History We ALL Love a DARE! PIX of TRULY Extinct Makes?

Citroen refused to have it's car bodied with this kind of material, so he wouldn't sell chassis to the coachbuilder who were building such cars, still there was one who managed to buy running chassis and bodied them with the "Moleskine" making Andre Citroen furious, after all he was communicating on the strongness of his all steel body cars...
I'll look up for more infos on these if you're interested.

 

please do.
steven

 

Another instance of a mass-producer rubbishing a technique that obviates the need for mass-production ...

As I've said before, unitary construction is political-economic.

I love Weymann bodies, by the way. I intend to try one of my own on the '31.

 

Here's two Weyman bodied cars that are for sale right now over here:
A 1927 Chenard & Walker Z5

and a 1926 Peugeot 172 R

And finally to stick with the title of the thread, the Bugatti Royal coach weymann that had a sad ending in November 1929

defunct obviously

 

If anyone is interested, there is a weymann bodied 28 Stutz for sale in Conn needing a full restoration. Mostly complete with a nice original interior. It's the open rear quarter style so not the jazziest. You can pm me and I'll send you the seller's contact info.

 

yn Monte Carlo Limousine <center>On the Stutz DV32 chassis.</center>1930 Graham-Paige six cylinder featuring Weymann body.

 

1929 Weymann Monte Carlo Limousine on the Stutz DV-32 Chassis

 

1930 Hispano-Suiza 27hp Barcelona, with coachwork by Weymann

 

29 is too early for DV32. Looks like a "M" chassis.

 

Very much the sort of thing I was initially looking at for the '31 project (it moved on very slightly, though).

 

Another rare Weymann bodied automobile:




http://www.automobiliaauctions.com/pages/auction2010.html

 

I had mentioned this one elsewhere before. Note the complex separate trunk.

 

Here's a bit of history about Weymann bodies and even some diagrams of their construction.
http://www.coachbuilt.com/bui/w/weymann/weymann.htm

 

chrisp, is this the Citroen in question?



Worth a look:
http://company.klassieker.net/coscr...34481&_UserReference=EA94BA14B9AAE563D17F3D11


(PS. My Nan used to have a 1932 Citroen C6, painted yellow with black guards. She always sat in the back.
The car had been purchased in 1932 by an order of Catholic nuns. They sold it for scrap in the late 1940's. My uncle spotted it and talked Nan into buying it. The only thing wrong with the car was the fabric insert in the roof was worn out. My uncle was a plumber so he got sheetmetal to replace the fabric and had the interior rooflining replaced. Nan had the car until the late 1960's. I wanted to buy it, but so did other relatives. So, Nan being Nan, she sold it off to some farmer who stripped it down so he could use the chassis to make a farm trailer. End of car..... ).

 

I didn't get a chance to scan the picture I have of a B14 taken in 1926, it had some funky license plate on it which made me think of northern Europe, this C6 being in the Netherland... And knowing that Citroen was opposing any sale if he thought it could be bodied in moleskine. But I couldn't get any info of who was or were the coachbuilders of the weymann Citroens.
here's a 1928 weymann B14 that is in France.

 

Here, I believe is QUITE a find. I've had the one-off 1920 Hunter on my short list for a long time. Multiple sources have confirmed that there was JUST ONE built. Doubtless, it is EXTINCT, but a PHOTO finally surfaced -- with a couple of tidbits of solid info! HAMB newbie LoriJo came through with some apparently UNIQUE ephemera confirming the car's one-time existence. I decided to show you all pretty much the whole exchange, from the thread, "Photos taken before WW2 - history in black and white."




<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5; COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->Quote:
<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset" class=alt2>Originally Posted by jimi'shemi291
LGS said: The Standard Catalog says that maybe only a prototype was built of the 1920 Hunter.

Thanks, LGS, gotta be a rare to extinct bird, the Hunter. And a photo or ad drawing would probably be near impossible to find! Most lists I looked at yesterday didn't even list it. And one or two that did had NO background info at all.

I envy those with a copy of the Standard Catalogue!

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

LoriJo of Western NY State said in early May '11:
I believe this is that rare bird you were looking for. I just hope they post alright (I'm a newbie).
<!-- / message --><!-- attachments -->
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Hi, Lori Jo, and welcome to the HAMB! Read your profile; it's great when a couple BOTH work on their hotrods and antiques TOGETHER!

