Need to learn about Barney Pollard's Collection

HHH I sent you a PM (now called conversations). Look up at the top of the page and the second flag from the right is the conversation flag. Click on it and reply.

 

There is a 1927 Falcon Knight sedan near here, said to be ex Barney Pollard collection. Unrestored, paint very faded, the only rust out is some perforation below the rear window said to be the result of moisture accumulating when it was hanging by its front bumper.

 

Rusty more than a couple suffered in the area off of the dirt floor but often the rest of the car would be in pretty good shape. A lot of cars were saved in this method although not without a little perforation as you stated.

I have told the story before but it made me laugh then and now. We used to have some tours although we had to keep them to a minimum as things would often get stolen during the tours, so my brother and I had to watch the tour people closely. One time we had a the Model T & A group come in buses and we allowed them to go through the buildings (crazy really with as dangerous as it was-but not so many sue happy people then I suppose). This one guy comes out of the large building (we had 100s of cars hanging in that one building) on the western end and he is almost out of breath and he was really upset. He wanted to know what was going on. We had a large more expensive car that started to slip (they were hung by wire rope and sometimes the cable would fray etc) and so my grandfather had some of the guys ram a Model T under the backend of the more expensive car to hold it up. We had a large number of Ts so it was not that big of a deal in the scheme of things but this Ford guy was visibly upset. My brother and I had a good laugh but had to keep it to ourselves until he disappeared from sight. Maybe you had to be there but I still laugh about how upset the guy got.

 

Leonard Davis was a real talented restorer as well and used to run into him on a semi regular basis back in the 60s and 70s. When we were doing mainly museum type restorations he was a cut above on his work. I believe he did a number of the Upjohn early cars. The family had a bit of loose change and I always appreciated the higher quality of work at the annual Greenfield Village two day fall meet (in the 60s and 70s the best cars shows around IMO). He did some work on my cousins cars as well (Pierce Arrow and Diana).

 

A somewhat comical story that involved Leonard Davis was with my cousins’ 1925 Pierce Touring. The car was actually a very nice car, maroon body with black fenders. Every year at least one of my three cousins would take the car to the Greenfield Meet and would often take a blue ribbon (first) but never any big prizes for whatever reason. I went every year on both days as my grandfather would enter a handful of cars and needed drivers of course, so I was appointed. Since my grandfather was doing more museum restorations we generally were never winning the major awards, although we took some blue ribbons, especially with my grandmother's Scripps Booth. The one year my cousins could not make it and asked me to take the Pierce. I decided to clean the car up with my grandfathers cars and spent a decent amount of time getting it shined up.

The car had in the past some bubbling problems on the fenders due to improper lead work and Leonard Davis did an excellent job of refinishing the fenders. At the show he came up and looked the car over really well to make sure his work was holding up with no issues (he had done it a few years before as I remember). We both had a laugh when I ended up with the big cup for Best in Show (whatever they called the award-I don’t remember) as my cousins had tried unsuccessfully for years to garner one of the big awards. I made the award pictures holding the trophy and in spite of showing the car numerous times in the future they never won another major award with the car (save for the annual blue ribbons at Greenfield).

 

Might be an old post.But some great history.Thanks for posting.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

Had to come read this and a few other threads on the net after reading the scrap drive thread
This is really amazing!!

 

Hey Jim- A friend of mine has a 1922 Brewster Town Car with a Knight sleeve valve in it. It originated from New York and ended up in Ohio after it came out of your Grandfather’s collection. He’s been restoring it over the last ten years. I’ll post some pictures of it. Your AACA articles are amazing. I have them saved together for future re-reading.

Mike


Sent from my iPhone using H.A.M.B.

