[Amc-list] Cheapo

["Mahoney, John" <jmahoney@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

John Elle's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang link to Bob and Sandy Bahre's Paris Hill car barns (where some of the finest Packards and one of the rarest Studebakers --- not a car, but the actual "Gone with the Wind" carriage that Scarlett O'Hara and Rhett Butler drove --- are found) leads me to think of several stories.   One involves finding hidden secrets for car collecting, another involves finding secret hidden collector cars, and one involves selling something, so since money talks, walk on from the third story.

I have just the car for Elle, for Bahre, or for you.  Oh it's a doozie.

Buy the best brand of car classic at Rambler mentality classic pricing!

Start and finish your ultimate garage project!  Build your own racecar!

Step right up!  Strut your stuff!  Show the world your skill and steel!

Then proudly stand and say:

"He bought it for a song!"

"He brought it to life!"

"He did it all himself!"

"He drives a Duesenberg!"

If you think you can't afford a car like that '31 Model A Indy Special, you're not thinking hard enough.  Put that old block you shoved into a corner to good use.  Do you really need two spare engines?  Click from    

http://tinyurl.com/yse6nw

to see where I'm driving.  What do you think such a car is worth today?

Will it be worth more or less tomorrow?  Is it "rarer" than a '71 Cuda?

Than a '71 Cuda clone?

Than a new Challenger or Camaro that Gmpar will finally start racing in 2009 or 2010?

Will it be worth as much as the GT that Ford stopped racing in '06?

That's for someone else to answer.

I'm just a salesman.

Yes, folks, I have just what you need for your own independents museum.

But you'd better hurry; it's only been on the lot for five or so years.

Yes, it has no whitewalls.

But plenty of engine room.

For you, a price: $22,999.

For anyone else: 23 grand.

http://tinyurl.com/2fw4kv

Nash need not be the only make that is "reasonably priced" after all.

Find a Flanders, snag a Studebaker, and adopt almost anything by AMC.


The first story is complicated, so do tune out now if you're inclined.

The second, however, is payback for reading, so do do what you please.

The photos beginning with  

http://tinyurl.com/2espel

show Dietrich ("Deitrich" is incorrect, as are "Panard" and "Suisa" and "Isota" and "Groser" and "Rolston" [although, at times, both -Rollston- and -Rollson- were correct spellings...], but any car photos are welcome, Duesenberg is not misspelled, and LeBaron bodies are always beautiful), so we'll drive on.

I won't go into design details (Dietrich LeBaron, Dietrich Dietrich, or Dietrich Packard [not to mention Dietrich Other from Brewster to Ford*]) but I will draw "hidden" parallels between Dietrich Studebaker and AMC:

We can buy a Dietrich Body Beautiful without spending an arm and a leg!

Rambler Mentality is an incredible advantage, allied with intelligence!

We can own yesterday's, today's, and tomorrow's classic cars for cheap!

Yes, folks, it's no joke.  Studebaker is no joke.  Nor is Nash Rambler.

But first, I'd better foot a note --- otherwise I'll forget where I am.


*After Walter P's stroke in '38, Dietrich was "asked to leave" Chrysler and he was hired by Checker.  The man who had bodied many of the finest automotive chassis in the 1920s and 1930s was ordered to design welding jigs, overhead conveyers, assembly lines, tank retrievers, and taxicabs.

He worked on the Tucker and reopened his own body shop where he built a few show cars and limos --- one of which you may have seen, as it drove no fewer than four US Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, JFK, and LBJ once) 

http://tinyurl.com/yqjask

http://www.highpointbedandbreakfast.com/img/car-b.jpg

and it influenced the design of several later Presidential conveyances;

http://c.barat.free.fr/lincoln/limousine/61-3.jpg

http://tinyurl.com/2yndan
http://tinyurl.com/28tfnr

http://c.barat.free.fr/lincoln/limousine/69nixon-r.jpg

http://c.barat.free.fr/lincoln/limousine/70ford.jpg

he worked for Kaiser-Frazer, for a French firm, and, finally, for Ford.

His influence on one of the most classic of post-war classics did show.

http://www.lcoc.org/History/images/MARK_II-PROTOTYPE.jpg
http://www.lcoc.org/History/images/1956-MARK_II.jpg

His last job involved music (his wife had managed symphony orchestras): Firebird.  No, not by Stravinsky or by Pontiac but by Gibson: a guitar!

It was a total failure at first, but it was far, far ahead of its time.

That 1964 Dietrich Gibson set a style for the 1970s and beyond: just as had so very many of his 1920s and 1930s Dietrich Whichever auto bodies,  

http://www.guitargonauts.com/pick-36.html

and it still is very much in style today.

http://tinyurl.com/2h39er

Rock on.      

Back to one.

We can buy a Dietrich Body Beautiful without spending an arm and a leg!

Just as we can buy a Body Beauty Buick Riviera by buying a 1967 Marlin, or a Better Built Mustang II King Cobra by buying a 1977 Hornet AMX, or a Bodaciously Bountiful Bonneville by buying a mid-1960s Ambassador, we can buy the best --- and "rarest" --- cars buy buying into independence and by buying independents, from Studebaker to Packard to Nash to AMC.

Of very many similarities between the half of AMC that never joined and the half that did (I don't have time to travel that history path today), the fact that both halves usually gave "more-for-less" is illuminating.

And comparisons between South Bend and Kenosha make worthwhile reading.

Unfortunately, I can't continue to type them today --- I'm out of time.

I'll leave one undone and skip to the dessert course.  Slackers, arise!


And, for those intrepid readers still interested (the rest have either grown restless or nodded off), the promised payback is parked right up your alley.  Actually, it's parked in an alley behind the Bahre's barn.

Two years ago, when Jeff Orwig, the curator of that fine car collection, smiled for that July photo, his -own- auto was also shot for posterity.

It wasn't beautifully restored, it wasn't ready for its close-up, and it wasn't likely to join those Dietrich Packards on display, but it was one design that still is very much in style and is relevant in an AM circle.

Do you know what car body it was?

You will probably never guess it.

Well I have [what else?] a photo.

If someone wants to host it, ask!

I will send you the classic jpeg.

(Actually, as I'll be out-of-touch [what's new about that?] 'til Tuesday or Wednesday, I'll send it to Tom J.  He can tease you a bit longer, or let the classic secret be known.)

Cars are fun, people are funny, and life is a never-ending "class."
When we stop looking, laughing, loving, and learning, life is done.

Can't resist closing without a quote from my undone-one car comparo:

Cars are "clumsy, dangerous, noisy brutes [which] stink to high heaven, break down at the worst possible moments, and are a public nuisance."

John M. Studebaker, ~1910.

"Wheelbarrow Johhny" knew.
_______________________________________________
Amc-list mailing list
Amc-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.amc-list.com/mailman/listinfo/amc-list