what is the rarest car you have come across

Here's a '57 sedan delivery with windows I once owned. Supposedly 1 of 92. It was originally Navy gray in color and had an (SP) paint code (special paint). Another unusual feature was the deluxe '56 interior.

One of the rarest cars I've seen is the 1957 Corvette SR2. 1 of 1
*EDIT* 1 of 2

 

Borgward Isabella.
Used to see one everyday last year on my way to work and came across another in a wrecking yard late last year.

 

I found one of those also, behind an old house about 2 miles from my house... It was a '54 Kaiser Darrin.....

 

I think it's one of 2, and the other is in the indianapolis motor speedway museum

 

Late 30's Willy 2dr sedan up in Manitoba. No it was not a converted 4dr. It was in a junkyard, had no interior in it and was very obviously all original. I've heard a lot of people swear that they were never made but there it was.

 

I came across the hood of my camaro one time.

 

Almost scored an original 1970 Superbird a couple years ago. Unrestored, needed work but it drove just fine. Guy around the corner had it and he sold it to his buddy for 10 Grand. ON PAYMENTS !!! I offered him 15 Grand cash and he kept telling me "I Don't know"........Kind of a squirrley guy anyway.

 

todd i also owned a 1925 maxwell.sold it last year to a restorer for very little he has three of them .pm me if you want his details.as a kid i owned a simca aronde and used it as a paddock basher(chrysler product i think)a friend nearby also had a simca veddette v8 it was a tiny motor (maybe v8 60)anyone know

 

Im going to look at a "less than $1000" Edsel Roundup 2 dr wagon later today.
There were about 900 made about of them 90 left.

 

The joke at the time was that the "pregnant" '29 Buick had given birth to the '30 Marquette.

-Dave

 

Two yers ago a friend of mine found this car in Yautepec Morelos Mx., it is a Jewett Jupiter i guess, made of aluminuim in a bad conditions no engine.

Besides another friend has his Oldsmobile Pirate 1906 Roadster, if you know more about this Olds let me know.

Finally a Cady 46 Six Doors woodie made for a Mexican ex-president just two were made and for Jim Audrey and the other for Miguel Aleman (the mexican ex-president) this cars keeps in Mx and a friend of mine is the owner, the woodie was in a Marmol mine in Puebla carring the marmol blocks. These are ones of the rarest cars around here. The Lasalle you see here was in Pebble Beach this 2008

Keep in touch
regards from Mex

 

My father and I worked on a 1932 American Steam car. It was a friend of ours car that I believe he bought from a barn in NY.
It was the only one know left to exist from the American Steam Car Company. We traced the car back to the company as far as registration goes. It was a roadster body which is funny becouse the company never sold a roadster, seems as though the car was a rolling test bed which expained some of the extra things that we would find on the car. I had a chance to drive it and all I can say is WOW. dead silence and incredible acceleration from a 6000lb car.

 

I know for two body shells of a 26 and 27 Essex.
One has a rumble seat, the other has a visor over the front window. One of them had door handles and gauge pod, but no interior. The other, I'm not sure about.
There still there, but the guy wanted $1000 a body.. I wanted both to try to make a rod outta the two. but not for me at that price.

 

Saw one of these before

a 96 Whippet.
I don't have the pics of the 69 ZL-1 camaro...on of 69 built. The collector let me sit in this ...still gives me hard thinking about. The car smelt like it was new.
The 62 Catalina AKA "Fire Chief #" also runner up at the 62 Nationals. Still had the slicks on it form that day.
A 62 Super lite weight Ford. 406 with 2 x 4 setup. Only 2 know to exist.
A 63 Dodge superlite weight with a 413 cross ram.
A 57 Fairlane with a 312 s/c factory drag car. with 5o miles on it.
These were not museum cars at the time. I was actually allowed to fire them up and sit in them.

 

My dad has an '08 Model S ford, 35 year restoration and is about 95% done.
sad news is that my dad passed away in October and I don't have space for it.

 

I was in a junkyard last year talking shop with the owner(in his 80's) about the old tin he had laying around. He has a 57' Fuelie vette sitting outside covered in pine needles 6" thick. Car is rough and the rims actually rotted but it's all there. He also has a 1927 Auto Red Bug. Neat little car. Basically a powered buckboard. It runs off of a 6 volt battery and a dodge starter motor. Don't get me started on the other shit he had...

Another fella I know who owns a body shop(since the early 50's) has an "exotic" car collection and I have had the privelige of looking at it once. He has a pair of Duesenburgs. I s complete and partially restored, the other Duesenburg has the original chassis/engine/firewall with the rear half of the towncar body on it that he bought from the original owners driver in Philadelphia in the late 50's when the garage collapsed on it. He has a few Pierce Arrows and a 16cyl Caddy and a Packard Touring car. And yes, Jay Leno knows who he is and has been there a few times... Scary thing is, everything is right next to a Sunoco refinery!!! POOF!

Another local bodyshop owner has Amelia Airhearts 29' Auburn boattail speedster. He found it abandoned in the woods in 1957 while working on the highway near Pomona, NJ(outside of A.C.). Apparently, the car broke down while she was on her way to the airport and she left it there. It is ACD certified with verified ownership to her and he refuses to restore it. He drags it to a show once in a while to rile people up. Half the sheetmetal on the boattail is missing... Somewhere I have a pic of it on the trailer at a show.

 

Rarest car(s):
Circa late '50s/early '60s ... 'bout the time I started paying attention to objects of a mechanical nature. There was a local with a '35(?) Auburn Boattail Speedster under a shed. One of those "it ain't for sale" type of guys.