 

Mike, thanks for the compliment on the articles. They were a bit of work but in the end it was something I figured I owed my grandfather. I remember the Brewster Town Car if it was the one we restored in the 60s. We often painted cars with enamel (not my choice for sure) as we were trying to restore cars a bit quicker to get them on the road to enjoy driving and showing them at Greenfield Village or in our restored car building. I got to work on the Brewster and we painted it with a deep maroon in lacquer-a rarity to use lacquer as a complete paint job. I wanted to work on the mechanical end in the shop but my grandfather put me in the paint booth with Daly the painter and in retrospect I am glad he did. I found I liked lacquer so much more than enamel and it was probably due in part to the Brewster.

Thanks for the offer of a picture or two-I am sure it would bring back memories. I thought I may have had a picture of it when it was in the restoration shop but the picture I had in mind did not show the car. Thanks

 

Jim, when I was two years old, my parents bought a house from Charles B. King in Larchmont, New York. As you may know, King was an****ociate of Henry Ford and is credited with being the first first person to build and drive a gasoline-powered automobile on the streets of Detroit in 1896. My parents bought the house from King after a fire wiped out a large section of the house. At the time, King was 89, and his caretakers didn’t think it made sense to rebuild what was destroyed by the fire so they put the house up for sale in ‘as is’ condition’. When my mother died in 2003, we put the house up for sale. As I was cleaning out a spare room in a separate wing of the house, I discovered a small wall panel that was removable. I shimmied it open, and in a small attic like space, I discovered a tube that was about 15 inches long. The tube was addressed to Charles B. King and sent to him by the B J Pollard Manufacturing Company in Detroit. Inside the tube, there was a rolled up calendar for 1954. At the very top of the calendar, it says “The Pollards”. Underneath their name, there is a photo of a number of people sitting in or standing near four automobiles in front of the Elias A. Brown store. I am****uming that that they are members of the Pollard family and that the photograph / calendar was a holiday gift to friends and colleagues. If you would like to learn more about the calendar and photo, please reach out to me at gilkerr@aol.com.

 

Jim, See my post regarding Charles B. King and your grandfather.

 

Just read the entire thread. I apprenticed under a guy named Herb Brown. Barney Pollard knew Herb Brown well and Herb used to do a lot of the work on Mr. Pollard's cars. Herb Brown restored V-16 Cadillacs, Bugatti's, Issota Frachinis and many other extraordinary classic out of his shop in Farmington Hills Michigan. I owe a lot to Herb for the things that he taught me those two years I worked for him in the 70's. Herb was a crusty cantankerous man with a heart of gold once you got to know him.

He would tell me lots of stories about the Pollard cars and was going to take me one time to see one of the buildings but put me on a task instead, something I have always regretted. He used to get so pissed off when he had to help take one down from the rafters. He hated the way that the steering lube would run down the steering shaft and ruin the otherwise nice upholstery of the front seat and sometimes even the back seat. Herb also had cars that he wanted to start or restore or bring down and Mr. Pollard would simply say "no". He never understood the thought process of Barney and how he would decide which ones would be pulled out and which ones would remain hanging.

Herb instilled upon me the concept of doing it right. From sweeping the floor to hand filing a Marmon hub cap from a brass casting. The old guys sure knew a lot.

 

Herb was a good friend and I worked under (or apprenticed) under him when he worked for my grandfather in the 60s. He restored my dad's Stutz at his shop on Orchard Lake during the late 70s. My office was down the street (on Orchard Lake near 14 mile). I used to stop in at lunch on occasion and talk to Herb and see his latest progress. I remember when he had Frank Mack working there and Frank was always a friend and a real talent.. Frank restored my dad's 36 Cord Sportsman in the 50s and I would stop by his house with my dad after dinner to see the progress. I have fond memories of Frank's famous roadster which would often be tightly crammed in his small home shop and I would sometimes sit in the car when he and my dad would talk about what Frank had done and planned to do.

I also enjoyed seeing Herb's progress on the 1931 Cadillac V16 cane bodied town car he was doing-I believe his metal man was Ron Clark. Some real talent in this shop for sure. I have many fond memories of Herb for sure.

