8-35 Victoria Coupe

A two tone light blue car...

A dark Brown and tan car...

Those are all the "good Victorias" I know off. Now to the projects.
This one has been for sale in Hemmings, a car that came from Argentina.

And this is my car, the one in Mexico... a difficult project, yes, but I plan on doing it well with the help of many of the guys in the list.

Except for the car that came from Argentina in which I cannot see what type of trunk it had, the rest of the known Victorias have the optional "Built in Trunk for Victoria only". I plan on having the regular curved lid but hopefully add a trunk rack (which I don't have now) to it, which was another correct option.

Those are all the Victoria coupes in 8-35 chassis that I have pictures or know of. In case somebody else knows of some others and hopefully have pics of them, please post them.
Victor

Thanks Victor. There was a 8-35 Victoria for sale in Vermont about 2 years ago from an estate. Not sure if that one is in your list. The blue car came out of the John Morgan (of Long John's fame) in Pennsylvania around 2003. A dealer in Wisconsin had it for a while. Also one was found in Connecticut about 2 or 3 years ago that went to a big collection in Ohio.

Thanks! So, probably at least two more Victoria coupes... it would be interesting to see pictures of those.

I am including here pics of a 1933 model, which is technically called not an 8-35 but N1. Same body apparently with the fenders slightly skirted and a different grille.

Interesting. I'm going to start a thread to discuss the differences between the 8-35 & N1, and 8-31 and N2. My buddy Ed Minnie who found the cars in Connecticut is going to try to get me the name of the guy that bought them. I would say at least a couple of more Victoria bodied cars potentially floating around.

John,  this is the picture of the Victoria with the polished roof and no trunk.

A.J.

Browsing the net, I found this pic of what I believe was originally an 8-35 Victoria but on which the top was apparently cut and modern mechanical components installed. A custom bumper plus woodlite headlights...

I will never understand why people hot-rod non-appropriate cars. The hot rod guys don't appreciate the odd ball marque, you will never get your money back and you ruin something that would be appreciated more in its original state.

I agree A. J. there is so many when hot rodded . They all basically look the same .

Check out this Curbside Classic article.

http://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics/curbside-full-classic-1931-reo-royale-victoria-eight-8-35/

Feature stories are cars encountered daily, written up with historical details and perspectives of their time and affect on the market. Some prosaic, some fascinating, worth a daily visit to see what shows up.

A nice side shot of the blue/blue Victoria.

"Via the Reo club, I got a lead from somebody wanting to sell a clock that he thought was of a Royale. 

I emailed the man, Jim Grochmal, and he is very friendly and helpful. It turned out not to be correct for the Royale, but Jim sent me a couple of pics of the Royale that his father used to own. The car does not exist any more. I am pasting here the pics of the Royale only. Jim in the first pic and his brother in the second one, and his own words describing the car...

From his first email:
> I'm 78 and cleaning out some of my treasures.

> Dad had two Reo's...one was a 1932 and the other was a 1934 Royal 2 door. I took the clock out of one of them when I was about 13 years old.

> I'm not sure which of the cars in the background PICS it came from, but I wish I had the one with the dog PIC in the condition it was in before the war. Probably was the family's most valuable asset, and we didn't know it then.

>

> When Dad purchased the 1934, it was coco brown and tan with a beautiful wooden trunk that was replaced with the one from the 1932 as seen in the PIC, It was in really good shape, but during the war dad did not have the resources to keep it up. After the war we ended up parking it and shooting at it with 22 rifles, that would not penetrate the sheet metal door. ""Memories!!!""
and from his second one:
""The car in the pic with the dog had a split bumper and a pointed grill...painted on top, something like an old Packard. It was not the flat version Reo that looked like a 35 Ford grill. As I recall, it also had a button or lever near the floor boards that was a exhaust cut out that by passed the muffler. This was a fun thing for us kids to ask him to do when he drove past our friends.

Was a by pass standard factory equipment?

I have included a couple of more PICS I found and a photoshop version of the car without my brother and the dog that you can use.

The one with the golf clubs is me at about 11 years old...Dad cleaning the feathers off of a chicken in the background. Life was good!

During the war, when you couldn't get tires, my day had a friend that was a milk man.

He was able to get tires for his truck because of his job, and dad bought tires from him that were too large for the fender wells on the Reo. So, he bent the fenders upward with a pipe wrench to get the needed clearance. The neighborhood kids called it the ""Sherman Tank"", it stood so tall. I guess you would call it an early ""Lift Kit"".
"

Great story Victor and good pictures . I will remember the 22 rifle for a long time hitting our beautiful Classic cars .

Awesome. Wonder if the exhaust cut out was a factory option or a later added accessory. A number of big prewar cars offered factory exhaust cut outs including Cord & Duesenberg.

Interesting... I always thought cut outs were period accesories and would have never guessed an expensive car like a Cord or a Duesenberg could have one originally. A friend had a rather late one, I guess, in a 1941 Cadillac sedanette, a very original car. He removed the cut out.

At least in the only option lists I have seen for REO, there was no mention of a cut out.

I'm happy to be reminded that the 50 dollar optional transmission is going to cost me a small fortune by the time I get it straightened out. The new gear binds...