Friends of Ancient Road Transportation (Brass Era content)

This morning, my wife alerted me to "some kind of old car thing going on in town"...

These guys are known as the Friends of Ancient Road Transportation, and they were on a tour. They spent last night at a hotel here in town and were headed out on the road for the day. I got there right as the cars were rolling out of the trailers and going through the sometimes tricky process of getting started. There was some seriously nice machinery here. Some were restored to concours level perfection, while others were completely unrestored.

Please forgive the very hastily taken photos and the long shadows. Everything was getting ready to move.

One of the first cars that I saw was the Thomas Flyer.

My favorite was the 1911 Pope Hartford. My grandfather told me that he drove a Pope Hartford when he was a teenager, but I had never actually seen one. There were two here today.

Jim Grundy and his 1908 Lozier.

There were two unrestored Packard Gentleman's Roadsters.

I saw this guy packing a full size sledge hammer.

This Rolls Royce was amazing. So much nickel...

Other stuff (Pierce Arrows, Locomobiles, etc...)

Bootiful era

Thanks for sharing

I'm wasting my life.

I'd love to have something from the brass era

Lol did they actually name their club farts? Then make plaques of it?!? Thats awesome.

I want plaque

Thanks for sharing those are great!!!

Required explanation:

I love to sense automobiles.

Ocular enjoyment is obvious, as is aural aura.

The "feel" of a car is what touches us, each to their own taste.

British cars have an interior smell that is unique, I think it smells smug.

I stuck my head through the open window of an unrestored Durant at LRP, years ago - it smelled like the Depression.

And this was all to help you understand why......

I'd LOVE to smell those FARTS!

After Google and Apple get their way, were all gonna need those farts plaques.

From the era when trunks were literal trunks.

Amazing. I'll never forget my trip to a brass era restoration shop.

Very, very cool- thanks for sharing Woody!

etifosi wrote: Required explanation: I love to sense automobiles. Ocular enjoyment is obvious, as is aural aura. The "feel" of a car is what touches us, each to their own taste. British cars have an interior smell that is unique, I think it smells smug. I stuck my head through the open window of an unrestored Durant at LRP, years ago - it smelled like the Depression. And this was all to help you understand why...... I'd LOVE to smell those FARTS!

I'd be happy just to hear those FARTS

Not sure where you're located but I think that first Pope-Hartford was at the LeMay museum concours last year.

Beautiful cars, thanks for sharing.

So glad to see them being driven, we build too many sitmobiles nowadays.

Shawn

Mitchell wrote: From the era when trunks were literal trunks.

Also the era when cars had actual class...and actual polished metal, not the shiny plastic E36 M3 we get today.

Awesome Cool! Thanks for sharing.

Trans_Maro wrote: So glad to see them being driven, we build too many sitmobiles nowadays.

That's exactly why I think it's significant to see Jim Grundy out there driving his Lozier. When the guy who's company is insuring all these valuable classics takes his car out on the road, it sends a message to his clients that it's okay to get out and drive their own.

Assuming, of course, that it's properly insured...

It is funny, I have lost my patience for cars of the 50's and sixties because they straddle the line between being a car and a curiosity.

The brass era cars have zero pretense of being transportation. As such, my patience for their foibles would be endless. Driving one of those across NA would be both a challenge and an adventure. Driving my MGB would just be uncomfortable for the sake of being uncomfortable.

So, those all look to be right hand drive and have the spare tires outboard of the driver's door. Are the right hand doors still operable or does one enter on the left and slide over to get behind the wheel? I suppose, back in the day, these were chauffeur driven so it didn't really matter if things we not easy for that guy to get in, plus the footman was available to take care of the trunk and passengers.

That would be a sight to see. Thanks for posting. Where is their tour taking them? If a bunch of FARTS are heading my way, I'd like to know.

Awesome! I love cars from this era. I'm actually much more interested in them than I am in stuff from the muscle car era of the '60s/'70s

Our 1915 Pierce town car is right hand drive. It has a right side door but the spare tires are in the way. You get in on the left and slide over.

The steering wheel and controls are so close to the right side that I probably couldn't squeeze through anyway. A "lesser man" might make it though.

Shawn

Well, that's just fantastic. Thanks for the pix. Took me back to when my old man ran in the "great american race" in the eighties, a xcountry TSD rally for old cars. A guy in Oceanside hired him to drive, finished 4th the first year in a '14 Dodge. Then the owner built a '36 Buick for the rally, I got to drive that bad boy and there was nothing to it.. wonderful car, and they won it that year (100k grand prize, my ol' man bought a nice stereo with his part of it and the owner donated the rest to a monastery). But that was also the year the event started in Disneyland, and I got to be in the parade through the park. Fun! Hmm.. Friends of ancient road transportation, I'm gonna have to look them feller up. Seems like they have the right attitude.

In reply to T.J.:

Yes, you would have had people for that: