there, if it is buried under a bunch of new shiney stuff, then I can't see it.

But...I guess you just have to be happy that someone is still caring for it and keeping it around.

 

Back in the 40s and 50s anything with a '32 frame was referred as a '32 or '32 with an A body (here in Australia it would be a '32 due to the chassis number). People forget Hot Rodders back then thought '32 for the most part were boxy pieces of shit that weren't suitable for real hot rods, they made perfect street roadsters. I have lost count of how many times I have read how the racers went to the junkyard bought a rolling chassis for $10-$25 leaving the body at the junkyard. '32 Ford the Ultimate Hot Rod, I call bullshit, it is all hype like the Bill Likes roadster description. For $210,000 it should of sold. That whole Auction was a clever marketing ploy to announce that the roadster had been restored, If that roadster had been flat towed onto the auction block behind Bill's '32 street roadster yes it would have been worth $400,000.

Btw #3 Vic Edelbrock roadster is still owned by Vic Jnr shown here at Palos Verdes Concours

 

I watched that car, since it's not too different from what I have. The big difference, aside from the quick change, was the history. The kind of person that would have bid on it would have done their due diligence, and I don't think the auction catalog really misrepresented it. But I was completely intrigued by what a traditional '29 on deuce rails with flathead power would bring. Sheesh. I sure got mine at the right time.

Sorry about that MD/New England thing yesterday. I've even been there. I forget that just because the distance from Boston to DC would fit inside California doesn't mean it's not different.

 

I still say it's the title... Imagine if you live in Mass or Illinois... states that can put you through HELL to get a title.

Oh wait, what if you're from a foreign country? Good luck exporting it without a title.

 

Not a lot of race cars have titles.

I can also see it being called a 32 if the frame is a 32 and hence the VIN# is a 32.
If the car had sold for its estimate ~400K. I'll bet if you walked into the DMV in your state with the BOS they would give you a title....just so they could bang you on the tax on the car

 

This is just the way I feel also!!

 

Still resent the soccer players trying to buy their way into what I like to think is a "doer's" endeavor, that's really what this stuff is all about, at least to me. Worth a laugh just to see what these auctions have come to. But what a nice car, wouldn't take long to remove that dumb lettering...

 

I'll get some grief for this but here goes....

I'm not on old timer, but I've been crazy-sick in love with hotrods since my I was a little fella and have been privaledged enough to see plenty of them in the condition that they were built back in the 50's, etc.

With a few noteable exceptions, they never looked perfect like this one now does. Once they're gone through and made operating-room perfect like this, they're MUCH LESS interesting to me.

I grew up hanging around my dad and his buddies who built and ran their stuff hard in the 50's and by the time I was around them, many of them still had their cars from that era, and I never saw one of their cars look perfect like this.

These high dollar restorations just don't do it for me. They're nice and all, but for some reason, they just don't do it for me.

Let the bashing commence.

 

Not to monopolize this thread....but let me add this:

If I were going to "restore" one of these historic cars, I'd do it different.

I'd try to get with the original builder if possible and try to build it with the limited resources, budget and tools that they had access to.

The end result would look less perfect.

If there were any safety issues, I'd correct them, but other than that, I'd build it less perfect.

 

Provenance, from the French provenir, "to come from", refers to the chronology of the ownership or location of an historical object. This is what is important to sales of this nature. The rich will always figure out ways to make more money. It's a beautiful "A" but.....................is it worth $400,000.00....only to someone willing to pay it.

 

I agree it should be titled before it is sold, despite being a "racing car". It no doubt looks steetable. It even has a place for the license plate in the back!

Just imagine the tax & registration on a car with a Bill Of Sale stating it was just bought for $400,000. It would never see the street again.

 

As I'm reading the original post, I'm thinking "Its NOT a 32, it's a 29"

Ryan called it a '29 on 32 rails, he identified it as a '29.
My 29 sedan on '32 rails is also identified as a '29.

That's how most folks perceive that car, it's a '29!

That's a nice, but expensive 1929 Ford Model A.