what is the rarest car you have come across

I bought this last year, the only one known, 1930 Sayers and Scovill ambulance

 

Davesville, you can say THAT again! High on MY list would be the "baby Buick" '29 MARQUETTEs, with tier beautiful herring-bone grilles !!!

 

I owned a 48 Lincoln continental conv.,452 built and a 54 Buick skylark,816 built.

 

My buddy's 1904 Sunset. All original, only one left in the world. Built by the Sunset Company in San Francisco. Plant was destroyed by the 06 earthquake and never recovered.









Best part is....it's a driver. Not a bunch of miles each year, but he gets it out regularly for Sunday drives and such. Great little car.

 

Prolly the rarest I've had was a 1935 studebaker 3 window suicide door coupe. It was someones old race car when I got it. I wish I would've kept it...John

 

JaronSonT3, now THAT is a cool "Sunset" AND great background info!!!!

I LOVE the 1890s to WWI-era cars -- BEFORE the big companies got cranked up! There was a LOT of innovation and experimentation back then, oh, my Moses. It's jus WAY to bad more of those early cars could not survive -- but we know the reasons for that.

Now was this '04 Sunset 2-cylinder, or what? Did is use a battery or a magneto, OR something ELSE?

AWESOME (& BTW, ANY MORE PIX???)

 

Wow! What an obscure car, amazing condition (if that's the original paint) and what a great name and logo.
Wouldn't mind seeing and hearing it roll around on weekends in my neighborhood.


I agree - early automobiles and the people who pioneered them are all very inspiring, just like early aircraft.

 

ROADRUNNER SAID: I agree - early automobiles and the people who pioneered them are all very inspiring, just like early aircraft.

Roadrunner, you said a mouthful! Based on Benz or Daimler's early successes (AND seeing the well-known success of the steam enigne, as well!), EARLY guys like Winton, Olds and King (of course, OTHERS!) . . .

worked their nuts off to either make marketable cars themselves OR at least contribute osmething to the science & technology.

G-D, the early days are a FASCINATING story! (Incluidng aircraft!)<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

 

I had the very first 1958 Impala to roll off the Saint Louis assembly line. The serial number was FS58000001

 

It's when mankind was experiencing possibly it's last great peek of true innovation, achievable by individuals and their believe in themselves and fundamental science and physics, without any need for computers or massive funding, to feed a consumer driven society with overpriced toys for profits that no one man ever has any true need for.

...there is your mouthful.

 

my 29 packard.

 

RoadRunner, yup, thta was a mouthful . . . of wisdom. I can see you are well educated, thoughtful, socio-politically aware AND erudite.

Glad to hear your thoughts!

I think you're totally RIGHT. Everything became homogenized after WWI, as the U.S attitudes toward EVERY walk of life abandoned isolationism & individuality for a "world" view. Guess we helped win the war but lost American identity. If this ever dawn on anyone, everyone but the "Lost genration" writers wouldn't admit it.

Of course, the Depression came along and America on the whole cowed down & waited. Only the arts flourished, absent MONEY. The war gave us all back confidence (AND moeny, but the dumbing-down of America had begun.

The REST . . . well, you know the rest. And, open-minded people retreat to the country or the mountains where they can be FREE, still (and, maybe, build a hotrod or two!). Those who can't retreat anywhere for sanity FIND sanity by . . . builidng hotrods!!!

 

well my contribution obviously doesnt compare to most....specially the sunset. which is one cool car.

but.....
my father got killed in a car wreck a year ago. he was in the middle of redoing the cleanest(they are known for their rust), checker marathon. now the car will be finished soon. it will be our tow vehicle for my fathers scoty seirro(spelling?) camper he also re-did. it will also be my wifes everyday driver. it is a neat little car. i iwhs it would have gotten finished before he died.

i have attatched a picture of one that isnt mine...i dont have any pictures of mine cause its still in peices at my cousins..... being redone.

 

The rarest one I ever ran across was a '67 Fitchbird, which was a Firebird coupe with mods performed by John Fitch and Company (who was more famous for his Fitch Sprint Corvair). The Fitchbirds are rare enough (something like 8 were built) but this particular one was the only one built with an OHC6 motor..... a one of one car at our local cruise night!