Where in the world did you unearth the photos, stock certs and notes about the 1920 Hunterautomobile??? Rare BIRD? If this is what it appears to be, yup, I'd say: IF you didn't find a Dodo, you HAVE at least found PROOF that it existed!

THANKS for a good FIRST HAMB post, LoriJo!

 

AJ; Are you trying to tell me that I can't believe everything I find on the Internet? Imagine that? Reminds me of a certain Graham that doesn't exist but does. Somebody goofed on the Stutz and it wasn't me. Thanks for the correction.

http://my.net-link.net/~dcline/limocls7.htm

 

Reminds me a lot of the Gordon Buehrig Model "A"

http://www.restorodstogo.com/2011/03/good-year-disc-wheels-for-gordon.html

 

Then there was a neatly done replica of a 1930 Ford Model A that famed designed Gordon Buehrig made. Owner Bob Waight explained, &#8220;This is a recreation &#8211; they don&#8217;t know where the original one is. The guy that started this in 1978 went to Gordon Buehrig himself when he was alive, and got blueprints on the car, because he wanted to build it. So he got the blueprints, which I have here now. He got this much done,&#8221; he said as he showed me a photo of the bare wood framing for the rear of the body. &#8220;And his friend chopped the top and did the cowl, and that&#8217;s where they quit.

Last year, a year ago, I took it to John Faulhaber up in Dubuque, Iowa and in seven months, he went from that skeleton to this. The chassis was mostly done, he didn&#8217;t have to do much to that, but he made this steel panel that goes around the back. He did it all in his garage. You won&#8217;t see a seam. The color is as close to the original color in 1930 as I could get. I like to show it off, and I&#8217;m not denying it.&#8221; So he should. The front of the car looks pretty standard, but the view from the rear is clearly a well done one-off. Bob opened the door and said, &#8220;There&#8217;s a jump seat in the back. The original car had a rumble seat. He took the whole back of the body off and threw it away, and made that wood framework similar to the original one. The jump seat was out of something else, I don&#8217;t know what it was out of. I&#8217;ve had up old cars for 40 years and I&#8217;ve had more fun with this one. It&#8217;s been the most fun, but the most work to keep it clean. I&#8217;m not good at that cleaning business. I don&#8217;t wash it, I&#8217;ve got to dry clean it.&#8221;

http://02a1392.netsolhost.com/mcvcg/2011/04/25/the-classics-and-chrome-car-show-for-2011/

More on the Buehrig "A";

http://forums.aaca.org/f190/interesting-model-project-239293.html

 

There seems to be be two replicas of the Buehrig Model "A";

I have built a replica of a 1930 Ford Model A Cabriolet that Gordon Buehrig modified into a Victoria Convertible in 1930-32. He described he used 15&#8221; &#8220;experimental&#8221; Goodyear disk wheels and tires, I have attached a photo of the original car with these wheels mounted. See post 5126) I have been unable to locate any of these wheels for sale to use on my car, and have used 16&#8221; Kelsey Hayes wires with aluminum wheel disks instead to recreate the look.

Jack
Vancouver, Washington

http://www.restorodstogo.com/2011/03/good-year-disc-wheels-for-gordon.html

 

Dualcab Conversions on Chev and Ford "Blitz":

These are not extinct, but they are now quite rare.

"In the late 40s and 50s, an unknown number of CMP vehicles were acquired and modified to suit linesman's needs by the PMG. Surviving vehicles are almost all Chevrolet C15 models with extended chassis, although they also used some Fords."



"This is the standard C15 based version with extended chassis, fitted with ladder racks. The cabs were coachbuilt with wind up side windows and roomy cabs seating 6. The original spare wheel carrier has been retained."


http://www.oldcmp.net/PMG_1.html



"A weed spraying crew load up from their C15."



"A Ford F30 based unit seen in Dandenong, 1973."



"These pictures were taken in 2003 by Stuart McDonald in Western Victoria showing a fairly intact cab on a C15 extended chassis version. This had been refitted with a water tank and used by a Country Fire Authority brigade."



http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=3484

 

SUNROOFCORD, would you repeat all that on my Coachbuilt early Ford thread? We've had the Buehrig Model A there, but some further documentation would be nice, too.

