Ways to Sell: Timing, Convenience, Price

Ways to Sell: Timing, Convenience, Price

Have you moved recently? Have you had the responsibility of dispersing the estate of a close relative? How about just cleaning out to make more room and simplify your life? If you have faced any of these events you have also faced another problem - what to do with all the "stuff." Some of it you probably want to keep for sentimental attachment, moral obligations or other intangible reasons but for most of the rest of it you just wish it would disappear - for a price of course. Other than just passing an asset along to another relative or even a friend, most forms of dispersal have some sort of an economic benefit. Which one you choose depends on your priorities. Considerations include timing, convenience, economic expectations and family feelings and pressure.

The easiest thing to do of course is to load it all up and take it a local charity outlet store. It's quick, easy and painless. In some cases, if you itemize the load and get a receipt you can even use it as a tax deduction. Many charitable organizations will even pick up your load, including automobiles.

But what if you want to produce a more direct financial benefit? Then you have to pick a method to sell the inventory and that gets tricky because you almost have too many choices. Your options include selling to a private buyer, selling to a dealer, selling to an auctioneer, consigning to an auctioneer, consigning to a dealer or selling online.

SELLING OUTRIGHT

Before you start to sell you need to determine exactly what you have to sell because where you sell important items can be a crucial factor in the final payment you receive. If you have mostly late 20th century small items, a garage sale is fairly quick but you know how prices go at garage sales. If you have larger items like a bedroom set or a piano you may need to get some professional help from an appraiser, dealer or auctioneer to help you identify, date and place a value on the big stuff.

Then make an effort to find out where such things are regularly sold. You don't want to sell a high quality set of furniture, even if it is 20th century, at a smalls auction, a jewelry auction or in a local mini-mall that specializes in Depression glass. Take a look at a good furniture auction or consider putting it in a local estate sale run by an estate sale specialist. The estate sale may be the best way to take care of an entire household at one time. Another idea for a big inventory sale is to sell it outright to an auctioneer. Some auctioneers will buy the entire household, right down to the pots and pans. He will pay you a flat negotiated price and you are done. The auctioneer then takes the risk of what things sell for at auction. Of course you will probably receive a lot less than the proceeds of the auction this way but it is quick and you get paid immediately.

Of course you may just want to place an advertisement in the local paper and wait for buyers to knock down your door - if you write a good ad, adequately describe the article and price it reasonably. This will bring you the best price but may take the longest and is the most risky because you may have to let strangers walk through your house. Or you can wholesale it to a dealer who will pay you about fifty percent of the estimated retail value but then again - you are done.

CONSIGNMENT

By consigning something for sale you are asking someone else to store, advertise and sell your item or items for you and collect and account for the proceeds. This does not come cheap and usually doesn't happen quickly. The two primary avenues of consignment are to a dealer or to an auctioneer.

Many dealers will take consignments to place on their showroom floor but they must be priced in accordance with the rest of his inventory. And they often will place a time limit on the arrangement. If the item doesn't sell in "X" number of days you must pick it up and remove it from the store. For this service a retail dealer will charge you anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the final sale price.

You can also consign to an auction house. The auctioneer will require a commission based on a percentage of the final sale price, often 20 - 30 percent, but you can, if you and the auctioneer agree, place a minimum bid, the reserve, on any item to assure that it does not sell for a garage sale price. If bidding doesn't reach the reserve you take the piece back and probably will have to pay the auctioneer some reasonable expenses for the transportation, storage and handling of the item. Just make sure you have all aspects of the agreements in writing before embarking on the sale.

If you discover that you have what may be some very valuable articles such as 18th century furniture or art you may want to consult the appraisal services of major regional and national auction services.

No matter how you decide to dispose of some of the excess baggage of your life, be sure you know what you are disposing of and what the ramifications may be on family members who have or think they may have a claim or right to the merchandise. Be careful.

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OLD BRASS

OLD BRASS

   When you read the catalog for an auction that will be presenting some genuine antique furniture, it's always interesting to read the descriptions. Some of the most alluring will describe a piece of furniture as having "original finish" or "original brasses". That's a real selling point when looking at a chest of drawers that may be 200 years old and think that those brass pulls have been there undisturbed for that whole time. Can that be? Sure it can but sometimes that's not the case. And it doesn't have to be a 200 year old antique chest for the hardware to make a difference. It could be a pretty nice Colonial Revival chest or desk or dresser, in excellent condition, that catches your fancy. But is it all original? And does it matter? Whether it matters is a concern for another day. Today the discussion is just on determining the originality of hardware.

  Since changing or altering hardware is one of the quickest and cheapest ways of improving the look of an otherwise bland piece, the pulls are always suspect, especially if they look REALLY good.

