The oldest car collection in the US... the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline Mass

The collection has the following
1899 Winton
1900 Rochet-Schneider
1901 Winton Bullet
1903 Gardner-Serpollet
1905 Electromobile
1906 CGV
1907 FIAT
Powerful and bold, the Andersons’ 1907 Fiat was the supercar of its time.  Even the motto of the automobile, No Hill Can Stop Me, reflected its strength, for many automobiles at this time had difficulty going up hills.  This 11-liter, 6-cylinder Fiat boasted a strength of 65 horsepower; only 86 were manufactured.  Bought by the Andersons while they were on vacation in Europe, the car was then shipped to New York to be re-bodied by the Hol-Tan Company.
1908 Bailey Electric
1910 Panhard et Levasor
1912 Renault
1915 Packard Twin Six
1924 Renault Torpedo
1925 Luxor Taxi
1926 Lincoln
and small sidenote, the museum collection (in a 1888 carriage house) was voted as one of the Top 10 Boston Museums for a wedding

This year, the Pebble Beach Concours has invited the Larz Anderson museum to bring the 1907 Fiat, and it needs a couple of tires. http://larzanderson.org/1907fiat/

You'll understand that car museums in Massachusetts are off the beaten path of tourists, and door donations might be a bit down lately... but the car is IMPRESSIVE! It has been a feature of the collection that has been open to the public for viewing.... get this, since 1927. The Museum was founded in 1949, and might be the oldest car museum in America that is still open.

 It just needs a couple of dollars to get tires.

The 1907 Fiat was last was operated in 1919, and the workshop of  "The Old Motor" David is getting it ready to be shipped to Pebble Beach, read about that at http://theoldmotor.com/?p=50392 .

David is one of the few who are expert at brass era and classics, and is buying one tire, handling all the work of fixing the rims, handling the lubrication (etc etc etc) but is not set to sponsor more than the one tire as they are about $500 apiece.

Follow this link directly to the Larz Anderson website were you can donateby credit card or mail. If you donate by mail enclose a note that it is for the 1907 Fiat. The cost for the transportation out and back has already been taken care of by a donation and The Old Motor has also donated all of its time and facilities to help them out.  Please remember that any amount you can help with will count and add up.

The rear tires were close to impossible to get off the without harming the rims. We could have cut them off, but chose instead to save them as they are part of the history of the car. Both rear tires being 8-ply truck tires, have a side walls that are over 1/2″ thick and being 80-90 years old are dried out and very inflexible. It was a long and very hard job to get them off intact, without bending or harming the rims, but with some patience it was eventually accomplished. Very soon it will be on all four new tires and tubes and we will show you more of this fine cars features in photos.

In the mean time, please contribute to the Larz Anderson Auto Museum if you can, as they count totally on donations to carry on their educational mission. In the future The Old Motor is going to continue to support them and we are working with them to help start a Preservation Fund, which can be used for the other needs of the core Anderson Collection of Automobiles in the future.

I'd love to be there when they fire up the motor for the first time in 93 years.

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rare, unique, or one of a kind...? An unmarried beautiful young woman fashion designer with an impressive inherited car collection, in So Cal

Setorii Pond, was raised by her grandparents, Robert Pond (Navy pilot turned business man) and Jo (Italian benefactor of beautiful genetics) and grew up with the cars. “ My Grandparents and I collected the cars together as a family; each car has a fun, heartfelt and unique story all its own. Some of my favorite cars are the Ferrari 250 TR, Austin Martin AR1, Tucker, and Jaguar XJ13."

Some of the more interesting (at face value, not kowing the stories behind them) cars in the collection, a 1938 Bugatti T57C, a 1931 Auburn boattail speedster, a Muntz Jet, a Fiat Jolly, a Delorean, a 1961 Ferrari 250 Testarossa, a couple Ferrari Daytonas, a 1967 GT40, the 1926 Rickenbacker Super Sport boat tail, a 1943 Studebaker Weasel (WW2 military transport) , a Tucker and a Vector W8

http://thepondcollection.com/ for the photos and listings of the cars

I had misssed in my looking through Driven.UrbanDaddy.com that they had posted about Setorri's book twice  http://driven.urbandaddy.com/2012/03/15/the-art-of-setorii/ and http://driven.urbandaddy.com/2012/02/28/the-collector-2/

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For every object, there is a collector... this guy is hooked on vintage street lights

found on http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/2012/04/vintage-streetlight-collection.html via http://thenewcaferacersociety.blogspot.com

Joe Maurath's collection focuses on streetlights and insulators, but he's also got high voltage signs, switches, and police call boxes. Movie companies rent them from time to time to use in period films. http://www.vintagestreetlights.com/  and click on My Collection (5th link on the left down) but the photos are small and about useless to see the collection. A few photos of sinle lights are allright. 

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the Riverside International Automotive Museum, not easy to find, but worth the time to tour

 the museum owns, and restores as well as repairs race cars.  This is the famous Gurney Eagle

 I'll go back and get better photos of the race cars one day, but the lesson you can get from looking at them is how fast design changed after the 70's. Not much is different pre 1960's from decade to decade, but as soon as wings and downforce came into play, a lot changed quick

 Above is a Vector. There were a couple of movies that had them featured... they were made in So Cal, but it wasn't a good business plan, they made them of expensive materials in some ways, liek carbon fiber, but the windows can't open, the interior is really cheap GM stuff like switches etc... and half way through building them, they could no longer get the engines they'd been using and switched to Lamborghini engines

 Tamerlane Thoughts blogspot toured here a year or two ago, and did a much better post about this collection of Maserati, the largest in So Cal I have no doubt

 Ol Yeller 3 ahead of the Cobras and european cars

 Great photos sometimes have great stories... like the above... that is a fridge or bbq grill... in place of the window netting you might be used to seeing. McCluskey arrived at the racetrack to learn that he'd be required to have some form of restraining material in the window... so he went and found what you see above, and put in it in time for the race. I love racing stories.