 

Since we recently got on the subject of FIRSTS, here's the FIRST
electric traffic signal in the world, Aug. 5, 1914, Cleveland, Ohio,
Euclid Ave. at 105th Street. Notice the little booth on the side-
walk at left; an officer would sit there and operate the signal lights
manually (no automatically timed switch box). This is on the site
of RGVOldCars.com. This is the site of a bunch of Rio Grande
valley area old-car enthusiasts, and the majority of the photos are
from Texas, all the way from the gulf to north Texas. They have
a ga-zillion vintage pix.

 

After the Crash of '29, push came to shove for a number of GM makes. Hold-over makes, and many companion cars, that had filled every price point, no longer made economic sense in the leaner marketing strategy GM was forced to follow.

One old-time make that became terminally old-hat was Oakland, around since 1907. Like Essex, the relatively heavy Oakland had acquired a passe aura -- and hit-miss sales -- even before the '29 models were issued, albeit with an all-new V-8 engine!!! By January '31, the announcement came that Oakland would wind down. At the auto shows, most Oaklands on display were re-badged as Pontiacs (which also offered the 80-horse Oakland 251-CID V-8 on some models). Though Pontiacs were officially still produced by the Oakland Motor Car Co., Oakland as an entity was disappearing into the Pontiac line -- perhaps a more graceful end than the fate accorded many makes in that era?

The last of the Oakland-made V-8s were used up in '32 Pontiac models, given that an all-new Pontiac straight-8 was on the way. Introduced in 1933 Pontiacs, the Poncho straight eight would enjoy a 22-year flight. In fact the '54 Packards and Pontiacs were the end of the line for the U.S. production straight-8 breed.




Some internal works of the Oakland V-8.

 

Now, I had several reasons for the first post. '31 Oaklands aren't necessarily even on the darn-scarce list, but when was the last time you saw one? Or, likewise, one of these, er, uh, unique V-8s???

So I have a couple of questions -- and, maybe, you all will want to ask some of your OWN?

(1) Anybody present know some background on the internals in this motor, besides the obvious stuff like the 5-to-1 comp. ratio, ya know? Do we call this side-valve, horizontal-valve, what? I do know that it was a plant that -- like a Packard V-12 -- required close maintenance attention. So, maybe the sophistication was a net negative among an increasingly practical consumer group? (Hence, the hurry-up program to develop a new straight-8 for subsequent Pontiacs?)

(2) Anyone got any more PHOTOS of this engine -- assembled and in component form?

(3) Oakland was purposely eased out of the footlights as '31 progressed. Yet, some believe that straggler Oaklands WERE sold in 1932! One source presumes these would have been titled as '31s, all. From my reading on how registrars worked in that era, I feel there's a good chance a few registrars in some states would have registered them as "new" '32 cars. That's only rational, especially since, surely, many owners wouldn't want to show their "year-old" car. Yikes! SO, does anybody know of an Oakland, registered as a 1932 model??? Now THAT would be a very rare car, indeed!

(4) Lastly, does anyone know of a V-8-powered '32 Pontiac still around? This, TOO, would be pretty scarce!



FlickR member Dok1 (Don O'Brien) posted this nice shot of a '31 Oakland V-8 from a show
in Portsmouth, Ohio. THANKS to Don and FlickR!


I haven't had time yet to look far into the site below, but it covers a fella from Oklahoma who fell hard for Pontiac/Oakland as a teen and, well, STAYED addicted! He's moved his personal collection to Pontiac, MI, from Oklahoma and has apparently created a can't-miss "museum" for fellow Poncho nuts! (I hesitate to say museum, because the term has a usual connotation of "static." There's way too much ENERGY at this place to be labeled a museum! LOL

Pontiac-Oakland museum vehicles begin to arrive
www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_be02e986-776b-11e0-b0bf-0... -

 

Post #5133 Oakland:

Jimi,

Hugh Venables, Melbourne, Australia has answered on the "pontiaczone" site -

http://www.pontiaczone.com/forum/showthread.php?t=20048

This is just a copy of his initial response:

"....................... A 1930-32 Oakland-Pontiac V8 has pressure fed mains, big ends, piston pins, cam bearings, timing chain and rocker shaft. The distributor and oil pump drive is in the middle of the rear cam bearing and both ends of that bearing have separate pressure feeds.

The mains and big ends are babbited but have great length to spread the load and are very reliable. Ira Vail built one for Claude Burton to drive in the 1930 Indy 500. It qualified at 96 MPH. It's average speed for the race was 86 MPH (from memory) and it was in 11th place when the race ended.

