Hotrod Road Show

And the hits just keep on coming! This feature from Brian Earnest in Old Cars Weekly in about a 101 year old beauty,a 1919 Buick. Were there even different models in those days?

By Brian Earnest

It’s only been a few years since Bill Brunkow died, and Ken Ganz, one of Brunkow’s car buddies and best friends, still thinks about him pretty much every day.
“I do. Yes, I do,” Ganz admits. “I miss Bill a lot. And I miss his collection, too.”

That collection included about 20 rare and vintage cars, including a Duesenberg, Cord, Auburn Speedster and a group of about 10 brass-era cars. Ganz helped Brunkow feed and care for his stellar family of automobiles for many years, helping with some restoration work, keeping the vehicles running and generally sharing in Brunkow’s love for historic iron.
“Working with Bill’s collection — I spent probably 10 years working with his cars and taking care of them and showing them. And as I spent more and more time with those cars, it seemed more and more like the older the cars were, the better I liked them,” Ganz said.

“And this one fit in really well,” he added, pointing to a splendid 1909 Buick Model F five-passenger touring car, its ample brass trim glowing in the mid-day sun. “It just happened that before he died, he and I had taken the body off this car and were doing some work on the engine. I had done a lot of work on it. I detailed the undercarriage. The brass really needed a good going-through. I spent a lot of time getting the chrome (brass) back into condition.”

Little did Ganz know at the time that he was actually fixing up and maintaining what would be Brunkow’s parting gift to his longtime friend.

“I really didn’t [know], and to be honest, when he passed away, I called his son Bill one day, and I said, ‘Bill, I’ve gone about as far as I can go with this car without spending a bunch of money on it. What do you guys want to do with it?’ And his response was, ‘Well, that’s no problem, that’s your car! Dad wanted you to have that car.’
“And that’s how I found out.”

Out of all the fine machinery in Brunkow’s collection, Ganz says he somehow developed a special affinity for the venerable 1909 Buick. It had enough things wrong with it to keep him busy, it was undeniably beautiful, with its dark red paint, black upholstery and fold-down top, and overflowing brass. And, it was almost 100 years old!

If Brunkow’s ultimate hope was to keep Ganz smiling, tinkering and motoring to shows around his home state of Wisconsin, then it’s been mission accomplished so far. Ganz admits he is always busy doing something to keep the car on the road, and the car continues to make periodic car show appearances, including a stop at this year’s Iola Old Car Show.
The car isn’t without its problems and challenges, and that’s just the way Ganz, a resident of Alma, Wis., likes it.

“There’s never an end with these cars. You’ll never have the ultimate, perfect car, and that’s just the way it is,” Ganz said. “So there is always something that has to be tinkered with, and I enjoy that. You really wouldn’t want to get into a car like this if you didn’t enjoy that. It’s a great hobby, but it’s really a time-consuming hobby.”

Ganz’s 101-year-old beauty was a bell cow in the Buick lineup when it was born a century ago. Buick made nine different models that year, and of the 14,606 cars built, 3,856 were Model F Tourers.

The Model F was one of just two two-cylinder cars remaining on Buick’s menu by 1909 and came only as a touring car. It featured a 92-inch wheelbase and rode on 30 x 3.5 tires. Under the hood was a 159-cid, 22-hp inline power plant. The planetary transmission had two forward speeds plus a reverse gear. Power was supplied through chain-drive. The pilot drives on the right side of the cozy front seat, surrounded by a variety of brass trim and shiny do-dads.

The base price of $1,250 also got a buyer wood-spoke wheels, mechanical brakes on the rear wheels and a tilt steering column. The windshield was optional.
Driving such an open contraption is not for the uncoordinated or faint of heart. Pilots accustomed to operating with one foot and one hand are in for a 100-year-old reality check when they get behind the wheel.

“The big challenge is to keep track of the pedals,” Ganz said. “You have three pedals on the floor: low, reverse and the brake. Once things happen you have to move quick and if you’re not used to that, it can be a problem. You kind of have to get your mind in that frame of thinking, that, ‘OK, what do I have to do if I need to stop quick,’ or whatever.
“[Right-hand drive] doesn’t really bother me much. I try to stay over to the edge of the road anyway. At least we have mirrors on this one. Some other old cars don’t even have mirrors to help you.

