CARS OF THE DECADE
Technically, 2020 is still in the decade of the 2010s. Yet it still feels like we’ve moved on to a new decade when we start over at zero (kind of like when the car’s odometer rolls over). And here at Old Cars, we like lists, so we thought the dog days of winter would be a good time to list of some of our favorite reader vehicles that have been featured on the pages of Old Cars in the past decade.
We’ve had the fun and privilege of talking to thousands of cars owners about their cars over the years, and we’ve featured tons of awesome vehicles in this magazine. Trying to narrow them all down to a manageable list is kind of an exercise in futility, but it’s been fun looking back at the past 10 years and remembering the amazing folks and wonderful cars that we have crossed paths with.
The cars on this list have been included for any number reasons. It might be the car’s or owner’s status in the hobby (or both, in the case of Jay Leno’s Model J Duesenberg). It might be because they have really cool back stories (there are a lot of them). And it might be just because we thought the car owner was a fantastic person and we really dug them and their connection to their car (there are a lot of them, too).
Without further ado, here are a few of our favorite rides from the past 10 years:
1923 American (Owner: Susan Manherz)
Sue Manherz calls her old orphan touring car “Bud” and jokes that he’s an old, moody and sometimes cantankerous friend. He also might be the only survivor of his ilk on the planet. “In the 1960s, there were three Americans known to exist, and all the owners knew each other,” Sue said. “One was an earlier car that wouldn’t look anything like ours. It had a painted radiator shell and it was smaller. We haven’t been able to track it down. The man who had it died in the early ’70s and nobody knows what happened to the car. The [third] car was the same year as ours, but it was pretty much a parts car. It wasn’t complete. The guy who had it sold it, I know, and we’ve never found out what happened to it.”
Sue has been able to trace the long history of Bud back to his beginnings and discovered she is the fourth owner. Not many people who see the car probably realize it is the ultimate orphan, the last survivor of an obscure breed. “No, he’s not for sale. You figure, I could never get another one. If he was gone, he’d be gone for good,” Sue says. “And his personality grows on you. He’s part person.”
1928 Pontiac Landau coupe (Owner: Tom Schweikert)
Tom Schweikert and his car are a match made in Old Car Heaven. The Pontiac needed somebody to love it, and Schweikert decided to go all out, turning the ratty barn-find Pontiac into possibly the nicest example in existence. This award-winning ’28 is pretty close to perfect. The car had belonged to a family in Indiana, there was a falling out of some kind, Tom’s brother bought the car for $900, then when his health failed Tom took the car and went all in on a meticulous restoration.
“I never saw another ’28 [Pontiac]. They aren’t common, and to this day I haven’t seen a finished ’28. I just had to figure out some of these things myself,” Tom said in the story. “It wasn’t easy to get everything in place, but eventually I did get everything right!”
“There’s no money, believe me, no money that could buy this car. It’s part of my family, and after all these years, I know this car as well as I know the back of my own hand.”
If you ever see Schweikert at a show, stop and ask him about his Pontiac. He’s a great guy and he’ll talk your ear off, and the full story of this car is worth hearing!