It is a fascinating engine. It is essentially a side valve engine but the valve stems all lie in a horizontal plane across the top of the engine. The valves are rocker operated and there are roller cam followers. It is 1/16" oversquare. The head gaskets start at the top of the engine vertically over the valve heads then bend 45° across the piston tops. It was intended to be a cheap engine so it has a flat plane crank. Flat plane crank V8s vibrate so Oakland came up with a very ingenious way of isolating the vibration from the car by mounting the engine on leaf springs and then preventing the mounting springs from becoming excited at critical frequencies with a clever mechanism called the "synchronizer". They do not exhibit any vibration when driven. They are a wonderful car which is why I've been a fan for 35 or so years. John Felder's roadster has done 50,000 miles since he bought it ten years ago and is competing in Targa Tasmania for the ninth time at the moment.
Hugh Venables, Melbourne, australia."



Further on in the discussion, Mr Venables gives considerably more information - numbers, even sound of exhaust note. Well worth a read.

 

Very cool! I DD a 31 Pontiac in the summer and I often wonder what it would be like with the Oakland V8.

 

Here you go Jimi; 1930 Oakland V-8 owned by John Kugler in Wisconsin. There was also an article on a '32 Pontiac V-8 in the latest AACA magazine that the fellow has owned since 1953. And a fellow in Brainerd, Mn. used to have a Blue with Black fenders '32 Pontiac V-8. He's no longer with us, so I don't know where the car is now. Not the same one as in the AACA magazine.

 

1932 Pontiac V-8

 

Feature Article from Hemmings Classic Car

August, 2005 - David Traver Adolphus

1931 Oakland V-8 Custom Sedan

The rarity of a V-8-powered Oakland makes restoration a complex challenge


Additional photos from this story: Click image to view larger

• 
• 
• 

There are those who, even today, say that the Oakland name is still with us--Pontiac was developed as a companion model to Oakland in 1926, and when the lines were combined after 1931, some feel it was the higher-priced Oakland name that should have carried on. Unfortunately, there wasn't much room in the General Motors lineup for high-end V-8s after the stock market crash of 1929, and they went the way of so many nameplates in the 1930s.

This 1931 V-8 301 Custom Sedan was lucky not to have been badged a Pontiac itself. Oakland sales had been hit-or-miss for years, and the decision to fold the company into Pontiac may have been made as early as 1929, despite the name selling its one-millionth car in March of that year. At the New York Auto Show early in the winter of 1931, any Oaklands on display were branded as Pontiacs, and fewer than 15,000 were produced with the Oakland name before production ended in July. Any remaining Oaklands delivered through 1932 were probably titled as 1931s. Some 600 or so remaining V-8 Oakland engines were installed in Pontiacs through 1932.

That rarity makes restoring a late-model Oakland a particular challenge, and this tale started in 1964 when a nearly complete but ragged Oakland sedan in red primer, originally from Poland, Michigan, rolled into a garage in Three Rivers. Joseph Tironi owned a 1929 Essex, and says he "saw this old dude here with the sidemounts and thought it could really look classic." The first thing he did was fire it up to see if it ran, and driving around the block, got a ticket for unlicensed operation.

Tironi tinkered with it for a while, but decided it needed too much work to restore, and as he says, "I was a shoeshine man, not a grease monkey." Daunted by the scope of the project, "I tried to sell it and got laughed at," he chuckles. When he ran out of storage space, he moved it into a barn where the formerly good metal body rusted significantly. Fortunately, the barn's owner offered to rebuild the engine during this period and, as Joseph says, "did it perfect--gorgeous engine."

Eagle Motors of Three Rivers, Michigan, eager to enter the old-car business, took over the project a few years later and embarked on what ended up being a three-year restoration. "Biggest mistake I ever made," says Tironi, who during the wait bought a 1930 Oakland coupe through Hemmings so he "could have something to play with. I was in love with that stupid four-door, but was waiting so long for it to get done." While the restoration was ultimately successful, many of the elements had to be farmed out to more experienced shops, at great expense.

