Vintage truck

[Tom Alexander]

Originally Posted by YM-Mundrabilla

'Almost certainly' for hosing the horses.

Looks like that -- would help keep them cool if parked close to a conflagration, assuming they were lined up with the cart that is and not turned off to the side.

[Farmer John]

Better than a beaded seat? Looks very uncomfortable.

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Vintage Buick outside the General Motors Office at Fishermens Bend, Melbourne.
I don't know if it was originally built like that or whether it is a restoration conversion.
I don't fancy those tyres in the wet or the dry.

Not that this answers the above question, but my parents had a 1935 straight eight Buick sedan the body for which was built at Holden's Body Works in Adelaide (I think) but no idea whether the chassis and engine were built in the US or not.

[IJC 38]

[QUOTE=YM-Mundrabilla;16481.
I don't fancy those tyres in the wet or the dry.

.[/QUOTE]



Those type of tyres handled snow conditions much better than modern ones, their thin profile allowed them to cut through the snow and find hard surface, modern wide profile (tread) tyres fitted as standard from new cannot do that; you have to have winter tyres to handle deep snow. Living and driving in hilly Yorkshire (in the past) snow never stopped us


Just look at some old films and see how cars of the 1920's coped, nothing seemed to stop them (except perhaps water in the carb)


Just as an aside I keep a set of 'Snow Socks' for my wheels in winter when needed, made of some material designed in Sweden, so easy to put on and take off, no messing with chains. When your done you can put them in the washing machine and store them in the spare wheel well when dry, allowed me to go in a front wheel drive car where 4 x 4 were struggling, they also work in the sand

[Malcolm G]

Originally Posted by YM-Mundrabilla

I don't fancy those tyres in the wet or the dry.

Personal experience from around 50 years ago - Those skinny tyres on large rims tend not to aquaplane but just cut though water on flooded roads, leaving the contemporary cars of that time floundering with their 'newer wider better' tyres on smaller diameter rims.

[Dartskipper]

Originally Posted by YM-Mundrabilla

Vintage Buick outside the General Motors Office at Fishermens Bend, Melbourne.
I don't know if it was originally built like that or whether it is a restoration conversion.
I don't fancy those tyres in the wet or the dry.

Not that this answers the above question, but my parents had a 1935 straight eight Buick sedan the body for which was built at Holden's Body Works in Adelaide (I think) but no idea whether the chassis and engine were built in the US or not.

Buick were the first engine manufacturer to produce an overhead valve engine for use in a motor vehicle. All other engines were side valve designs. Buick marketed their famous straight eight engines as "valve in head." The valves had very small heads themselves, and some people called the engines "nail in head." The straight eight was a very smooth running engine, and was in production well into the late 1950's when Buick changed to the V8 configuration.

[SJB]

I got studs on medium broad tires and four wheel drive, that is the only way to reach our house in parts of the winter. And with dry powder-snow on really cold slick ice that will not do either.

[Farmer John]

The old 2CV was brilliant in snow, thin tyres cut through, low power doesn't spin the wheels.

[Jolly Jack]

Going by the rear side doors, this one was a conversion, I'd think. Probably converted from a Phaeton bodied Buick of the early 1930s.


JJ.

[Farmer John]

A common conversion was quite brutal, chop the back off a big powerful saloon and stick a crane on to make a tow truck, I saw one Sunbeam, the doors were upholstered in reptile skin of considerable opulence. Another thing I saw a lot of was pretty well any old car with the output from the gear box fed to another gearbox to pull mowers etc for agricultural purposes. Not quite sure of the details, there was a man called Sonny Parker who did them, the garth at his farm was full of old cars.

[SJB]

Originally Posted by Farmer John

The old 2CV was brilliant in snow, thin tyres cut through, low power doesn't spin the wheels.

Maybe that is true in your place, or in the Netherlands or Denmark. Living in a country where horizontal roads are mostly fantasy, then unless you have got a differential lock (or whatever you call it in English) you will the moment one of the drive wheels spins - which will happen in every tight corner uphill - be driving a one-wheel-drive car. And in that situation on a steep hill, having the thin wheels of a 2CV or a VW Beetle, or whatever, just means less traction. If you want to drive off-road in snow, very wide rubber belts on a set of drive wheels, and skis on the steering wheels may be the best thing. With snow of any normal height here you would not get anywhere at all off the road in a 2CV. The way to get up the steep hills in an ordinary car is to keep your speed - and how do you keep your speed up in a 2CV - by turning the engine off and pushing it? But the first thing you want in Winter Norway, is a car so balanced that it lets go on all 4 wheels at the same time, that unheralded feature of the Volvo may save your life ove and over.

[Farmer John]

It was pretty flat round Shrewsbury (probably still is).

[YM-Mundrabilla]

Originally Posted by Dartskipper

Buick were the first engine manufacturer to produce an overhead valve engine for use in a motor vehicle. All other engines were side valve designs. Buick marketed their famous straight eight engines as "valve in head." The valves had very small heads themselves, and some people called the engines "nail in head." The straight eight was a very smooth running engine, and was in production well into the late 1950's when Buick changed to the V8 configuration.

When we cleared out my late parents house there was a 'clutch' of valves tied up with string hanging on a hook in the garage. I don't know if they were inlet or exhaust or a mixture but there were not 16 in total. I reckon that the valves were about 35 mm across the face but it was a long time ago.

The overhead valve was probably good if you could keep the oil up to the rocker arm. For a long time dad could not. I don't know if it was the oil pump that was crook or the rocker bearings sloppy but the car ended its life minus the rocker cover and a big oil can inside on the floor. This would have been back in the late 1940s/very early 1950s.

The more things change the more they stay the same - we had a 2000 Holden Barina (a straight Opel from Spain I think) it screwed up the OH cam due to insufficient lubrication too. Bastard of a car - nearly as bad a our son's Volkswagen Polo.

[IJC 38]

Originally Posted by S.J.B

Maybe that is true in your place, or in the Netherlands or Denmark. Living in a country where horizontal roads are mostly fantasy,.

Believe it or not here in the British Isles we have quite a few roads which are not horizontal, it is also against the law to use studded tyres, winter tread tyres are okay. Where-as when working in Switzerland it was compulsory to fit winter or studded tyres from October to March, but that was nearly 50 years ago, most people kept two sets of wheels but things may have changed. Here in the UK we have far more vehicles than Norway, a larger population, more flats/apartment blocks with no facilities for keeping a spare set of tyres/wheels, we would all like motoring utopia, but alas it ain't going to happen, we learn to live with what the law and physical restrictions allow.

[Jolly Jack]

Originally Posted by Farmer John

It was pretty flat round Shrewsbury (probably still is).

Correct, John!


JJ.

[BobClay]

Originally Posted by Jolly Jack

Correct, John!


JJ.

I walked up the Wrekin last year for first time since I was a kid. It didn't seem very flat to me … mind you, that was 60 years on …