 

just when you think you know every cars history up pops a sayers and scovell ambulance .or perhaps another one of a kind SUNSET .i am loving this history lesson.............dave

 

Woodill Wildfire on used car lot, US 1 in Fairless Hills, PA in the early '70s. Too bad I didn't know what it was at the time.

 

Went to Hershey one year in the seventies and brought home a fiberglass orphan called a Victoria. Two seater, roadster, single cylinder two stroke motor (think snowmobile) sold by the Victoria bicycle company made in Germany. Supposedly only two in Canada now?
Was sort of a letdown as we generally always brought home a late 30s ford roadster, touring or something outlandish like Walter P. Chryslers personal 59 Ghia built limo.
Ahhh, those were the days........... My dad bought kool stuff back then.

 

For me it was a lightweight 66 427 Fairlane I found beside a gas station back in the early 80s. Those cars were just starting to become of interest at that time and really weren't that valuable but it was gone by the time I made it back.

 

A 1955 Packard Request. It had a classic 30's Packard grill and was a one-off show car built by packard. It was owned by a Frank King in Portland Oregon in the 50's and 60's. It was his every day driver, but the brakes were lousy and he wrecked it more than once. I got up my courage and knocked on the door in the early 70's to try buying it. (no one was home) It's still around somewhere. Dee Wescott repaired in the 70's. the fiber glass hood was out back of his shop.

 

Mam if it had wings I bet it would fly.

 

Dont know about the Czech cars, but I know the rest isn't right.


Sweden switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right on September 3, 1967.

And a lot of early Italian cars were RHD, eventhough they drove on the right hand side.
I heard that was because it was easyer to see the edge of the road during bad weather when the visibillity was not good.

Edit.

A quick Google search showed Czechoslovakia switched from driving on the left side of the road to the right in '38 / '39 ( and that the Germans did have something to do with it)

 

I saw a Graham last week. Guy got it for free if he would go get it out of the lady's yard...

 

Here's another rare bird I've run across.... or should I say rare snake! One of three 1970 Torino King Cobra prototypes built by Holman-Moody.From what I understand, it was found in a junkyard sporting a standard Torino nose. Only special rear window (which bulges out instead of being concave) gave away the car's origins. The Boss 429 was added during resto.

 

That is correct, but I might add that even when we drove on the cars in Sweden the steering wheel placed at the left. As opposite to UK where they have the steering wheel on the right side. The only cars with the right hand steering in Sweden was cars used by the Swedish mail (and our city buses, they had also right hand steering...).

 

Think it was a 1917 Chevy with the stock v8 it was built with. This was in the local junk yard for many years. Finally a restorer found he said it was very rare model.

 

Here in Austin, in the last few years, I could have driven off a Rambler Marlin for $1000 and driven off a Checker stationwagon with what appeared to be factory sunroofs for $1000..bought my Avanti II here, in 1971 they made 148 of them, specifically to order for customers..the paint and interior colors and options on my car make it the only one like that..traded off a 1954 Chrysler New Yorker stationwagon with a wood interior, found out later they only made 140 of them, Oh well, it had a wrecked front fender and I traded it for a running 63 Chevy II convertable...

 

The off-white fin-tailed car is a '49 BMW 328 Veritas at the Hartung museum N of Chicago and Mr. Hartung will not sell it for any amount of money. The body is indeed by the Spohn Karosserie in Ravensburg, Germany. The car is not a US custom build. Spohn built others using this same tail design into the mid '50s and eventually closed their doors in 1956. They had been in the body business for many decades.

I have known of another Spohn custom that has not seen the light of day for decades. It was in my neighborhood when I was 10 years old and I'm in my '60s now. I took these pics decades ago! Its about a '52-53 Lincoln or Mercury. Back then I couldn't ID the engine.

 

1930sumthin art deco tanker truck.. at the gold king mine in jerome....

 

My friend and his wife were taken away from their wedding in a 1922 Haynes.. Limo? It surely looked like it was meant to haul around people in a luxury setting. Only other Haynes I've ever seen was in the Indianapolis Speedway museum.

 

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