As to which cars my grandfather would decide to restore was often a mystery. I spoke of the Packard Grey Wolf one time and soon he had me dragging up what was left of the frame. My grandfather was a unique individual-it was great fun being his grandson.

 

Jim,
Thank you for your posts here! Very enjoyable to read

 

Jim, Did all the cars in your Grandfathers collection come from the Detroit area, or did he buy stuff from around the country as well?

Bob

 

Bob, your question makes me chuckle to myself. My grandfather could not go anywhere in the world without buying, little alone the country. He started out by driving on weekends to as far as he could reasonably drive which may limit it to surrounding states but he ran out of stuff to buy and had to strike out on mini vacations around the country. I have told the story before that he went on a vacation to Florida and not long after we had two car carriers show up fully loaded (10 to 12 cars I cannot remember for certain). When they pulled up he told me in his usual no nonsense manner that I was to disassemble the interiors in the open areas and kill all of the*****roaches (probably palmetto bugs) before we put the cars away. He would come and look a bit here and there but would be soon off to check on his business jobs around the city.

Another time he went to England for a vacation with my grandmother-of course by then my grandmother knew better that the vacation was a way to find stuff to buy and drag back to the yard (as we called it). Not long after he returned from England we had two reasonably nice Rolls Royces, one with a leather body-no metal behind it just burlap straps criss-crossed that had spent it's life in the Sahara desert I believe. Both cars were later restored and sold later on when we liquidated. The funny aside on that was I believe he was going over to look at Lord Mountbatten's collection and probably got him thinking that he needed more Rolls Royces. When I was a kid at the yard we had these limos show up with English royalty and the women came in the office while the men went and looked at cars. I believe this may have been****ociated with Lord Mountbatten. It cracked us up as you could not spend too much time at the collection without getting a bit dirty here and there-to see royalty types in all of their finery was not all that common.

He went to Germany one time and came back with two trains which were sold and restored by the new owners. He also went to South America one time and not long after I see the guys opening the gates from the rail spur and low and behold they push these massive trains in the yard-two engines and two coal cars. He found them in South America, had them shipped to the docks of Detroit and they were pushed to the yard on the rails. We ended selling them to a guy that had his own railroad in the middle part of the country.

One time I asked him why he never bought a Marmon V16 and he chucked. He said he was on a trip to the east coast to buy and stopped at a Pennsylvania junkyard (pretty sure it was Pa) and the guy had one in really tough shape so my grandfather offered him $50 (this was in the 50s whey they were not worth as much of course). The guy laughed at my grandfather and told him something to the effect "hell Barney Pollard would give me a $100" not knowing that is who he was talking to. My grandfather said he planned to buy it on his return to Detroit but got sidetracked on another adventure and when he returned shortly the car was gone-he regretted it I could tell.

I could tell stories for a bit but many would think I was exaggerating. You had to be there. Steve Moskovics with the AACA would run into me at various car shows and would ask me if I would write a detailed history which is what led to my ten part article they published a number of years ago. I could probably write a much longer article if I wanted but that is probably sufficient. The yard and my grandfather simply amazed me and will till they toss me in the ground.

I believe this is a picture of the two trucks bringing the cars from Florida.


Another load a number of years earlier.

A picture of the German trains.

Since restored by a new owner.

 

Those car carrier pics are great. Just a quick question that might not have a definite answer? Does anyone know when Barney first began buying antique cars?


.

