Hemmings Classic Car

“…It’s an evolution, a styling upgrade… that will keep the spirit of buying, owning, and driving a vintage vehicle… alive and well.” MY LATE GRANDFATHER, John, was a wealth of knowledge. I didn’t know it in my wee youth, but as I grew and matured, I began to see it all unfold in front of me. You see, it took a while for me to understand why he talked so loud—almost a bark at times, because of his service during World War II working in the engine rooms of Navy destroyers in the Atlantic. John would always caution us to wear ear protection when we left for the local short track to take in stock car action. His posture was always upright, which I believed was because of that service,…

I CANNOT THANK YOU enough for putting a “less than perfect” car in your esteemed magazine. I owned a 1948 Pontiac coupe, and it was a wonderful car. I currently have a 1939 Packard 8 coupe. The previous owner and I have been restoring it “one system at a time.” It runs well, is safe, fun to drive, and gets a lot of thumbs-up, but has a partial original and partial amateur touched-up paint job, which looks fine from 10 feet. I have been reluctant to take it to many car shows because the paint is less than perfect. I now feel validated that it is alright to have a mostly original car of “driver quality.” I hope for continued tolerance of the old car community in that regard. Keep…

1927 STEARNS-KNIGHT MODEL G-8-85 CABRIOLET Frank Stearns famously built his first car at age 17 in 1896. The founder of the F.B. Stearns Company later became the first to license the Knight sleeve-valve engine. Stearns retired in the 1920s, selling the company to John Willys. Stearns-Knight automobiles were considered luxury cars and always had powerful engines. A Full Classic per the CCCA and believed to be the last of this engine, body, and chassis combination known, this faithfully restored 1927 Stearns-Knight Model G-8‑85 Cabriolet featured a 102-hp, 385-cu.in. sleeve-valve straight-eight, along with a known history (including the ownership and restoration commissioned by the granddaughter of Frank Stearns). It sold for a market-correct price as a post-auction Make Offer. Reserve: $80,000 Selling Price: $84,000 Recent Market Range: $72,000-$105,000 1936 AUBURN 852…

History in books is important, but history in the form of relics makes those recitations of fact come alive. That’s especially true for the un-initiated, for whom things like the California Gold Rush, Gilded Age millionaires, the Roaring Twenties, pre-interstate America, the Great Depression, arctic exploration, gender barriers, and coachbuilt bodies might be entirely academic if not for the preserved objects representing those times and themes. This Packard is a relic encapsulating all of those things. Its first owner, Louise Arner Boyd, was a California millionaire and arctic explorer at a time when women, even heiresses to gold-mining fortunes, were not expected to do those things (See HCC, #244—January 2025 or visit hmn.com/boydpackard for her story). The continued survival of her car, a 1934 Packard Twelve Individual Custom Dietrich Convertible…

“…the assembly would pull apart, and the wheel would go off on its merry way.” STOP ME if you’ve heard this one before. A man is driving down the highway in his 1958 Rambler when suddenly he’s being passed by what at first he thinks is another car but quickly realizes is just a single wheel and tire rolling along all by itself. He’s doing about 50 mph; the wheel and tire are doing at least 60 mph. The man thinks, “What the heck is this all about?” Then suddenly a car pulls up alongside him and its driver yells out, “Hey, Mister, your car just lost a wheel!” “Uh oh,” thinks the man. “This can’t be good.” And he’s right. He’s motoring down the highway on three wheels. Growing…

SPONSORED BY GULLWING MOTOR CARS It happens to all of us every so often. Life changes, a new job, a home purchase, or starting a family can abruptly send people in a new, uncharted direction. That new life can mean a dissolution of the old one, including hobbies, home, and hearth. Some things get left behind, and others follow you for the rest of your life. In a nutshell, that’s the tale of this well-restored 1959 Porsche 356 A coupe, which went from a heap of rusty pieces in a Texas farm field to an extended sojourn inside a rural barn in Vermont, to its present duty as a smartly refurbished example, with significantly upgraded power, that does daily driver duty with its new owners on the First Coast of…