“It’s a nice-driving car, but you worry on the highway. I don’t want to take it on the highway, but I need to drive it. You’re only driving 30, 35 mph, and everybody else is going 55 or 60 or who knows what. You don’t have turn signals, you’ve got right-hand steering. Just a lot of little things, and you worry about somebody coming up too fast behind you.”
Ganz guided the Buick on the 120-mile New London to New Brighton Antique Car Run in Minnesota a few years back before he became the car’s owner, but these days he lets the car get its most strenuous exercise at, of all places, a small airport.

“I’ve got a good half-mile strip that I can run both ways,” he says. “All I have to do is look out for airplanes, and there aren’t many planes out there.”
Ganz says he likes to keep the brass on the car as shiny as possible, but beyond that he tries not to baby the car, or get carried away trying to fix all its imperfections. The car was restored at least once in its life, and Ganz has no idea how many people have actually owned it — he knows he’s at least the third.

“Some people are so meticulous. I just go with the flow with this one,” he said. “If it needs something, we do it, and if we don’t, that’s OK, too. It isn’t a perfect car, so I like to drive it, and I don’t see the need to have everything back to perfect. Looking at it from this distance, it’s a beautiful car. You can look up close and find lots of little flaws, but that’s what old cars are.

“I’ve even put an electric starter on it. Most people say if you’re a purist, you’d never do a thing like that. But if you crank these things long enough, and they don’t want to start, you’ll be darn happy to have a starter.

“We’re just happy with the way it is right now, and pretty much intend to keep it that way and drive it.”

Ganz figures Brunkow would have approved of his treatment of the century-old Buick. The car continues to get lots of love at home, plenty of miles on the road, and loads attention at car gatherings, where people can appreciate a machine that has lived such a long and charmed life.

“It certainly attracts a crowd, there’s no getting around it,” Ganz says with a hearty laugh. “ I had it at Red Wing [Minn.] at a car show on Father’s Day, and you couldn’t keep people away from it.

“I always thought that about Bill’s cars. Those cars at a car show are like garbage cans are to flies! You couldn’t even get the cars out of the trailer and you’d have people gathered around.

“I really got spoiled. How could you not be, being around those kind of cars? But, I knew it was going to end someday. I’m just really, really happy to have this one.”

Featured here is a seldom seen Packard in another great story by Brian Earnest for Old Cars Weekly.

By Brian Earnest

There are plenty of folks around who really dig their old cars. And there are more than a few who are just head-over-heels, crazy nuts about a particular four-wheeled friend.

And then there are guys like Bill LeGall.

If there were a town specifically for people who were over-the-top, totally, insanely, madly in love with their cars, LeGall could run for mayor. The genuine, unbridled joy and enthusiasm that gushes out when LeGall tries to describe his lovely 1956 Packard Four-Hundred is truly contagious. As far as LeGall is concerned, there has never been a finer automobile built on this planet. And after hearing his take on the endless virtues of his Persian Aqua Four-Hundred, it’s hard not to be persuaded.

“Every time I use that car I feel like it’s the first time,” said LeGall, who has become a well-known figure in audiophile circles while running a very successful speaker repair and restoration service out of his home in Lansdale, Pa. He is a connoisseur of many things, and lives life with a rare zeal. But when it comes to collector cars, he is set in his ways. There is the 1956 Packard Four-Hundred. And there are all the rest of the cars in the world.

“I can’t even put into words my love for this car,” he says. “I can’t tell you in words how fantastic it is.”

It’s probably a good thing that LeGall and his wife wound up with their Packard, because they were actually acting a bit like stalkers before the car was theirs. Bill had owned a previous ’56 Packard and was in Ohio buying parts for it when he started quizzing the man who ran the business back in 1976. “I asked the vendor, ‘You must know of every one of the finest Packards in the country, don’t you? And he said, ‘Yes I do.’ I said ‘Where are they?’ And he made a list of six on a yellow pad, and said, ‘This is the best one. It’s in Coalport, Pa.’”

But the car in question was not on the road. In fact, it was sort of in hiding, and the LeGalls had to go window peeking to find it.