 

Better get to work but thinking of Herb Brown and Rolls Royce motorcars brought back a memory. Herb ran the shop in the 50s and early 60s but went out on his own (he could be a headstrong guy and wanted to work for himself I suppose).***** Lennox (sp?) took over for Herb and he was a great guy but I could get away with***** moreso than I could with Herb. We had an earlier Rolls Royce I believe from the teens that was in the shop and it had a frozen engine so my grandfather put this stout truck bumper jack under the front crank and would keep pressure on it to free up the engine. Sometimes it worked but I was skeptical. My grandfather wanted me working in the paint booth and I wanted to do mechanical but there was no arguing with my grandfather-he had a pretty good bark. While he was away on a short vacation, I set up a table next to the car and***** asked me what I was doing and I told him I was going to free the engine up and he grumbled but left me to my misery. I disassembled the engine and freed it up and everything was put neatly on the table as if I was doing surgery. As soon as my grandfather walked in the shop on his return, I heard him explode and wanted to chew me out big time. Right away***** came to my defense and said I did a great job and the engine was all freed up. My grandfather had a hard time admitting he was wrong in the presence of others possibly but he apologized and told me to get back to work in the booth. From then on he trusted me with mechanical stuff as well and he had me prepare the aluminum cylinder head to be welded, as Rolls with all their different metals they used played hell with corrosion. Car was restored and I drove it to several shows later on although Rolls Royce may have been better suited to chauffeurs driving them. Not my favorite to drive to shows (but then again I got spoiled with big horsepower cars from the teens and of course Twin Six Packards).

 

Frank I am pretty sure his first car was a 1911 Cadillac he acquired in the 1938. From then on he was hooked. By 1942 he had several hundred-maybe four to five hundred but I was not yet born (not until 1950).

 

Thank you Jim! I never get tired reading about the adventures of the early collectors. Henry Austin Clark had a monthly column in Old Cars Weekly that I really enjoyed reading. He pulled an ALCO out of a yard here in town that is in the Nethercutt Collection now. I wonder if the shipping on those German trains exceeded the purchase price? Bob

 

Bob I believe you are correct. The shipping costs were probably quite high but it had to be done to get them back to the yard so whatever it took I suppose. Austie Clark was a good friend of mine and surely of my grandfather. They went way back and he collected some fine motorcars for sure.

 

Was your father's Stutz the yellow one? If so, I restored the steering wheel on that car. As an apprentice, it was not uncommon for Herb to literally yell at you and berate you on a regular basis. But that was his way of teaching. After a while, you actually got to like it. One day, he hands me your dad's Stutz steering wheel and a small 10"x10" pane of glass and tells me to sand off the old varnish on the wheel. I knew better than to question Herb without thinking it through, so I sat at the workbench with the steering wheel and glass, rubbed the glass on the wheel just in case it worked and could come up with nothing. So, knowing I was going to get chewed out for being dumb, I went into his office and asked "how" I was supposed to sand the wheel with the pane of glass. Herb started yelling about what is glass made out of (sand I answered) and what is sand paper made of (sand I answered) and he was all stomping around and waiving his arms and he threw the pane of glass on the workbench in a fit and smashed it. I was just standing there after that and as calm as you could be, Herb said, now come here.... He picked up one of the glass shards and used it to shave the old hardened varnish off of the wheel. He explained that with the shaving, just like a razor shaving a face, the cutting would stop when it got to the soft wood. When the shard you were using dulled, you just picked up another. I spent the afternoon shaving your dad's steering wheel of varnish and when I was done, Herb pointed out in the pile of shavings that there was not a single speck of wood, only varnish. He said that if I had sanded it with sandpaper, I would have removed about 5% of the wood. While I was shaving off all of that varnish I could not help but think of all of the people that touched that wheel over the years.

Herb was an amazing man and I cherish my memories with him, yelling and all.

Ron Clark was an AMAZING craftsman. I would watch him work for hours. The V-16 Town car belonged to Mr. Holtzman, of Holtzman and Silverman. My girlfriend's mother was his****istant for years and that's how I wound up working there. I found the 1937 Adler Rennlinousine Lemans race car in my signature photo a few doors down from that girlfriend's house in Southfield.