  Early 18th century hardware was cast from molten brass using molds made of sand. This type of hardware is easy to recognize because it often has "inclusions" from the sand itself in the brass, either grains of sand or odd colors from impurities. The backs of this type of hardware were often left with the impression of the sand while the faces were polished. Around the middle of the 18th century the customary blend of copper and zinc was changed to include more copper, giving the alloy more of a reddish cast than the pale yellow brass used for hardware earlier in the century. And by 1780 rolled brass sheets were available so that each piece of hardware could be cut or stamped rather than having to be cast. This greatly reduced the cost and increased the availability and uniformity of late 18th century drawer pulls and escutcheons.

   The use of high pressure rollers during the Federal period increased output even more. No longer did decorative pulls have to be engraved or chased individually. The designs were rolled right into the brass itself. An excellent example of this kind of work is the ornate oval backplate of Hepplewhite pulls of the early 1800s with flags, acorns and leaves embossed on them. Another innovation of the Federal period was the reversing of the bail, the handle. In the Queen Anne period the bail was inserted into the round heads of posts implanted in the backplate. The ends of the bail entered the posts from the inside and the bail hung between the two posts. In the Federal era the bails entered the post from the outside so that the bail surrounded the posts. But much of that became moot as time rolled on. The Empire period certainly had decorative hardware but that was the end of it for nearly half a century. The Late Classicism style of the 1830s and 1840s used almost no brass hardware and Rococo Revival and Renaissance Revival used very little. It was only in the Eastlake period in the 1880s that brass hardware became important again.

   So, if the hardware is the right style, looks appropriate for the piece and could very well be as old as the piece, how can you tell? The easiest and least intrusive way is simple observation. Over the years you can bet that not every time that hardware was cleaned some industrious soul removed it from the drawer. The same is true each time the piece got waxed. If the finish was waxed or the brass cleaned while the pull was in place, there will be some residue around the edge of the brass. The build up of wax or the overflow of brass cleaner will be evident. But that clue is only valid in its presence. Its absence could mean the piece was meticulously maintained or that it has just been deeply cleaned or even refinished.

A quick peek inside the drawer might show the presence of holes that once accommodated the fasteners for hardware other than the current resident. The fasteners themselves can be a clue. The hardware of a 17th century piece would have been held in place by clinched cotter pins on the inside. If there is evidence of that but the current fasteners have threaded posts and nuts, something has been altered. And the threaded posts of an 18th century piece would have been hand cut and the nuts were usually round. If machine made threads and octagonal machine made nuts are visible, something's up.

   As a last resort, if possible, remove the existing hardware from the drawer front. Carefully examine the wood and the finish revealed when the brass is gone. Is there a shadow of another size or differently shaped piece of hardware. Is there an imprint in the finish caused by the sharp edge of another piece?

   You best tool is knowledge of what the correct hardware looked like for each style and period in which you have an interest. I have yet to find a book or source that deals with this narrow subject so as you read related antiques materials you just have to mentally catalog what hardware looks like for a given style of period.

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DEPRESSION SURVIVAL NOVELTY FURNITURE

DEPRESSION SURVIVAL NOVELTY FURNITURE

  Have you ever picked up a book about American 20th century furniture and marveled at the number of seemingly "non-furniture" items included in the pages? If you look around homes and estates originally furnished in the 1920s and 1930s you might see many of the same items stashed away in nooks and crannies. The same holds true for old movies. The next time you see a flick from the 1930s look at the backdrop. While it may the stylish streamline Art Deco of the period, more than likely it is filled with small, non-essential items like wall racks and magazine stands, smoking stands and sewing tables. Where did all of that stuff come from?

  It was the result of one of the most trying periods of American history - the American Depression of the late 1920s which lasted until after the Second World War. The great stock market crash of October 1929 was just the beginning. After that the country was plunged into a deep depression that brought poverty to many middle class working families and threatened the existence of much of American industry, including the furniture manufacturing and retailing industries.

  It became harder and harder, then virtually impossible, to sell a new dining room suite or a new living room ensemble to a newly impoverished family that could barely pay the rent and buy food. But there is always that small ember of burning desire to make small additions and improvements to the nest so the furniture industry came up with a new product line - the "novelty" furniture. Companies that could no longer sell the entire houseful of furniture found that they could help the housewife spruce up the dining room, not with a new suite but with a new novelty called the "teacart" or "tea trolley". True the form had been around since the early 1920s but it became popular after the crash. Not that American households served traditional hot tea in the English manner but the name gave the wheeled buggy a nice little touch of much needed class. And if a little class was good, many choices in the class were better. Major players like Stickley Brothers of Grand Rapids entered the novelty market offering as many as eighteen different finishes and decorative schemes for it line of "hostess wagons.' And they came with tray tops, extra shelves, folding handles and a variety of wheel arrangements as well as a number of names.

  The major center of the novelty industry was found in Chicago with its wide variety of manufacturers. One of the more innovative of the novelty makers was the United Table-Bed Company. They made their famous "Ta-Bed", a bed that folded up to look like a small breakfast room table. It was marketed as a multiple use product that "saves space, saves rent, perfectly combines in one piece of furniture the functions ordinarily performed by two." The Storkline Corporation turned out a line of inexpensive baby cribs and juvenile furniture while even the powerhouses of Chicago joined in the niche market. Tonk Manufacturing, finding the need for piano stools waning, turned to high chairs and music cabinets. Parlor frame maker Zangerle & Peterson turned to small tables and commodes and Kruissink & Brothers turned from oak bookcases to wall shelves.

  The great survivor of the novelty makers was Butler Specialty Company, formed in 1927. Butler specialized in magazine racks and wall shelves to survive the Depression, turning later to full size, high end furniture. Butler is still in business today offering a medium to high quality line of furniture.

Another product of the novelty phase was perhaps the best known sewing stand of the 20th century. No, not the Martha Washington. It was the priscilla, the small stand with the peaked top that opened on both sides below the handle. This little stand first appeared early in the century and gained prominence during the dark days.

  But the prize of all the novelties was the smoking stand. This multi-purpose stand came into use just after World War I and was popular until after WWII even though it slipped a little in the 1930s. The stand focused initially on the pipe smoker, providing an enclosed humidor space, complete with moisture pad, in the interior. Many of the "humidors" appeared to be made of copper or brass but were in reality just sheet metal that had been painted or coated. Brass and copper were much too expensive for smoking stands. The smoker or smoking stand became the object of decorative fancy, utilizing the most outrageous woods possible. Zebra striped "zebrano" veneer was a common material as was Oriental walnut, the striped Australian wood. Applied decals and exotic paint schemes decorated many of the affordable stands.

  One well known novelty maker outside of Chicago was the H. T. Cushman Company of Bennington, VT. Founded in 1864 making corks Cushman diversified into "novelties" that led to such items as the pencil with an eraser on it, the first ink eraser and some of the earliest roller skates. Cushman introduced its first smoking stand in 1913 and it was the cause for factory additions in 1919, 1922 and 1926. In the early 1930s Cushman expanded the line to include articles that fell in with the Colonial Revival movement of the day and became a major manufacturer of "Colonial" furniture. Over the years it updated its lines and eventually was acquired by General Interiors Corporation. The factory facility was used by Green Mountain Furniture to construct inventory for Ethan Allen from 1972 to 1978.

  Many modern furniture manufacturers today owe their existence to the survival mode adopted during the Depression and a large part of that mode was the design, construction and sale of "novelty" furniture to the American public.

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CHEAP TRICKS FAKE FINISHES

CHEAP TRICKS FAKE FINISHES

  Throughout most of the history of wooden furniture some attempts have been made to disguise the true nature of the wood used. Most attempts are efforts to make a lesser wood appear to be a more expensive, more beautiful or more exotic species. It may be that the desired wood is too expensive for the maker to use or it might be that it is just not available at any price - or it could be that the maker just thought he could do it cheaper and get away with it. Some of the cosmetic charades have been quite artful and ingenious while some have been heavy handed, clumsy and obvious.

  In the 18th and 19th centuries some furniture made of lesser quality wood was just painted to conceal the actual construction. But another school of makers used graining as a method of disguising the true material. In the late 18th century the graining of cabinets was in full swing. Many of these examples are works of art such as the chest on chest made by the Dunlap family of cabinetmakers in New Hampshire that sold at auction in North Carolina in 2005 for $276,000. The cabinet looked like real wood even to the trained eye. A more common application was the use of black ink over a reddish background to simulate the look of rosewood. This became especially popular in the mid 19th century when rosewood Empire pieces were at a premium. Walnut Victorian chairs were often given a red wash and grained with black to look like the much more expensive rosewood. Even crotch cut mahogany was widely synthesized since it has such an erratic pattern and almost any graining technique will work. Many mid century crotch mahogany cupboards are actually painted pine or poplar. Most of this kind of work was done by individual cabinetmakers or artists.

  However, by the end of the 19th century the deception became commercial rather than individual. In 1885 an inventor in Grand Rapids named Harry Sherwood came up with a system to mechanically grain just about any wood to look like the most popular wood of the time, quarter cut golden oak. Quarter cutting oak to produce the prominent "tiger eye" design is an expensive process both in material and in labor time and this new system allowed Sherwood to open a new business based exclusively on his deceptive graining practices. Flat surfaces were stained and then grained with large inked drum rollers that produced the distinctive pattern. Curved pieces were grained by hand using small specially carved rollers. Many furniture manufacturers of the time quickly adopted the technique and it was in widespread use by 1910. The furniture looked "right" to the uneducated customer's eye but it was made of significantly less expensive material like softwood pine instead of quarter cut white oak. The surprise would come many years later when one of these pieces needed to be refinished. What had looked like a solid oak chest turned out to be a plain softwood chest after it was stripped. Many refinishers had a lot of explaining to do.