“On our way back to Brooklyn, N.Y., where I used to live, we decided to drive to Coalport, and sure enough there was a Packard dealership building there,” he said. “It was called Hegarty Packard. And this vendor of parts in Ohio had said, ‘Walk to the back of the building and look through the window in back in the shop area, and you will see the car.’

“Sure enough, we looked in the back window and I almost passed out. The car looked brand new!”

But the LeGalls had shown up on a Sunday and the business was closed. Undeterred, the couple found out where the Hegartys lived and dropped in for a visit.

“We walked down the street there to this home and it turns out they were just pulling out to go to church. I said, ‘Are you Mr. Hegarty? I’m interested in buying your ’56 Packard.’ Well, I had long hair and looked like a hippy, and he didn’t even answer me. He didn’t even acknowledge I was there. He just continued out the driveway and took the family to church!”

But the LeGalls didn’t give up, and with the help of “a friend who is the smoothest talker in the world,” they eventually convinced the man to sell the ’56. “We drove back to Coalport, and I brought the money, and I didn’t know how he would react seeing me again, but this time he could have not have been any nicer. My friend Morris and I and my wife Loretta spent the entire day getting this car running because it hadn’t run since 1960. That’s when old man Hegarty had died. He was the original owner of the dealership and it was his personal car. They parked it and never drove it after that.”

The trio put in a new battery, changed most of the fluids and somehow managed to get the slumbering car running. Then, against their better judgment, they drove it all the way home in a blizzard, never even turning off the engine that had been silent for 16 years. “It turned out to be one of the two or three biggest snowstorms in my lifetime,” Bill said. “And the drive home was over 400 miles … Mr. Haggerty decided to loan us some skid chains or we’d never make it home. But we made it!”

The lovely Four-Hundreds were a two-door hardtop subset of the top-of-the-line Patricians. For 1956, a total of 3,224 were produced, compared to 3,775 of their four-door Patrician siblings. Base MSRP of the Four-Hundreds was $4,190.

Changes in the Packard body, from 1955, included a redesigned grille with a mesh insert with vertical and horizontal chrome bars placed against it. Both the mesh and the grille could also be seen in the “air scoop” opening under the main horizontal bumper bar. Wraparound parking lamps were seen again, but had rounded rear edges. The headlamp hoods were lowered by one inch. Front fenders were extended on all Packards and Executives. Packard hood letters no longer appeared, being replaced by a centrally mounted crest. With the redesigned bumper, the guards were spaced wider apart, placing them directly under the headlamps.

The Patrician sedan and the Four-Hundred hardtop both had vertical vents on the rear fenders and the same arrangement of side trim. This consisted of a wide, ribbed chrome band extending the full length of the car between two horizontal rub rails. The first rail ran from the front edge of the upper grille bar to the rear edge of the back fender; the second was parallel to it, about eight inches lower. Both moldings intersected the vent ornament and outside door courtesy/safety lamps were placed at this spot. Also seen on both cars were model identification script, set into the contrast panel, behind the front wheel housing. In addition, both were highlighted by bright metal body underscores that continued across the fender skirts and had wide, ribbed chrome rear extension panels. The Ultramatic transmission offered an electronic push-button selector mounted on the steering column.

The Four-Hundreds certainly had a lot going for them — style, comfort, reputation and cutting-edge gadgetry. The push-button transmission and air-leveling ride screamed luxury. The 290-horse four-barrel V-8 gave the car plenty of power, and the paint schemes and badging were all top-notch. But as far as LeGall is concerned, it was the car’s unique full-length torsion bar suspension that set it apart.

[caption id="attachment_603" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Packard-back2"][/caption]

“It has no coil springs or air suspension,” he said. “It has a full-length torsion bar, and this thing literally drives like a train. I’ve had all kinds of cars, driven in all kinds of cars, and I’m absolutely convinced there is not a more satisfying car to drive in my lifetime. It’s always totally planted, because it doesn’t rely on shock absorbers to keep the car on the ground. The wheels are glued to the ground. You do feel every pebble in the road, and yet you are never jostled. It is the most level ride. It is amazing.”

LeGall’s car has a full array of amenities, including power windows, seats and antennas, signal-seeking AM radio, dual heaters in the front and rear with separate controls, side running lights and fancy gold plating on the dashboard.