Construction of the 301 sedan is steel by Fisher over a wooden skeleton mounted to the chassis via wooden sill plates. Any restoration will almost certainly include rebuilding at least part of this wooden structure, and if it is too rotted to make measurements, it may have to be essentially a trial-and-error process. To remove the weakened body from the frame, temporary wood scaffolding was built inside the cabin to allow it to be moved while minimizing the risk of bending. Fisher used primarily oak for this framing structure, with ash appearing occasionally. Open cars were Stuart-bodied and had a different skeleton. Highly accurate carpentry is required to create doorframes that match door skins, body openings and the frames while fitting correctly into the wooden jamb. If the chassis is correct and true, it should be used as a template on which to build up the wooden structure, starting with the sill plates or stringers that bond body to frame. If the chassis is unavailable (i.e., being painted) or out of true, the homemade steel sawhorses used here serve well, but a perfectly flat floor is vital for later bodywork. The ultimate straightness of the body will be determined almost entirely by this arrangement.

Even after you have a frame setup developed, major hurdles remain. As with any wood-framed car of this era, specialized tools and jigs were originally used to create complicated shapes. Because tolerances are very tight, wood must be seasoned thoroughly to ensure that later shrinking does not compromise door fit, panel adjustment and hood clearance. Major structural elements are two-inch full thickness oak that must be sourced either from furniture suppliers or custom milled. Oak of that size will require literally years of drying before it is dimensionally stable enough to be assembled into the frame.

After constructing the frame, it should sit indoors, loosely assembled, for at least another year to assure it will not warp later on. It is crucial to build the two wooden sides to a virtual centerline, as the hood and radiator fit will depend on their alignment. A rod from the radiator frame to the firewall allows some adjustment, but the front end will only fit if everything matches up properly to begin with. The fit of the long, louvered hood is also dependent on the cowl. Door hardware is inset into large plank frames and fit, under the best of circumstances, is difficult and repeated tries are necessary to achieve the close tolerances required. Steering wheels are also composed of many small mortised sections and are quite difficult to repair.

Even master carpenters may find some of the joints daunting, as double- and even triple-compound mortise and tenon appear at the intersection of curved joints. All woodwork is carved rather than bent, with the exception of the roof. Screwing rather than gluing allows more flexibility, resulting in fewer squeaks as the car moves.

Traditional cloth-over-horsehair seats are borne by another complicated wood structure and are prone to rust in the metal components and rot in the organic materials. Along with the fabric roof and full cloth interior, interiors will require more than average sewing and upholstery skills. Tironi had the interior completely redone in original fabric by a professional upholsterer.

The dash is painted metal and features speedometer and odometer, oil, gas and amp gauges flanked by switches for the headlamps, choke and a coincidental transmission lock. A number of optional gauges such as a thermostat and clock were available and would have been installed along with a cigar lighter to the right of the main panel.

The Oaklands were finished in a somewhat unattractive palette of lacquer colors, with this two-tone green being a recreation in lacquer of the original factory paint scheme. The Oakland Eagle ornament, available for 1930 and 1931, was one of a large number of popular options that include the chrome radiator screen seen here. This was suggested to dealers as a way to dress up older models languishing on their lots.

John Armstrong, 1920-1931 Oakland Technical Advisor for the Pontiac-Oakland Club International, says the most difficult items to find in any later Oakland are the dash knobs, having himself spent 15 years acquiring them. Made of cheap pot metal, they almost universally disintegrate, and there are neither any stock of N.O.S. parts nor any manufacturer of replicas. "The Oakland store is closed," he says. Tironi spent many years acquiring the correct wheels, interior and exterior door handles, and ultimately bought a complete 1931 drivetrain from which he took the steering wheel, clutch and other parts. His greatest challenge, the radiator and chrome grille, were eventually found at Hershey.

The Oakland is fairly conventional in these areas, and these are challenges faced by any restorer of cars of this era, but the Oakland V-8 is another matter. Introduced late in 1929 and replacing Oakland's renowned "All-American" L-head straight-six, the new V-8 engine was a product of Oakland engineer Benjamin H. Anibal and features a unique cam-driven "synchronizer." Driven within the engine on one end by a special lobe of the central chain-driven camshaft, this spring-loaded pivoting rod passes out of the block and is attached to the frame. It is designed to rock the leaf-spring-suspended engine block almost imperceptibly against the frame rail to dampen vibrations from uneven firings, and while it does work in principle, combined with a very wide "Vee" and 180-degree crank, the Oakland can produce an odd shimmy at speed that is more heard than felt. It emits an almost loping exhaust rumble reminiscent of a muscle car with a hot cam, that is an accurate indicator of the strength of the engine. Adjustment of the synchronizer allows a certain degree of flexibility in tuning out vibration, but most operators still report a buzz or roughness at certain speeds when it is subtly out of phase with other cycles. Wear of the cam driving this shaft will make it impossible to have any semblance of smoothness, and the condition of the very flexible engine mounts is also integral to vibration control.