  That problem continued with a vengeance into the Depression era. Hard times result in innovative solutions and some manufacturers took Mr. Sherwood's approach to new heights. During the 1920s and 1930s a line of furniture was mass produced that closely imitated Sherwood's concept except in scale. In the 1920s the deception was much more widespread. The furniture was quickly constructed of inexpensive wood using every shortcut known to the industry including the absence of dust covers inside cabinets, the use of quick machine cut rabbet joints or nailed joints in drawer construction instead of dovetails and the use of printed or rolled grained finishes made to resemble real wood. Then areas of the flat surfaces were outlined with thin router lines and the included areas received another layer of color. The effect was that of an expensively and artistically veneered piece of furniture. This type of furniture was referred to as "Borax" furniture because a cleaning product containing borax gave away coupons to redeem for cheap furniture like this. During the Depression the word borax came to mean cheap when used in reference to furniture.

Another great deception in furniture was reserved for the Art Moderne (Art Deco) period. Part of the allure of many pieces of the period was the wide variety of woods and veneers used to create the outstanding veneer patterns. One wood widely used was called Oriental or Australian walnut, a uniformly striped wood often used on drawer fronts in diamond patterns. Another popular wood used in banding was the closely striped zebra wood or zebrano. But zebrano was costly for the time and in less expensive pieces it was often successfully simulated with "veneerite", fake paper veneer with the grain pattern printed on it.

  After the Depression era, the need for deception seemed to diminish for a while. It was virtually gone in the 1950s, 60s and 70s but it showed back up with a vengeance in the 1980s sporting a new name and a new game. This time the trickery was touted as the "engraved" finish. What appeared to be virtually identical dining tables could be seen on furniture show room floors but the prices were significantly different, often by more than $1,000 for a single table. Why? Because one table was made with mahogany veneer, the expensive one, while the cheaper model had an engraved mahogany finish. What's that? It was back to the old borax trick. It was a printed finish. And not only was it a printed finish, it was not even printed directly on the wood as the borax finish was. The new engraved finish was printed directly on the new substrate known as "MDF." That stands for "medium density fiberboard". It is called heavy duty cardboard by the rest of us. Learn to detect fake finishes.

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The Moon Car

The Moon Car

Joseph Moon was one of five brothers of an Ohio farming family. When each one of the boys turned twenty one, they were given a horse, saddle, and bridle and told to make their own way into the world.

In 1871, Joseph took his horse to St. Louis and set up a buggy business. While at a carriage makers' convention in 1902, he saw the potential of the automobile industry, and realized that was the direction his company needed follow.

While other carriage makers where just motorized their buggies, Moon went straight to car production with a design by Louis P. Mooers, formerly of Peerless. It was a five-passenger touring car with 30/35 hp Rutenber engine, three-speed sliding gear transmission and shaft drive.

The 1906 Moon was called "The Ideal American Car". Forty five were built and sold for about $3000.00. In 1908 the Moon Company also sold their four-cylinder 25 hp Moon to Hol-Tan of New York. These cars were shipped to New York where they were fitted with a new standard coachwork or special bodies. These Hol-Tan cars were produced for only one year.

The Hol-Tan Company must have believed for a moment that the Moon was "The Ideal American Car" because they entered it in the Great Race of 1908 New York to Paris. But three weeks before heading to the starting line, they backed out and the race was won by another American car, the Thomas Flyer.

By the twenties, the Moon was a fine, well-built car carrying such refinements as demountable rims on detachable wheels, balloon tires (introduced in 1923), Lockhead hydraulic brakes (which followed in 1924). The company's peek production year was in 1925; approximately 13,000 cars were built.

In 1929, the Moon Motor Company decided to drop the Moon name and produce a brand new straight-eight named Windsor, and then the Ruxton. But neither car was able to save the company during the depression. The factory which was appraised at $1,250,000, was sold during the early thirties for only $72,000 cash to the Cupples Company for the production of matches.

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The Mini - A Little Car with a Big Job

The Mini - A Little Car with a Big Job

Necessity was the mother of invention and the motivation behind the creation of the Mini. After the Suez Crisis in September of 1956, the United Kingdom’s oil supplies were reduced and gas rationing was imposed. The sales of large cars, with high fuel consumption, plummeted and the British public turned to the economical “bubble cars” being manufactured in Germany.