The Packard had 32,000 miles on the odometer when the LeGalls bought it. For a few years, Bill drove it frequently to work. The car now has 99,000 miles.

Bill has tweaked the clutch and transmission several times on his own, and repainted the car himself in the early 1990s. Beyond that, the car is largely original.

“I stripped the car down, I believe in ’94, and replaced the rocker panels, mig-welded in new metal to the bottom of the front fenders and couple other spots … And then painted the car using the original nitro-cellulous lacquer, rather than modern paints,” he said.

“I had the trunk lid and hood off the car on horses. I painted those pieces outside as well as the bottom part of the car … But the roof I did in our garage. And the paint went on so smooth, it was amazing. It barely needed any buffing at all!”

Not long after he got the car running again, LeGall took it to a show and found out that he apparently had a talent for spraying. “We went to a show in New Hope, and we put the car in the fairgrounds, only so we could picnic behind it. And they announced for your car to be judged make sure your hood is open. My friend Marty said, ‘Bill, open the hood. You could win something. I didn’t want to do it, but … I opened up the hood, and two or three judges came along, and when they saw the car, they said, “This is all original.” I said, ‘No, I just painted it. I had pictures in the trunk of me painting it and stripping it.’ They simply could not believe that the car was repainted, and that I did it in the driveway. The car took first prize! And the competition was wicked!”

For now, LeGall said he has no plans for the Packard, other than to drive it as much as he can. It will never be for sale, he insists, even though he has had many offers.

He says every “8 or 10 years,” he and Loretta drive the car back to Pennsylvania to show it off to the Hegarty family and assure them that the car is alive and well and went to a loving home.

“It’s not a show car, it’s something I love to drive,” he says. “The reason I don’t go to car shows hardly at all is that once you get in the car and start driving, you don’t want to stop and park it. I’m always sad when I get home and turn the key off and the ride over is over.”

Another great car of the week story by Brian Earnest for Old Cars Weekly.

By Brian Earnest

Rena Valentine knows that it might sound a little strange to serious car guys, but her first priority when it came to shopping for a Triumph sports car was color. The car had to be baby blue with a white top — not necessarily because those are Valentine’s favorite colors, but more for sentimental reasons.

“The attraction is because when I was about 7, maybe 9 years old, I found pictures of my uncle’s car. It was a 1959 TR3, powder blue convertible with a white top,” recalled Valentine, who splits time living in both New Jersey and Connecticut. “In the pictures were all these trophies, and he raced the car, and it was just so cool. It looked like a baby Jaguar. I always knew I wanted a car like that. I didn’t know exactly what year of car it was, or exactly what model, but I knew I wanted a car just like that.

“For some reason growing up I had this affinity for that powder blue car. Little did I know that very few cars were made in that color, let alone left now in Britain or in the U.S. That’s a specific color for a TR3B. They only came in 3 or 4 colors.”

Valentine decided that she needed a little help before she took the plunge and bought a Triumph, so she joined a local club a full two years before she got her first car. It didn’t take long for her to find out what she up was up against in her search for a powder blue Triumph with a white top and a dark blue interior. “I went to the first meeting and figured, ‘Hey you guys will help me find one, right,’” she said. “You’ll sell me one, right?’ They said, ‘Good luck!’”

“It took me three years to finally find my car. I found one each year for about three years. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Valentine was too late to buy the first two cars she pursued — they had both been sold by the time she called on them. The third one she found, in Texas, was priced too high. So she kept looking, and hoping.

A year after passing up the third car, however, Valentine found it up for sale again, and this time she couldn’t resist. The car, a rare 1962 TR3B with 90,000 miles, had been owned and completely restored back to show-winning condition by Triumph restorer Ron Harrison, who operates Ron’s Vintage Auto Restoration in Salado, Texas. The shop specializes in restorations on Triumph, MG, Austin Healey and Jaguar. The car was then purchased by a second owner in Ohio, who never even got the car registered.

“The guy had it shipped up to Ohio and parked it up next to a 1959 TR3A that he was restoring,” Valentine said. “But when he decided to sell his ’59, his wife said ‘No, we’re keeping that one and putting the ’62 up for sale.’ So he never did anything with it! He just owned it for a while and flipped it. He sold it after putting no miles on it! He told me the car had never been driven outside of Texas, and I knew he was telling the truth because of the mileage and because I had tried to buy the car before.

