What old car to take touring?

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Wait- how is the answer NOT jaguar?

Jag Mk 9.  If that is too new, pretend it is a Mk 7 instead (1950).

In reply to wspohn :

Th hay's what I'd pick if it were me.  But he's pretty well settled on a Woodie Wagon.   

If he's set on a woody wagon, I can't see any reasons to dissuade him. It needs to be a car he enjoys, since he'll be spending a lot of time with it.  

My only thought is his schedule seems a bit aggressive or optimistic.  My suggestion would  be to buy something now or soon, spend the driving time of 2022 doing some early sorting and getting used to driving the car (like some local and regional camping trips), then next winter doing any major changes/upgrades/repairs, and planning his big epic adventure.

When you spend most of your current driving time in modern cars, it's easy to forget what old cars can be like to live with day to day.  You tend to romanticize the memories, but forget things like regular tune-ups and putting a grease-gun to fittings on a regular basis.  Remembering how to use a timing light.  A re-acclimation period may be a good idea - for both him and his wife.

Reading the thread title and seeing the OP. How is there any conversation  that doesn't start and end with XJ-S??

There's a reason why road trips prior to about the 1960's tended to average around a hundred miles a day, and culminate in a smoke and a few drinks for the driver. 

1996 Impala SS. What? It's officially an old car. 25 years old.

Ian F (Forum Supporter) said:

If he's set on a woody wagon, I can't see any reasons to dissuade him. It needs to be a car he enjoys, since he'll be spending a lot of time with it.  

My only thought is his schedule seems a bit aggressive or optimistic.  My suggestion would  be to buy something now or soon, spend the driving time of 2022 doing some early sorting and getting used to driving the car (like some local and regional camping trips), then next winter doing any major changes/upgrades/repairs, and planning his big epic adventure.

When you spend most of your current driving time in modern cars, it's easy to forget what old cars can be like to live with day to day.  You tend to romanticize the memories, but forget things like regular tune-ups and putting a grease-gun to fittings on a regular basis.  Remembering how to use a timing light.  A re-acclimation period may be a good idea - for both him and his wife.

I guess something caused him to decide to do it now. Perhaps the belief that he won't pass the next physical. Or maybe his wife's getting tired of being house bound? That or the desire to do something different after the pandemic.  
      His initial  choice was a Ford Model T but a very brief Review of the T's limits convinced him otherwise. I explained the improvements in the Model A  and he was much more accepting of those.   Expect for power. While he wants to travel the back roads and avoid freeways wherever he can  he also dreams of launching and pulling a wooden boat out of the lake.   That's when we started talking about hopping up a Ford V8 Flathead. Which he hated. 
      We were looking through my books on Woodies and fell in love with a 1948 Buick Woodie.  If you're familiar with Chris Craft boats of the 40's & 50's  you understand why. 
    
  I don't have any concerns about his managing or repairing something of that era.  Sure he's restored airplanes and boats as a business/hobby  but a car isn't that much different. 
    A Packard wasn't discussed but it will be. I know there were some Packard woodies made. 

volvoclearinghouse said:

There's a reason why road trips prior to about the 1960's tended to average around a hundred miles a day, and culminate in a smoke and a few drinks for the driver. 

Dad took the family to California and back to Minnesota  in the near new 1959 Cadillac Eldorado  convertible. Very great memory for everyone.  

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Reading the thread title and seeing the OP. How is there any conversation  that doesn't start and end with XJ-S??

It's not what he wants to do.  Besides I doubt he and his wife would find it comfortable. 

In reply to bobzilla :

He enjoys things of the 30's & 40's.  Newer stuff is just a car to him.  Doesn't see any adventure.  

bobzilla said:

1996 Impala SS. What? It's officially an old car. 25 years old.

He prefers earlier pre  and immediate post war stuff.  Doesn't see any adventure  with newer stuff. 

there's a lot of adventure trusting an old optispark car.

In reply to bobzilla :

He has a connection with a Pontiac straight 8 woodie wagon.  It's a copy of one of 2 the factory used 4 Carter side draft carbs ( like used on the 1953/54 Corvette)  a higher lift camshaft  red paint and a lot of chrome. etc. 243 horsepower. 
Buick made 160 hp on their best straight Eight but Pontiac's wanted in on the performance market. Hence the 243 hp. 