The British Motor Corporation (BMC), which was formed by the merger of the Austin Motor Company and the Nuffield Organization (parent of the Morris car company, MG, Riley and Wolseley) in 1952, needed a small fuel efficient car and they needed it quickly. BMC put their chief designer, Alec Issigonis, to work on the project. Issigonis was the genius behind Morris Minor and the obvious choice build a lightweight, four-passenger car that would take up minimal space.

By October of 1957, Issigonis and his team produced a prototype that was nothing short of revolutionary. The car used a conventional four cylinder water cooled engine, but it was mounted sideways, near the front wheels, and drove the front wheels. This design not only increased passenger space, it gave the car more stability when taking tight turns.

Some of the other innovations produced in the Mini were:

The radiator being placed at the left side of the car so that the engine mounted fan could be retained

Its gears were in the engine's sump and oil was shared by both.

The tiny 10 inch wheels placed at the farthest end of the body like a go cart.

Its compact all independent suspension with rubber elements.

The boot had the hinges at the bottom and could be left it open when driven to increase luggage space.

Mounting the carburetor at the back of the engine.

Sliding windows in the doors which replaced the window mechanisms for storage pockets.

The use of exterior welded seams to permit the car to be built more cheaply using manual labor.

The end result was an inexpensive, nimble little car that packed an 848 cc engine in ten percent of a ten foot car that could reach a respectable speed of 72 mph, and still seat four passengers comfortably.

The production version was available in August 1959 and marketed under two of BMC's brand names, Austin Seven and Morris Mini Minor – the only recognizable difference was the badging. The name "Mini" started being used in 1961.

Sales were slow at first, but soon the versatility and charm of the Mini made it a favorite with the jet setters of the swinging sixties. The Mini became a pop icon with celebrity owners such as the Beatles, Peter Sellers and Princess Margaret, and was featured in the 1969 movie, The Italian Job. The car was a fashion statement.

After forty years, and 5.3 million cars being manufactured and sold all over the world, and receiving the European Car of the Century award, the final Mini was produced in October 2000. Will the new BMW MINI have the same success? Only time will tell.

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The Hupmobile - a Lesson For Today's Car Makers

The Hupmobile - a Lesson For Today's Car Makers

The Hupmobile may not be a familiar name among classic car enthusiasts, but it was one of the many respected and beloved marques that fell victim to the 1930s Depression after 30 years of building cars.

Robert Hupp, a former employee of Oldsmobile and Ford, and his brother Louis Hupp founded the Hupp Motor Car Co. in Detroit, Michigan. They introduced the Hupmobile Model 20, a two-passenger runabout with a four-cylinder engine and a two-speed transmission, at the 1908 Detroit Auto Show. It was very well received and their first year sales were more than 1,600.

The Hupmobile did very well into the 1920’s and established a solid reputation which allowed them to attract good engineers. The Hupmobile moved from a four-cylinder to a straight eight and produced a variety of models. By 1926 the Hupmobile Six was added and Hupp’s earnings skyrocketed.

It was the success of the stylish 1928 model that helped the Hupp brothers afford to increase plant capacity by buying the Chandler-Cleveland Corp. of Cleveland. 65,862 Hupmobiles had been produced by the end of that year.

Encouraged by the previous year’s strong sales, Hupp made the mistake of increasing the Hupmobile power plant to a 70-horsepower Six and a 100-horsepower Eight in the 1930 models after the stock market crash. With sales dipping 23% and a depression looming, Hupp forged ahead with a 133-horsepower Eight in an economy that couldn't afford additional gas consumption.

Hupp reduced prices on the 1931 models, but this didn’t stop their sales from plummeting. Hupp decided to collaborate with Raymond Loewy (famous for the creation of Studebaker's groundbreaking "coming-or-going" design) to introduce a stylish new model for 1932. Because the front fenders of the '32s followed the contour of the wheels, they were referred to as the "cycle car" Hupmobiles.

With only 10,500 of the new model Hupmobiles sold, there was not enough cash to make any significant changes for 1933, but the bold designs for the 1934 Hupmobile received public attention and approval. It had an aerodynamic body, faired-in headlamps and a three-piece "pilot house" windshield with its end sections slightly bent around the corners.

The increased sales didn’t ease tension in the Hupp boardroom resulting in Archie Andrew, one of the corporation's largest shareholders, filing a law suit. Opposing shareholders successfully countersued and had Andrews removed from the company; all of which created a lack of public confidence.

Hupp’s last attempt for a recovery produced what many consider the best looking Hupmobile of all, the Skylark. It used the body from the front-wheel drive Cord 810-812 model and Hupp's conventional rear-wheel drive. Unfortunately, the new Skylark was not enough to turn things around and the Hupp Motor Car Corp. wound up its automobile operations late in 1940.