“The guy told me it was probably the best one in the country. I told him I didn’t want the best one in the country, because I couldn’t afford it. I had just been looking for a driver in maybe the $10,000 or $12,000 range, and that’s what the other ones I found were. But he said, ‘You might never find another one,’ and I just decided I had to buy that car.”

“He never did a thing with it after he bought it, so officially I’m the second owner of the car.”

The TR3B was as a two-door, two-seat roadster offered only in 1962. The car was really a one-year extension of the TR3 line designed to overlap the introduction of the new TR4, which some dealers were worried would not sell well when it was launched in 1962. The TR4 was wider, heavier and a much different animal than the TR3 series cars, which lasted from 1957-’62, if you include the 1962 TR3B. Not everyone was high on the TR4 as a replacement for the TR3A, but the cars did last four years before spawning the next-generation TR4A in 1965.

Early production TR3Bs were identical to the TR3A, but the later, and more desirable examples, carried the TR4’s larger engine and its new all-synchromesh gearbox.

The 3Bs had all the other typical TR3A trademarks, including removable side curtains and a snap-on top. The cars rode on 15-inch wheels with solid axles. They had front disc brakes with drum binders in back. Spoke wheels were optional, as was a heater.

Late-production TR3Bs, like Valentine’s, were powered by the 104-hp, 2,138 cc four-cylinder. Earlier cars had the TR3A 1,991-cc, 100-hp four-cylinder. All cars carried a four-speed manual transmission with an optional overdrive.

Only about 3,331 TR3Bs were built for 1962, and they were only available in the U.S. “But it’s actually less than that,” said Valentine. “That’s how many chassis were built, but some of those chassis were sent out to build other cars. I think 2,804 is supposed to be the real number.”

Most of those cars didn’t survive the last 47 years. Valentine said Triumph aficionados have estimated that less than 300 of the TRBs are still around, and Valentine can attest that only a handful are dressed in factory-correct baby blue with a white top.

Some of the pieces on her car were replaced during its ground-up restoration a few years back, but Valentine still has the original parts that were part of the deal. She even got the trophies that the car won. “He told me I was getting every trophy that went with the car. So the trunk was loaded!”

“It has the original radio, and it has some other pieces that were period correct,” she said. “He gave me an extra set of carburetors, manifolds, the valve cover, valve cover gasket … I have the old side curtains. It has a rare ashtray. It has a rare map light. Optional rear seat… The car originally came with whitewalls and mine doesn’t have those. And it originally came with disc wheels, which mine doesn’t have. I have the spoked wheels.

“But everything works in this car, that’s why I feel like I’m driving in the past when I’m in it.”

So far, Valentine has only put about 150 miles on the car, but they have been eventful. She is assimilating into the British car crowd when she takes the car to shows and is soaking up as much Triumph insight and knowledge as she can from “old guard” collectors. “At the Touch of England Show at Hermitage in Saddle River (N.J.), I won first place in the TR3 division, and one of the older retired guys came up and was ribbing me,” she said. “He said, ‘Let me know what shows you are going to. I used to win and I’m not going where you’re going.’ But we’re best friends now.”

Valentine is also enjoying the driving thrill she hoped would come with a roadster of such vintage. “It’s like I’m driving … geez how do you put it? It’s like I’m driving a piece of art. Even though I wasn’t born then, I feel like I belong in that car. It’s just a blast from the past. It’s like going back in time.”

Here is another great story by Brian Earnest over at Old Cars Weekly in their featured Car of the Week.

Rick Rubis is a big believer in fate. In fact, he’s pretty sure that, like a woman, fate will change its mind every once in a while.

At least that seems to be the case for Rubis and his sweet 1967 Buick Gran Sport, who finally wound up together about 18 years ago after several near-misses. Three times Rubis tried to land himself a ’67 GS 400, and twice he missed out on chances to own the car he has now. But the two finally wound up together, and it’s been a happy marriage.

“I just figured it wasn’t meant to be,” said Rubis, of his earlier failings to buy a ’67. “I had sort of given up on it, but then things changed and maybe fate did mean for me to have it.”