Local rumor has it he got regular visits from a Harrah's representative to no avail. When I saw the car again several years later the tin shed roof had partially collapsed on the car and it was much the worse for wear ... still not for sale, though.

Never did find out the final outcome .... hopefully someone eventually saved it. More probably it rusted away to nothing. There's a special place in hell reserved for those guys!

Also about that time there was a nice condition Muntz Jet sitting in front of a house for a while. I stopped to marvel at it, but it apparently wasn't cool enough for my then-teenage self, so I never inquired about it. (My opinions on what's "cool" have changed considerably since then!)

AND THEN ... THERE'S THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY!
Surely everyone has at least one of these!

In the Navy, stationed in Puerto Rico in 1968. Cruised into San Juan on a weekend in my ragin' Fiat 600. Stopped at the local Fiat dealer to check out the then-new 124 Spyders. Place was closed on Sunday, but you could look around at will.
On the trade-in lot was a silver '54 Mercedes coupe priced at a princely $1100. Brown leather interior, factory brown leather luggage strapped down in the trunk, the whole schmear. No additional info posted other than the price, but appeared to be ready to drive off the lot.
At that time I was existing on a big $98.00 a month (no shit!) so the $1100 might as well have been a million!
I stole this image off the web to show the type car, (different color of course.) According to the web site, there were only 85 built ... I didn't know that 'til just now.

(Oh yeah, I know I'm wordy. Don't see much sense using 3 or 4 words when a couple hundred will work just as well!)

 

Keep it!

 

Damned used cars!
Who needs them?

 

People get pissed when they look under the rear of my Street stock and find out it is a Buick Regal GNX. I bought it at an inshurance auction for $350 it was torched so restoring it was not much of an option but the torque arm rear suspension is awsome and easy to set up for circle track racing.

Danny

 

I had an Allard for a few years - besides the Excalibur, probably the rarest bird I've owned.

There was a Duesenburg Town Sedan upstairs in an auto shop/parts house at the corner of Pike and Broadway in Seattle. Sat there for years - engine out, but supposedly being worked on periodically. Every square inch of that car was exquisitely manufactured. Big old grey fourdoor body. I kept a few of my cars in their basement and periodically I'd go up and talk to 'the old man' that ran the shop and look at the Duesy. When I lived in Madison Park there was a beautiful M-B 300Sc convertible which was driven on a regular basis. Dash plaque indicated it had been constructed specifically for Bing Crosby - this was back in about 1972 or so. I can attest that the owner at that time was not a Crosby.

"papapa oomah mow mow, papa ooh mow mow"

dj

 

Well, let's see, when I was in Dirty's Eddies junk yard in Pleasant Hill California, back there a number of years ago, there was a Heine-Velox in the yard, complete by needing work, about 15 years later I was in Santa Rosa, appraising a house, when I looked in the shed there was a Heine-Velox chassis there with the engine. Turned out he had bought it fRom Dirty Eddie when the yard closed.
My Brother in Law ran a foreign car Junk yard in San Diego before he died and he came up to Santa Barbara one time to deliver a 35 Auburn Speedster That he had sold for $1,250. Got paid in coins.
When he died he had 10 Mercedes big cars, an Allard, and MB300 gull wing. And a Stutz blackhawk in the garage.
The Allard went for $1200 the MBZ 300 Gullwing for $3,850, and the Stutz was kept for a while and then sold.

I had the Austin Healy 100 lemans, bought it as a repo for $400 had to fix the engine

traderjack

 

My friend has several of the known 24 serial numbers of the 1960 EDSEL convertible. 1 fully restored, 1 almost finished restoration, one ready to be restored, and one in a box.
I am restoring a 1958 Lincoln Mark III convertible. Lincoln re-issued the Mark III years latter making the 1959 a "lost" car.

 

I'm gonna build one of those out of a 1952 220 4 door and build a taildragger out of it (I have two of the 4 doors now)

Supposedly there was a sunroof option that made it onto 13 of the 85, the appearance of cutting up one of those ought to get some MB people riled up

 

1963 Corvette Pininfarina Rodine (Metal bodied Corvette)




1892 Peugeot Vis A Vis...23rd Peugeot built


1898 Leon Bollee 3.25hp 3 Seater Tandem


1940 Cadillac 62 Bohman and Schwartz Convertible Victoria


1930 Jordan Model Z Speedway Ace Roadster

 

I recently purchased a 1928 Falcon Knight model 12, and I know a person who has a 1925 Flint, and one of my friends has a 29 Rugby pickup, here is a picture of the Falcon Knight. looking for doors for it, any leads??

 

1910 back motorcar at a mall show.I will have to scan the pics i have.
It was at a show in orland park,Il. Blacks were made in chicago.

 

The 1930 Jordon at the bottom is very rare. There is a great article about it in this month's CCCA magazine. They made 3 and the owner of this one tracked it down by spying into open garage doors for 15 years in Cleveland where they were manufactured (and where it was rumored to still exist) specifically looking for it. I think he found it in the 80s and it took another 15 years to finally buy it. The other two are thought to be gone.

 

I live in Hagerstown Maryland where the wood spoked boxy Dargan was built. Anyone ever hear of that one? It was real. Closest I've ever gotten to one was on a farm we developed for new homes, and a wagon was built using the frame and wheels of one. But that was 40 years ago before I realized how worthy it was of saving even that much. While we are at it, anyone remember what car was used in the short lived sitcom with Jerry Van Dyke called "My Mother the Car" Only hint you get is that it was a 1928 touring.

 

I recall reading something about the car on the showcard regarding its rarity, didn't realize it was the only one...Stunning car, the dash controls looked to be glass.