In reply to frenchyd :

Yes... I read all of that the first time you posted it. I'm not sure how that applies to my comment. I have no opinion for against his vehicle choice and I can absolutely understand how his past experience with vintage wooden boats would make the idea of a straight 8 powered car enticing. It's his adventure and he can make it what he wants it to be.  My advice is more geared towards making that adventure as successful and enjoyable with as few unexpected surprises as possible. 

Even if he buys the car now and spends the winter fiddling with it, the chances are high the car has not seen use like what he plans in a very long time.  Most old cars haven't. Running it multiple days in a row will bring out quirks and issues not readily apparent from an initial inspection. 

Nothing to add regarding the selection of a car, which at this point seems well narrowed down to a 40s woodie....

But, can I suggest they consider adding a teardrop style camper trailer to the equation? A small, lightweight travel trailer with provisions for sleeping or just a very fancy roadside or campground picnic. A bit of additional storage and flexibility for their trip with not to much of a burden. Plus, being a man who like working with wood, building his own custom teardrop from scratch may be something right up his alley.

Something along these lines

He seems to have money , so if he buys something he does not like , sell that one and buy something else , 

Does he like the look of PreWar cars or the mechanical part ?

I have seen Ford woodies built on a modern Ford PickUp chassis.

I sifted through most of this... did we talk budget?

Here's my take on it, since much of my automotive life was working with this exact era of cars; Model T up through the 70s.  I was a driveline/fabricator for several shops that even autocrossers would recognize.

Your buddy is facing a real conundrum.  A Model T or A was designed to go 20 mph and involves absolute maximum driver effort.  The wooden wheels will not take higher speeds and they have service intervals that can be measured in feet traveled.  The early ones didn't even have wheel bearings, they had cast iron rings that you had to grease frequently because they rode directly on the wooden hub of the wheel.

So, he's either looking at spending a fortune putting more modern driveline and chassis bits under it which more or less renders it no longer an old car, or he has to realize that he's not going to be driving very far.  Back when those cars were new, a trip across the US was a hideous endeavor, rarely undertaken, and it took 2-4 weeks and the equivalent of thousands of dollars.  Lifter adjustments, tires blowing every 20 miles, oil changes, sediment bowl clearing, damper friction adjustments.

I think he's asking for something that doesn't really exist.  The engineering of the cars back then was to hopefully get you from the farm to the market and back with a minimum of tire patching.  They were quite literally buckboard wagons with an ICE.  So he either needs to get used to death wobbles, 20mph, and stopping every 20 minutes to fix something, or he needs to give up on having a "real" pre-32 ride and get something that looks the part but has been dropped on an S10 or something.

frenchyd said:

In reply to bobzilla :

He has a connection with a Pontiac straight 8 woodie wagon.  It's a copy of one of 2 the factory used 4 Carter side draft carbs ( like used on the 1953/54 Corvette)  a higher lift camshaft  red paint and a lot of chrome. etc. 243 horsepower.

There were two concept show cars in 1954 called Bonneville Specials that had a four carb engine, but that was it.  They were a two seat sports car.   There were no production cars with that manifold.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Bonneville_Special  Both cars still exist, I saw one of them at the Pontiac club national convention some years ago. 

There was an aftermarket dual carb intake available from Edmunds back for flathead Pontiacs then that used two 2 barrel downdraft carbs, but those are rare as hen's teeth - I've seen one Edmunds manifold for a Pontiac flathead six in person, but only photos of the flathead 8 version. 

I suppose it's possible someone fabricated a sidedraft manifold similar to the ones on the Bonneville Specials and had a custom cam ground, but I'd think a car so equipped would be known in the Pontiac community.

As for Pontiac wagons in general (from 1950 through 1954 they were fake woodies, steel with wood appliques), when I was a teenager I worked for a guy who owned a low mile 1953 wagon with the straight 8 and Hydramatic.  It was a very nice car to drive and would be happy at 55 or 60 mph all day; extended use on a freeway would be pushing it, but I'd have no problem with one of them for his intended use on state highways and back roads.