Rubis had a new muscle car on his mind after he returned home from a tour of duty overseas in 1967, but he didn’t want to drive the same car that everybody else had. “Everybody seemed to get getting the Chevelle Super Sports and the GTOs at the time, but I like to be different,” said Rubis, a resident of Monroeville, Pa. “My dad and my uncle were both Buick guys, so when I spotted the first Buick Gran Sport on the street, I went to a dealer and investigated because nobody really had them.

“I actually wanted to order a ‘67 but wound up with a ‘66 4-speed car that had 12,000 miles on it. It was yellow with a black roof.”

Rubis, eventually swapped that car for a Super Bee, and then got into Corvettes. But he never gave up on the idea of getting another Gran Sport, and the next time around he hoped to finally find a ’67.

“I had that yellow and black one, so when I went out looking that’s what I was looking for,” he said. The closest thing he found was a solid-color Gold Mist hardtop in Pittsburgh that didn’t exactly blow him away.

“When I first saw it didn’t have the black painted roof. It didn’t have red line tires on it. I wasn’t overly thrilled with the appearance, but I could tell it was a good solid car,” he said. “The seller was one of the guys that didn’t want people to know where the car was, so he met me in a section of Pittsburgh and I wound up making him an offer that he declined. I thought it wasn’t meant to be and that was the end of it.”

A year later, however, Rubis saw a newspaper ad for the same car. The Buick hadn’t sold, and the owner was again trying to find a buyer. “But I tossed the newspaper or lost it, or whatever, and I never got to call on it,” Rubis said.

“So finally, I had a friend who told me, ‘I have a brother-in-law who has a bunch of cars, and one of them is a ’67 GS. You should could go check it out.’ Turns out, the brother-in-law was the only guy that showed up to make an offer on the car I had gone and looked at, and he made the guy some ridiculous low-ball offer and the guy took it! So I wound up getting the car from my friend’s brother-in-law for $1,000 less than I had originally offered for it!”

1967 was the first year that the GS 400 was in a series separate from regular Skylarks and Skylark GS 340s. The series included a coupe with a $2,956 base price, a two-door hardtop with a $3,019 sticker and a convertible that listed for $3,167. With 10,659 assemblies, the hardtop was the most popular. Only 1,014 coupes were made, along with only 2,140 ragtops.

A Gran Sport 340 was also offered in 1967 for those on a slightly tighter budget, or who were slightly less horsepower-crazed. The 340 was available only as a hardtop and was sort of viewed as the 400’s little sibling.

On the 400, special equipment included a hood with twin simulated air scoops, a rallye stripe, GS ornamentation, all-vinyl seating with foam-padded cushions, dual exhausts, White-Line wide oval tires and a heavy-duty suspension. Desirable options included the four-speed manual transmission for $184.31, limited-slip differential for $42.13, front power disc brakes for $147, a tachometer for $47.39, a full console for $57.93, a consolette for $36.86 and chrome-plated wheels for $90.58.

Rubis’ car had about 35,000 miles on the odometer when he took the keys. He drove the car without doing much to it — aside from adding a vinyl top — “for the first 15 years or so,” but he has now turned the car into his vision of the ideal ’67 GS. The car has been repainted, given a new vinyl top, new headliner, seat covers and carpet. He kept the same gold paint color, but jazzed up the car’s appearance slightly with some aftermarket 17-inch Ion wheels and redlines from Diamond Back. “And we took the Buick wheel centers and jury-rigged them on the wheels so they fit. They aren’t original wheels, but they do fit with the car.”

Rubis also added a console around the car’s manual floor shift, and swapped in an aftermarket steering wheel. “It’s like a Corvette wheel. I put it on and I’m happy with it. The original wheel was cracked and needed to be replaced.. I like this one, even if some people say it wasn’t an option and isn’t original.”

The only real trouble Rubis said he has ever had with the car came one day “four or five years ago” when he took the car out for some exercise and ran into some engine trouble. “I was going out on one of my ‘blow out the dust’ rides and I blew out more than the dust,” he said. “I had the whole engine rebuilt at that point.”

A new 400-cid engine in 1967 replaced the 1965-66 “401″ in the Gran Sports. The old engine design dated back to 1953. The new V-8 combined lightweight construction and better breathing characteristics to create a potent package.