The lesson here is that car makers need to build cars that coincide with the demands of the economy, not their egos.

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Volkswagen - The Peoples Car

Volkswagen - The Peoples Car

Did you know that the first Volkswagen was a Porsche design? Ferdinand Porsche, who had been chief designer for Daimler-Benz, Auto-Union, and now had his own engineering consultation firm, was put in charge of designing the Volkswagen – “The Peoples Car” by Adolf Hitler.

Hitler wanted a small four seater car, with an air cooled and durable engine that would get 40 miles to the gallon, and could be bought for less than 1000 Marks (about $250.00). Ferdinand Porsche had already been in the design stages of an affordable small car years earlier, but had never been able to bring it into production. Between 1935 and 1937 Porsche built a total of 50 Volkswagen prototypes with the flat four air cooled engine designed by Franz Reimspeiss – a unit very similar to that used throughout the car’s production.

Politically, an affordable car such as the Volkswagen, was a strong platform for Hitler to win the public support that he desperately needed for his military adventures. Hitler wasn’t about to let anything get in his way, and he clamped down on iron and steel allocations to other manufacturers and used Nazi financing for the project. He also took over the private estate of Earl Von Schulenberg at Wolfsburg to build a factory. This became, and still is, the biggest car factory of automobiles in the world.

The Wolfsburg Factory never produced a production Volkswagen because by the time the factory was completed, Hitler had already annexed Austria, and invaded Czechoslavakia and Poland. Consequently, the factory was redirected and taken over by the German air traffic ministry and the total production was converted to meet the war demand.

It was only after the war in 1946 that the Volkswagen finally became the “Peoples Car”. The Wolfsburg plant was located in the British zone of occupation and became a repair depot. The British selected Major Ivan Hirst as responsible for the factory. He wanted to start producing Volkswagens since the war had created a huge demand for a small cheap car. Using the discovered blueprints, they put the Volkswagen into production - but this time it was really for the people and now we, the classic car hobbyists, to use and enjoy.

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The Edsel – A Legacy of Failure

The Edsel – A Legacy of Failure

"Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it," warned philosopher George Santayana. Ford, are you listening?

Ford Motor Company decided it needed another car line to compete against General Motors and in the spring of 1957, they began what was thought to be a highly successful ad campaign, "The Edsel is Coming”. But nobody could see this mystery car, just a glimpse of a hood ornament. Anyone involved with the Edsel was sworn to secrecy not to leak a word about what was being claimed to be a radically new and innovative motor car.

Dealers were required to store the Edsel undercover and would be fined or lose their franchise if they showed the cars before the release date. All the hype brought a curious public in record numbers to see its unveiling on “E-day” September 4, 1957. And then they left without buying.

Car buyers didn’t purchase the Edsel because it was a bad car, it was just that it didn’t live up to the expectations that the company created in the prior months. This was their first failure.

The Edsel actually had some great innovations for its time such as a "rolling dome" speedometer and its “Teletouch” transmission shifting system in the center of the steering wheel. Other design innovations included ergonomically designed controls for the driver and self-adjusting brakes.

In addition to the car not living up to the marketing hype, the United States was in a recession and Edsel offered its most expensive models first while other car makers were discounting last years models. This was their second failure.

And for those who did buy an Edsel found that the car was plagued with shoddy workmanship. Many of the vehicles that showed up at the dealer showroom had notes attached to the steering wheel listing the parts not installed.

Ford launched the Edsel as a brand-new division, but they didn’t give the car line its own manufacturing facility. Edsel relied on Ford to produce their cars and Ford workers resented assembling "someone else's" vehicle and took little pride in their work. Not having a dedicated work force to build their cars was Edsel’s third and biggest failure.

The Edsel’s quality control issues were compounded by Ford’s mechanics and their unfamiliarity with the car’s state-of-the-art technology. The biggest problem was its automatic “Tele-touch” transmission, whereby the driver selected the gears by pushing buttons on the center of the steering wheel. It was a complicated system that the mechanics didn’t know how to fix – failure number four.

With Ford wanting Edsel to be a separate division, they made sure there was nothing that tied this car line to Ford. The word Ford couldn’t be found anywhere on the car. That was failure number five because without an established customer base, like Ford, it’s no surprise Edsel sold only 64,000 units in its first year.

One thing that comes to our mind about what might have been the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” is the car’s name. Yes, it was named after the first child of Ford’s founder Henry and his wife Clara, Edsel Bryant, but it’s just not a name that rolls off the tongue easily.

Frankly we love the look of the Edsel and feel that in a different economy, with a good support system, and an honest marketing plan, the Edsel would still be with us today rather than only lasting three years in production.