My buddy in WV drives this 29 Nash.  When I say "drive," I mean he likes to take it out on the weekends.  He's not shy about it.  He came into a wee bit of money in his retirement and a local automotive museum was going out of business.  It is literally a museum piece that he bought, put gas in  it, and has fun with it.  He has been able to put modern rubber on it which lasts OK, but all the other old foibles still remain.  He said that getting it ready for a drive is about a 2-hour process.  He has to pull the spark plugs and clean them frequently as the way those carbs run rich it just cokes them up.  He has to set damper tension which seems like something you could skip, but the handling dynamics are so awful if they're not right, you gotta do it.  Anything above about 40mph is death.  Darting, weaving, hopping, and there is no real way to recover from it.

Not saying your friend needs to buy a museum piece, but its just to demonstrate that even a flawless example of cars from that era are not something you get in and take road trips.

He also has the problem of insurance.  If he insured it for the value of the car he couldn't afford it.  If he insures it liability-only, he's taking a huge risk.  Instead he insures it as stated-value which A) limits his mileage to 2500/year and B) only really covers a complete loss.  If he gets a fender bender, he's not going to find a new fender, or those cast aluminum Nash badges, or those wheels, or....  any of it really.  

He drives it on stated-value knowing that he's taking a risk, but the grin on his face is worth it.

Ford really had the market cornered with buckboards (Model T/A).  Many of the other manufacturers were playing catch up and just cranking out  immitation versions of Ford's stuff.  It really wasn't until the late 30s that everyone was kind of on a level playing field and innovations really started happening that made cars actually something you would want to drive.

Methinks he's going to have to either mod the heck out of a pre-32, or maybe start looking into 1939-42

Example:  32 Buick Sedan with an 8" rear, M2 front, and I forget the engine... probably a chevy.

All of the style without the street cred, but I wouldn't hesitate to drive this all over the place.

In reply to californiamilleghia :

It might well be that the engine of choice  had no provision for a filter of any sort. The ford flathead had no oil filter from the factory.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

My buddy in WV drives this 29 Nash.  When I say "drive," I mean he likes to take it out on the weekends.  He's not shy about it.  He came into a wee bit of money in his retirement and a local automotive museum was going out of business.  It is literally a museum piece that he bought, put gas in  it, and has fun with it.  He has been able to put modern rubber on it which lasts OK, but all the other old foibles still remain.  He said that getting it ready for a drive is about a 2-hour process.  He has to pull the spark plugs and clean them frequently as the way those carbs run rich it just cokes them up.  He has to set damper tension which seems like something you could skip, but the handling dynamics are so awful if they're not right, you gotta do it.  Anything above about 40mph is death.  Darting, weaving, hopping, and there is no real way to recover from it.

Not saying your friend needs to buy a museum piece, but its just to demonstrate that even a flawless example of cars from that era are not something you get in and take road trips.

He also has the problem of insurance.  If he insured it for the value of the car he couldn't afford it.  If he insures it liability-only, he's taking a huge risk.  Instead he insures it as stated-value which A) limits his mileage to 2500/year and B) only really covers a complete loss.  If he gets a fender bender, he's not going to find a new fender, or those cast aluminum Nash badges, or those wheels, or....  any of it really.  

He drives it on stated-value knowing that he's taking a risk, but the grin on his face is worth it.

I think I understand your buddies situation.   If the engine is running that rich, why not reject the carb? Or fix the choke.  Whatever is causing it to run rich?   
  Handling should be something that can be dealt with.  I've sorted out a fair share of older cars. It really isn't difficult, unless it's made difficult by the owner. Too small a budget, too particular who works on it.  Too limited time to deal with it are all reasons why it may not ride right.  If it was like that when new no -one would have bought that car.  
  

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

Example:  32 Buick Sedan with an 8" rear, M2 front, and I forget the engine... probably a chevy.

All of the style without the street cred, but I wouldn't hesitate to drive this all over the place.

My suggestion to modify the 32 Ford Flathead with pieces of the era was met with Stoney resistance.   
  That's his right.  While I might choose a different path, I have to respect his choices.   The irony of getting all excited about a limited edition copy of two engines Pontiac put together is not lost on me. 
  But I'm absolutely sure he doesn't want a hot rod.  

My grandparents took my younger brother and I on a road trip across several states in the late 1950s in a 1956 Pontiac Chieftain - looked just like this one.  Never missed a beat.  Trunk was bigger than my first apartment. 

Absolutely comfort for a couple of kids and grandma and grandpa over a thousand miles.

Edit - Just found one just like this.  18,399 miles.  $15,950  Pontiac  Manual!