According to Anibal, who started his career with Oldsmobile in 1909, the original synchronizer was invented in the GM research Labs under Charles Kettering by GM researchers Caleb "Bob" Summers and William H. "Bill" Manning, who were responsible for the development of the harmonic balancer and worked extensively on the Oakland V-8. The engine block itself is famously durable and lends itself well to performance modifications. An active Oakland community in Australia races Oakland V-8s to this day and can be a good source of parts.

The Oakland V-8 has a reputation for unreliability, but Oakland Owners Club International Technical Director and Oakland engine guru Wayne Koffel says that the problems found in Oaklands can usually be traced to lax maintenance, specifically neglected oil changes. In particular, camshaft roller bearings are lubricated via a pinhole opening, and poor-quality oil can easily lead to the bearings seizing. Once this happens, they wear a groove in the shaft, often leading owners to adjust tappets and valves to compensate for this wear. The cam lobes are fairly soft and will wear with time, but not notably more so than other contemporary engines. The cooling system also has a bad reputation, but again these problems can to a large extent be ameliorated by rigorous maintenance. The Oakland/Pontiac V-8 uses one of the earliest in-block thermostats in the left cylinder head. It can be a problem, and Koffel recommends removing it if overheating occurs regularly. Exhaust is routed between the number three and five cylinders on this side, contributing to heat buildup in the block.

Fortunately, Oakland dates to before the introduction of leaded gasoline, and no internal modifications are required for modern use with modern fuel. The large single-barrel Marvel semi-downdraft carburetor can be a weak link, but it can be replaced with an easily removable Tillotson or similar true downdraft model carburetor for modern driving conditions.

Even with good maintenance, problems such as overheating in traffic can occur, so when disassembling the engine, it is important to look for piston damage, a stretched timing chain, burned valves and other signs of high-temperature operation. Soft babbitt bearings are particularly vulnerable to wear, so a vigilant eye, not to mention constant flow of clean oil, is required.

Unfortunately, almost nothing outside the engine is shared between the 1931 Oakland and any other Oakland, including the transmission, axle, driveshaft, brakes or wheels. This includes body and trim pieces right down to the door handles. It does share some parts with the 1932 Pontiacs, as the 1930 Oakland does with the 1931 Pontiacs, the features of the higher-priced model remaining exclusive for at least a year before trickling down. Amusingly, some of the parts that do appear in other models include clutch plates and a C-pin in the differential, which, according to Armstrong, GM appears to use to this day.

By 1930, GM was offering V-8 engines in Cadillac, La Salle, Viking and Oakland, with Oakland half of what the next-highest-priced Viking cost. But at $995, it was only $150 more than Pontiac, and Pontiac was outselling its parent seven to one. The Depression market just couldn't support that kind of competition, and it was Oakland, not the spin-off Pontiac, which folded up. In 1933, Ben Anibel would again participate in the development of an eight-cylinder engine for GM, and this time Pontiac would have its own straight-eight, an engine that would last another 22 years until the arrival of the small-block OHV V-8.
<hr> Owner's View

Clayton Hamilton, current owner who purchased this Oakland restored by Joseph Tironi, had a very simple reason for wanting an Oakland: "I just wanted a car with sidemounts, and I never had a car with sidemounts." Combined with the 301's scarcity and quality, it was a natural fit for an enthusiast with democratic tastes. As an owner of several Model A Fords, pre-war Buicks, a 1946 Mercury and a Mercedes, Clayton says of his Oakland, "They have a good style of a car, the upholstery and dash and everything; so much better than some of the cars put out in those years. It's one of the better-styled and better-built cars...for an antique automobile, it's built lots better than Fords and stuff like that."
Clayton also enjoys the usability of the sedan. "I just drive them he also has a matching Oakland Coupe around town and stuff. People turn their heads at it all the time."

And how is this older restoration holding up? At the 2003 National Pontiac Meet in Illinois, it scored 371 out of 400 points. "To get that many points, it has to be good." Says Clayton. "I plan on keeping it."

This article originally appeared in the August, 2005 issue of Hemmings Classic Car.

http://www.hemmings.com/hcc/stories/2005/08/01/hmn_feature10.html