So we will say again, Ford, GM and Chrysler "those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.”

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Renault - How It All Began

Renault - How It All Began

When we attended the RM Auctions in Scottsdale 2008, a 1912 Renault Type CB Coupé de Ville really caught our attention as it drove up on the block. Its extraordinary design and distinctive front shape, caused by positioning the radiator behind the engine to give a so called "coalscuttle" bonnet, was the impetus for us to research the history of the car maker.

Like other auto manufacturers that are still around today, such as Ford and Fiat, the Renault Corporation was created due to the initiative and genius of one man, Louis Renault. Louis was born in February 1877 and was the youngest of five children. His father made his fortune in the trade of fabrics and buttons and his mother was the daughter of wealthy merchants. Louis Renault had a passion for mechanics and new techniques at an early age that made him neglect his studies and spend most of his time in the workshop where Léon Serpollet used to build his racing steam cars.

After his military service, Louis turned a De Dion-Bouon cycle into a four-wheeled small car equipped with one of his inventions: a universal jointed propeller shaft that included a three-gear box with reverse, with the third gear in direct drive. He patented this principle in 1899. This little car, soon to be named the Renault Type A, was the inspiriration for Louis Renault to become an auto manufacturer when he won a bet with friends that it could drive up the slope of Lépic Street in Montmartre. Afterwards, he received twelve orders for the car.

In 1905, Louis Renault went from a niche car maker to a mass producer with an order of 250 taxi cabs. In two years time, Renault had over 1,500 taxi cabs on the streets of Paris and exported a good number to London, New York, and Buenos Aires. Renault’s luxury cars, like the Type CB Coupé de Ville, were expensive for the average worker, so it was the taxis, buses, and commercial vehicles they produced that made the company the largest automaker in France.

Today, Renault is a privately held company well known for numerous revolutionary designs, security technologies, and motor racing. It’s also Europe’s number one brand for cars and light commercial vehicles.

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Morris Garage - Better Known as the MG Car Company

Morris Garage - Better Known as the MG Car Company

Maybe the MG car company was built by the Brits, but it was kept alive by the Yanks! William Morris (later known as Lord Nuffield) founded Morris Garage (later known as the MG Car Company) in 1928. Lord Nuffield, with the help of his managing director Cecil Kimbeirst, built the MG marque to become well known as the “everyday man's sports car”.

On June 19th, 1936 the MG Car Company announced to the world its T-type. It was the first of a new series of MG’s that would last into the 1950’s. The MGTA sported the famous radiator design, the swept wings, running boards, folding windscreen, and large accessible bonnet. It was a two seater sports car with a foldable hood and side curtains.

The MGTA sales suffered because of its poor performance from a pushrod 1250cc four-cylinder engine, subsequently only 3000 were produced. In 1939, the MGTB was introduced with the XPAG engine (1250 cc fitted with a Y type camshaft) which improved its power range, but with onset of World War II, only a few were produced. The war ceased all production of MG’s and the company was put into service for the war effort making military items.

But the war did bring one good thing to the MG car company - American soldiers. Yanks stationed in England came to love the handling and good looks of traditional British roadsters exemplified by the MG, and started importing them to the US after the war. The United States had much more cash available to spend on cars than war torn Britain. This was the motivation for the MG Car Company, run under the Nuffield Organization, to change their marketing strategy and focus on North America.

The MGTC, produced from 1945 to 1949, was fitted with many elements to make it more US friendly. It had front and rear bumpers, twin horns, and dual tail lamps. But that wasn’t enough to handle American road conditions and only 10,000 cars were produced. What was really needed was a total redesign for the America market.

The MGTD, produced from 1949 to 1953, had better brakes, adjustable steering column, and an interchangeable dashboard for left or right hand driving. The TD adopted rack and pinion steering and front coil springs and wishbones. This, and a change in rear end suspension, allowed for a smoother ride and better handling. The wheel size was reduced to fifteen inches and the tire width increased to 5.50. A larger frame increased the body width five inches, and an optional radio and heater were part of the package. All of these changes made the MGTD a more comfortable and a superior riding car compared to the MGTC. Almost 30,000 TD’s were produced in four years.

One thing buyers didn’t like about the TD was that it no longer sported the wire wheels that where standard on previous models. In 1953, the MGTF was introduced with a chassis almost identical to the TD, a redesigned interior, and wire wheels were added as an option. Still the MGTF never captured the success of the MGTD in the US and was replaced by the MGA within two short years.

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Maybach - The Luxury Car

Maybach - The Luxury Car

When the father and son team of Wilhelm and Karl Maybach took the first car bearing their name to the 1921 Motor Show in Berlin, Maybach became established as a luxury brand which exploits all technological possibilities to the fullest. Their cars would not be cars for the common man, but for those of great wealth and discriminating taste. And the design genius behind the Maybach, was a homeless orphan.

