Best Cars

Staying on this side of the pond you could add Pierce, Lozier, Thomas, Chadwick, National, plus others that don't come to mind.

Thanks.  I should have thought of Lozier and Thomas.  I'm not familiar with Chadwick and National.

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum has a restored National V-12.

Is that the Weidely V12?

I'm planning to stop there in August. I'll be sure to check it out.

Shawn, can you get us some pictures?

I'll do my best to remember.
Do you need pictures of anything specific?

Yes,  anything cool!!!

I think you underestimate the amount of old junk that I find cool.
Going to need a bigger memory card.

😆   Let me narrow that.  Super cool and rarely seen.   You made me think of this.

See that building?....It's like the warehouse at the end of the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" film....it's the 110,000 sq ft vehicle storage building. Since there is a restoration bay in the open-to-the public building(100,000 sq ft) where one can watch the progress on several cars at a time, they need the storage building:
a) so they have a 100-year supply of unrestored cars
b) to facilitate switching artifacts as displays are changed

I had 30 minutes alone in the storage building when I got left behind by the group I was with, and it's quite amazing. 3 levels of racks for the cars(537), plus you might walk by a B-25(over 100 aircraft) or a Case 80 HP steam tractor. Unless you're a BHD in the galaxy of auto historians(Shawn, A.J., Jay Leno) they don't generally let the public in this building. I think there's a tour once every summer. I got an hour in there because I drove 750 miles up there~in February~and  paid $600 to take the annual Museum Quality Restoration Classes for a week. There's a cool B&B owned by Stan Reynold's daughter right across the road Kathy & I stayed at 10 or 20 years ago. Let's say I popped up there, met A.J. and Shawn at the airport, and we wanted to go thru the whole thing...........we could possibly talk to Noel Ratch, the Director, and clear it beforehand. Hell, call Jay, he's probably never been there either!

I would say 50 or 75 cars are on display in the main museum building. Their website actually lists all the autos they have [ www.reynoldsmuseum.ca/collections ]. One we might bump into is a beauty 1927 Reo Flying Cloud Coupe. Or '30 & '37 Cords, or '03 & '18 Wintons, the '17 National Highway 12 Sport Phaeton, a '27 Velie, a '28 Dodge derelict on 1 side and restored on the other, a '28 Chandler, a 1911 Case , a 1911 Franklin, and a 1913 Chevrolet Classic Six. Plus Packard, Locomobile, and Pierce-Arrow examples.

Jeff,  excellent explanation!    Shawn, I guess you need to use your own judgement.  Take a few pictures of something we have never seen before!

I don't think there's much that you haven't seen before.

...according to the Standard Catalog, National came out with their own V-12 the same time as Packard in 1915, a fork & blade engine. $2,150, F.O.B. Indianapolis.

I'd be up for a meet at the museum. It's only a 5 hour drive from me.

Well... I now have tickets for a warehouse tour at the Reynolds Museum. They say to plan for 75 minutes but I may find a way to get lost and be forgotten.

That is awesome Shawn! I look forward to a full visit report. That place looks insane.

That's great, Shawn! It might burn out some of your circuits, all the vehicles there. I got left behind cause I was stopping too many times("Look, a 1917 Owen-Magnetic!__ Look, the world's oldest Chevrolet!", etc.), OR the tour guide knew I was in a select group there for a week of classes and wouldn't be pulling the radiator mascots off a 1927 Velie or a 1933 Rolls-Royce.

The Director told me two years ago, via email, that there are plans to add more space, a $34M building project adding 97,000 sq. ft. of space to the main museum building. Approved by the Province, delayed by the whole Coronavirus thing.

There is an Owen Magnetic?     @ShawnG   Please get me some pictures of that car.  I have an Owen Magnetic thing going.

The Reynolds-Alberta Museum Director shown in another photo of the storage building.

That list sure would change in the following 5-10 years. From most of them using their own engines, to many of them using engines from an outside supplier, to disappearing completely in just that short time.

John,  was that the chart that sent down the Porter rat hole?  I remember looking at one of those and wondering what is this car with the 450 cubic inch engine?

Perhaps….  I had never heard of Porter (and certainly not FRP), until you launched an inquisition into the obscure car, its history and production numbers and offerings.

This chart came from a post off the AACA.  Maybe that prompted you to dig into Porter.

As for definitive validation for us wasting our time on car forums, your Porter thread gave me an education and like a needle in a haystack, I have a patient telling me about his dad’s FRP, Bill Harah’s pursuit of it, and the family sale of it.  

Maybe I should start a threat about that story (or link to the thread on the AACA). Like many great car stories, incredibly enormous odds, all aligned at the right moment in time to open a huge story that was lost and put lots of pieces of a puzzle together.

The Phantom ll tour this fall will let you see that FRP at the Seal Cove Museum.

Did that stuff end up at Seal Cove?   That is an amazing story.