I did some work on the V-16 as well but it was mostly grunt labor like stripping the paint off of the rear spring metal sheathes. I also got to hand file the new brass castings for the door handles on that car. But they only let me file them down close and would then take over. I was there while Herb was figuring out how to apply that canework to the car with the rolling paint gun he made from a photo of the original. I also remember the fenders to the Towne Car hanging in the rafters and being told they were "curing". When asked how long they had been "curing" I was told 8 years. While I was there we were working on the black and blue V-16 Marmon, the light green Isota Fraschini town car, the cream colored Bugatti and a few others. What a great place to work.

 

Herb was a character for sure. He did not have a great deal of education but made up for it with streets smarts. He was certainly very talented. He used to give me lectures when I was a kid and did not notice at the time all of the eye rolling that I did. Later on though he would seek my advice when I was practicing law and was a real fan of education (he used to tell me how proud he was of me-he was really deep down a good guy). I remember when Herb made the tool for doing the cane work. I had worked in my grandfather's paint booth for years and when he made it we played with a bit trying to get the right effect. The car certainly came out like a work of art which was Herb's stock in trade (it also created a bit of controversy and I have run across another guy that worked alongside you that has added to the controversy on another forum and told the true story of the build). If you read the fairy tale that accompanied the sale of this car a few years ago hook, line, and sinker, then I have a bridge in New York to sell you. Nowhere was Herb given credit but the name dropper auction fools looked up all the big names and arranged them in a tale of pure fantasy. As you know they only built three of the Fleetwood cane bodied 31 V16 Cadillacs and this car was not originally one of the three. This was probably the most expensive Cadillac at a price of right around $10,000 which at the time of the depression was astounding.

Here is a pic of the Holzman 31 Cadillac (recreated from an original town car-of course not with a cane bodied effect). I watched the progress and was****ociated with two other 31 V16s Cadillacs at the time so I watched the progress of this build of the cane car with interest. I believe the car sold a few years ago for right around $250,000 which is probably it's true worth. If it was the real deal you may be able to add a zero-although admittedly that is my opinion.


And just to bring back memories here is a picture of my Dad's Stutz not long after Herb finished the car.

 

Not to hi-jack the thread but, james426 , what is the car in your avatar? It looks very interesting.

 

If you are talking about the controversy of "outing" the car as a recreation, that was me too. I was at the Meadowbrook concourse when that car was presented and judged and I heard what they were saying about it, claiming it was the original. That struck me as wrong. So I posted what I knew about the car on the V-16 website a few years later and all hell broke loose. I felt bad for "ratting" out the car, but at the same time, it was wrong to hide Herb and Ron's incredible work and not be honest when selling it. I was also kind of shocked that those "experts" were not more "expert".

As you know when they got the original rounded roof towne car that they converted into this rolling work of art, it was in superb original condition. It still had its finely embroidered seats and side panels and I used to sit on them inside that car while eating my lunch sometimes totally sad that they were going to rip it all out and replace it.

Yes, that is the Stutz I worked on. So nice to see it again. If I recall correctly it has running boards made out of what looked like brown linoleum. Does your family still own the Stutz?

 

The car in my signature photo is a 1937 Adler Rennlimousine Lemans race car. It raced in 1937 and 1938 being disqualified in 37 and winning its index and coming in 7th overall in 1938. I has since been restored after I owned it. The photo is from the day I bought it. As you can see by the photos of it racing in 1937 it was quite advanced for the day. By 1938 there were several streamliners being fielded but in 1937, my car was the first. I actually spoke to Baron Fritz Hueshke Von Hanstein, who raced it in 1937 and he relayed a fascinating (but long) story about that race. There are three Streamline Adlers like this that exist, but this was the only one with actual race history. Now one of the other street versions has been painted up to look like another one of the white number 34 Lemans race cars and is now being misrepresented as such.

An interesting story about this exact car being the "inspiration" for the 1963 split window Corvette will be coming out in some Vette Magazines very soon. Here is a shot of the same car AT the GM tech center on 7-27-1959, the exact same time that the Split Window Vette design was starting. I met David Holls at his home to discuss this and point blank asked him if my Adler was the inspiration for the Split Window Vette and he shook his head adamantly up and down "yes" but at the same time said "Definitely not!"

