While lovers of classic Auburn automobiles may be made sick to their stomach when learning that the vehicle you are seeing both above and below began life as a 1929 model, we’re not so busted up about it. Listen, when this thing was built in the 1940s or early 1950s that Auburn was just another used car and a used that that was older than dirt when compared to the more modern stuff hitting the roads during that period of time. As “old” as a 15 year aged vehicle looks these days, imagine looking at your swoopy new late 1940s car and then peering at a 1929 Auburn which looks about as advanced as an ox cart. Just wanted to get that out of the way to start. Now, on to the good stuff!
This thing is amazing because it is all metal and someone was both blessed with amazing skills in shaping and forming steel and they were clearly blessed with a butt-load of time because there is no small investment in hours in making this body. Today it would be some crappy fiberglass overlay and that would be that but back then? You MADE stuff. Imagine forming the imaginary boiler on this thing! Between that and making that nice curved cab roof, the coal bin, and all of the other details like the stuff on the nose of the boiler it really is an amazing piece. You may hate it because it looks kind of clown-ish but we’re looking past that because of how much work went into it and the time period it was built in.
Lastly if you are wondering if the chassis and suspension could take the extra weight, peer at the last photo we have in the item below. These things were sprung like dump trucks and the frame is plenty robust. This added weight probably improved the ride quality when it was all said and done. The engine is a straight eight flathead that makes more than enough power to lug this thing through parades and slowly down secondary roads. Vision out the front must be horrid and the turning radius has to be in cruise ship territory but hey, where are you going to see another one?
The owner does not have a computer and hates “fancy gadgets” according to the guy listing the car for him. We want to meet the dude that owned this thing for decades!
CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS AND THEN THE AD LINK!
The eBay link is wrong….
The eBay link is still wrong….
I think saw this vehicle headed north on I-476 (PA turnpike northeast extension) between Norristown and Allentown on the morning of September 5, 2015. I saw the unmistakable shape of a locomotive headed in the opposite direction and couldn’t quite figure out what I was looking at.