 Here is what driving to it looks like, that dead end above, well don't go that far. Take the left turn

 Past this building labeled 833

 Past this one labeled 815... it and the previous 833 will be on your right, as well as the museum below, and it blends into the surrounding builds really well. Why the camoflage? Don't know.

http://www.riversideinternational.org/

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A private museum in Canada gets a bit of publicity for it's exquisite automobiles

 The Al Johnson collection in Aldergrove, North of Washington State, in the Vancouver region

 A 1930 Cord Cabriolet with Woodlight headlights (I love those)

A rare Diana, of 1927, was the first car to start his collection

Story and photos from http://www.vancouversun.com/cars/Barn+houses+vintage+vehicles+from+unheralded+makers/6276202/story.html via the amazing and diverse Vintage Racing League newsletter http://multibriefs.com/briefs/vrl/index.php

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You can learn a lot from car guys, even ones that collect Lancias, in Pennsylvania... cool story from Car and Driver via the Vintage Racing League

I had no idea so many parts were the same in Ferraris and Lancias of the 60's

Mike Kristick: "The Lancia people tell me not to sell any tool kits to Ferrari guys. They’re the same pieces as Ferrari tool kits, but they keep telling me that the Ferrari guys will pay three times as much. The fuel pump for a Lancia Flaminia is the same as a Ferrari’s; the Fulvia ignition is the same as a Ferrari’s. The Ferrari parts guys buy up all of the Lancia parts and jack up the prices to the Ferrari guys."

What began as a search for parts for the Fulvia has become, three decades later, what may be the largest inventory of salvaged and new-old-stock (NOS) Lancia parts on the continent.
http://www.caranddriver.com/features/ancient-grease-lancia-life-support-feature?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+caranddriver%2Fblog+%28Car+and+Driver%29

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Dean Weller turns old automobile parts and sheet metal into works of art in this 1918 Model T Garage

 Not open to the public, but located in DeSoto Kansas, the sign in the window says Grandpas Garage and Body Shop. Dean is a grassroots artist and retired 31 years ago, but he has been creating nearly a vehicle a year 

 you can possibly read the front license plate, 1912 Mercer raceabout, but it's a replica, and everything except the lights ,was handmade by Dean on the frame and drivetrain of a 1930 Pontiac. Only 20 originals exist.

 1932 Buick model 66S 4 passenger special coupe - straight 8

 the yellow boat tail once was a '47 chev truck hood

 Above, 1921 Model T pie wagon

read about this automotive artist and restorer at http://www.kansastravel.org/grandpasoldfordgarage.htm

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the King of Sweden has a car collection, 1966 GT 350 Shelby Mustang, GTO, AC Cobra, and so on

thanks to Licolncadillac for letting us know! For a short post see http://grandprix63.blogspot.com/2009/05/raggarkung-for-sverige-i-bilen.html

Like many members of the Royal Family, the King has a keen interest in automobiles. He owns several Porsche 911s, a vintage Volvo PV444 a Ferrari 456M GT, a Shelby AC Cobra, 1966 Shelby GT350, and BMW M3 CSL, one of only 1,500.

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The private car collection of Lee Roy Hartung was auctioned off

1936 Lincoln Zephyr custom sedan has an unusual dual nose and shows 19,600 miles on the odometer.
Credit: Tudor Van Hampton for The New York Times
http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/31/piece-by-piece-the-hartung-collection-is-dismantled/

The eclectic Lee Roy Hartung Collection of automobiles, motorcycles and memorabilia was gathered over the past 50 years by the Chicago collector.

Mr. Hartung dealt in scrap metal, sold used cars and maintained a hauling business that aided his hobby. After a garage fire destroyed an antique bicycle collection, Mr. Hartung in 1972 built a 10,000-square-foot barn on his four-acre property and spent the next several decades stuffing it with treasures

Mr. Hartung operated the space as a museum by appointment only. In it, he stored about 80 cars, 40 motorcycles, 100 bicycles and thousands of pieces of automobilia. He had what experts called one of the most complete collections of license plates in the United States

A 1912 Harley-Davidson Single-Cylinder Belt Drive, believed to be among the best 1912 examples in the world, brought $115,000.
original bicycles were highlighted by a like-new 1934 Iver Johnson, an Elgin Bluebird and a Schwinn Aerocycle, which individually sold for $5,175 each.

Lee Hartung Collection Auctions America by RM – Top 10 Auction Results

1. 1911 Flying Merkel Twin Belt Drive – $201,250
2. 1950 Veritas BMW – $195,500

 The 1949 Veritas was built by BMW and bodied by Spohn, the German coachworks company. It was believed to have been sent back to Spohn in the ’50s to receive tail fins and other retrofits to echo General Motors’ 1951 LeSabre concept car.
 3. 1950 Edwards R-26 Roadster – $143,750
4. 1912 Harley-Davidson Single-Cylinder Belt Drive – $115,000
5. 1911 Pope Model H – $83,375
6. 1909 Sears – $66,125
7. 1938 Indian Four-Cylinder Rigid Frame – $64,400
8. 1926 Henderson Deluxe Fire Department Motorcycle – $63,250
9. 1915 Harley-Davidson Single-Cylinder Two-Speed – $57,500
10. 1904 Fabrique-Nationale Four-Cylinder Shaft Drive – $55,200
http://www.sportscardigest.com/lee-hartung-auctions-america-by-rm-auction-results/

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