 

James no my Dad sold the car years ago. Funny thing about the car is that my older brother went away to school and did not have a car, so during the summer of I believe 1967 he used my car and I drove the Stutz in more original condition, to my job at my cousin's truck equipment business. It was an absolute chore and pain to drive with two wheel mechanical brakes, hard steering and shifting with no sincros. The sinchro deal was not so bad but it had a transaxle and the shifting rods were like 5 feet long and wobbled. I was used to driving these old cars from the time I was like 10 but that car was no fun. Plus people loved to drive in front of you by about one inch and read the radiator emblem not knowing that I had very little brakes.

My wife loves going for rides in these cars until about 5 seconds passes and then wonders why. Probably her favorite ride was around the Indy track during the 2011 centennial celebration in a 31 Marmon V16, but then again it was a real highlight for me as well as I got to actually make a lap around the track driving a Marmon (remember a Marmon won the first auto race at the brickyard in 1911).

And I guess you are the guy I read on the forum. I watched that car being built and if it was not for Holtzman's confidence in Herb and Ron Clark it probably would not exist. I too believe credit should be given where credit is due but sometimes people like to stretch the truth as who ever heard of Herb or Ron. As you know Ron was a quiet guy that did not ring his bell too much but his talent was very impressive. I read your statement on the forum and was happy that you set the story correct. There is so much, let's say lack of truth when it comes to some cars. As my grandfather's grandson I was invited into many shops and saw stuff that made me raise my eyebrows on more than one occasion. Herb and Ron would be proud of you as well.

I am mildly familiar with the Adler and it is flat out cool. It does appear to have a striking familiarity with the split window. As the owner of a few Corvettes I can attest that you may have problems convincing some of the annointed as to whether it was the inspiration. Hope to see your car out and about one of these days. Cool.

 

"It does appear to have a striking familiarity with the split window. As the owner of a few Corvettes I can attest that you may have problems convincing some of the anointed as to whether it was the inspiration."

It will shake a few trees, that's for sure. But there is quite a bit of proof. David Holls had spotted the car driving at the Michigan State Fair in 1959 and invited Rubin the guy I bought the car from to the GM tech center. I was shown photos of the car AT the Michigan state fair taken by David Holls and have photos of my Adler IN David Holls' personal photo albums that HE took that day at the State Fair, proving Rubin's claims to me when I bought the car.

Rubin thought that GM was going to buy his car so he had someone follow him down there. They took a bunch of photos of his car and sent him on his way. He was very angry they used him and then "stole" the design from "his" car for the Vette. David Holls confirmed the story to me and admitted the photo session at the GM tech center. Photos from that day (like the one below) recently surfaced from the GM Tech Center and the dates on the photos prove that it was literally within two weeks of the start of Split Window development. David Holls confirmed this by saying "just look at the date of the Adler photos from the tech center and the dates of the first clays".

I personally don't care if people believe it or not. I was just glad that the story, the photos and the connection didn't die with me being the only one that knew it. Kind of like the V-16.

You said "Herb and Ron would be proud of you as well." Thank you, that means more than you could know. They did such a great job that they made believing it was an original easy.

 

I love it when threads go a bit sideways and interesting cars and topics get added, so here goes with V-16 Cadillac town cars. My grandfather was George Doubleday's chauffer, CEO of Ingersoll - Rand, and he hated the V-16 Cadillac and slammed the back door closed with his cane when they reached their destination.



Picture the above car in the dead of winter, on its way from New York City to Ridgefield, Ct. a two hour drive back then. My grandfather in a fur coat driving and Mr. Doubleday toasty warm in back. Mr. Doubleday slammed the door closed for the last time when they arrived, told my grandfather to get rid it and buy a proper car were both could drive in comfort. Bob