It was in the summer of 1865 in Reutlingen, Germany, at an institution with adjoining production facilities built and run by orphans and the homeless, for orphans and the homeless, that Wilhelm Maybach caught the attention of the workshop manager, Gottlieb Daimler. Daimler, who founded Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft (DMG), a company which later merged and became Daimler-Benz, watched the nineteen year old Maybach produce an endless stream of design drafts for manufacturing machines, scales and farming implements.

The close bond between Maybach and Daimler was fueled by Wilhelm’s need for a father figure after being tragically orphaned at ten, and Daimler recognizing Maybach's potential as a designer. This was the beginning of a partnership that would last thirty five years and bring about many automotive innovations, like the four stroke engine in 1876 and the first fast running engine with a vertical cylinder run on petrol with Maybach's float carburetor design. In 1889, Maybach developed a water-cooled, two-cylinder, V-type engine and then a four-seater belt-driven car by 1899. In 1900, the same year of Daimler’s death, Maybach designs the Mercedes, which many have claimed was the first “real car”.

By 1907, Maybach had left DMG and he, and his son Karl, became interested in airship travel after the 1908 crash of the LZ4 Zeppelin, powered by a Daimler engine. When the Maybach men presented their ideas of a new engine to Count Zeppelin, the Count's response was to start his own engine firm, with Karl Maybach as technical director.

After ten years with many successes and innovations in engine design which enabled airships to make regular passenger flights that covered greater distances, Wilhelm and Karl Maybach acquired a forty percent stake in Zeppelins company and turned their interest back to automobiles. They changed the company’s name to Maybach-Motorenbau GmbH and began designing a car based on a Mercedes-Benz chassis. Within two years the car evolved into the Maybach Type W3 and made its debut at the Berlin Motor Show in 1921.

It was in 1929 that the Maybach Type Zeppelin DS 8 was unveiled. It was powered by a twelve cylinder engine with the same basic configuration as the Maybach engines used in the 'Graf Zeppelin' airships, and was capable of reaching a top speed of 93 mph. But it wasn’t just the power plant that made these cars so special. Maybach crafted each car by hand and set the highest standards of luxury for every car they produced. About 1800 Maybachs were built in their twenty years of production. In 1941, the company shifted its focus and began manufacturing engines for military, marine and rail purposes to support the war effort.

Building on Maybach’s tradition of quality, DaimlerChrysler resurrected the Maybach brand in 2003 for its new line of ultra luxury vehicles. Ordering a Maybach can be compared to the purchasing of a yacht. Each vehicle is hand made to the customer’s specifications with over one million possible configurations.

We saw a 2006 Maybach 57S powered by a 6.0 litre V12 biturbo engine for sale online the other day for $380,000.00 – makes you wonder what the car sold for when it was new.

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It's A Doosey - The Duesenberg

It's A Doosey - The Duesenberg

What classic car combines luxury, style and elegance with the mechanical precision of a Rolls-Royce and the amazing acceleration and blinding speed of a Bugatti? You guessed it - the Duesenberg. Because of the Deusenberg's amazing attributes, the phrase “it’s a doozy” emerged in the 1930’s to describe something that had the best of everything.

The Duesenberg Automobile & Motors Company, Inc. was founded 1913 by the Duesenberg Brothers, Fred and August, in St Paul, Minneapolis. Born in Germany, the two brothers were self-taught engineers and built their cars entirely by hand. Although they didn’t design their cars to be racing machines, a Duesenberg set a Land Speed Record of 156 mph at Daytona in 1920. In 1921, Jimmy Murphy became the first American to win the French Grand Prix driving a Duesenberg to victory at Le Mans. As late as 1960, the Duesenberg was still the only American car to win a European Grand Prix race. In 1924, 1925, and 1927, it was a Duesenberg which won at the Indianapolis 500.

Their numerous victories on the race track didn’t help them sell their first mass produced vehicle - the Model A. Although this model was considered extremely advanced, with features such as dual overhead cams, four-valve cylinder heads and the first hydraulic brakes offered on a passenger car; the company went bankrupt and closed in 1922. In 1925 Errett Lobban Cord, the owner of Cord Automobile, bought the company for the Duesenberg Brothers' engineering skills and the brand name to produce luxury cars - the Models J and SJ.

Quickly the Duesenberg became one of the most famous cars in America, owned by the rich and famous - Clark Gable and the Duke of Windsor to name a few. Duesenberg advertised itself to be the best car in the world without much opposition, but unfortunately had to cease production in 1937 after Cord's financial empire collapsed. Of 481 models produced between 1928 and 1937, 384 are still around - 4 of them being owned by Jay Leno.

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