The new 400 power plant had a 4.040 x 3.900-inch bore and stroke, a single Rochester four-barrel carburetor and a 10.25:1 compression ratio. It produced 340 hp at 5000 rpm and 440 lbs.-ft. of torque at 3200 rpm. It was also available with the variable-pitch-stator Super Turbine 400 transmission, a $236.82 option previously used only in big Buicks.

Rubis figure he puts between 1,000 and 1,500 miles a year on the GS these days, splitting his car hobby miles between the GS and a slick, custom 1970 Skylark convertible that once belonged to his mother. “It’s just a fun car to drive,” he said. “I don’t think those early GS’s were super fast, like the ’70 GSX or some of the others that came later. I’m sure there were a lot of cars that could blow the GS’s off the road at the time. But it’s really a fun car to drive.”

And driving is Rubis’ main hobby activity. He has done the car show circuit with pristine cars, and says he much prefers having a “driver” car that he can take to cruises with his hobby brethren. “I had a ’64 Corvette one time that I turned into a show car, and that was a big mistake,” he said. “It ruined the fun of the car for me. But back at that time, nobody was doing cruises. All you could do was go to shows. But I much prefer the cruises. These cars were meant to be driven.”

Ironically, Rubis lived not far from the first owner of his car, but says he never noticed the car on the road. “I originally lived in Latrobe and the car was originally from Greensburg, which is only like 10 miles away,” he said. “I never remember seeing the car in those days. That’s another thing made me think by fate I was meant to have it.

“It’s funny, I originally was looking for a ’67, and I eventually wound up with a ’67 years later. I figured fate didn’t want me to have it. But then fate turned around and maybe I was supposed to have the car after all.”

Brian Earnest over at Old Cars Weekly has a timely story about a pretty rare car, a Tucker convertible.

Justin Cole could live to be 99, and still be sure of one thing: He never had another year quite like 2009.

Back in December of 2008 when Cole took the gamble of his young lifetime and purchased what was billed by some, including the seller, as the only Tucker “convertible” in existence — i.e., a car that was born at the original Tucker factory — he knew he was embarking on a mammoth undertaking in more ways than one.

He would be attempting to finish a rare, orphaned and high-profile car that was a long ways from complete. The car was a one-off — the only Tucker that wasn’t a sedan. But perhaps equally daunting, Cole was going to face an unrelenting chorus of doubters and critics who insisted the car was a hoax.

Now, as he and his crew at Benchmark Classics in Madison, Wis., put the finishes touches on the Tucker as they ready it for its big night on the auction block, Cole is able to admit that both challenges — building the car and dealing with the hurricane of attention and controversy — have been every bit as daunting as he imagined.

“Man, for a few months there it was definitely pretty overwhelming,” said Cole, who will be front and center in Scottsdale, Ariz., Jan. 23 when Russo & Steele rolls the Tucker across the auction block (on reserve) in what will surely be one of the most-watched moments of this year’s annual car hobby extravaganza. “I carry a Blackberry, and I have all my appointments and reminders and stuff on it. If I didn’t have that thing, I don’t know what would have happened.

“Some days I’d have like 80 different appointments and reminders. The vast majority of my time for about three months was dedicated to that car… We’d have production meetings where we’d have a list from the ceiling to the floor of things that needed to be done. It was just crazy.

“It was definitely a massive project. I don’t know what could compare to it out there.”

By now, the saga of the car has been well documented. The story goes that the car was started in secret as either a prototype for a future production convertible, or a special one-off car for Preston Tucker’s wife Vera, and that when things began to fall apart for Preston and his company, the car was ushered out the back door and wound up at the Lencki Company headquarters. From there, it apparently sat largely untouched for many years until a retiring employee took it with him when he left. The car changed hands one more time and ultimately came to the attention of Wisconsin collector Allen Reinert in the early 1980s. Reinert bought the rolling chassis and hoped to finish the car himself, but the project languished and he made many attempts over the years to sell the car. Reinert and Cole met at a show in 2008 and Cole soon put together an expensive deal that included trading several cars and cash for the controversial Tucker.

Old Cars Weekly ran a cover story about the car (Feb. 5, 2009 cover date) and it wasn’t long before the media attention began to snowball. The New York Times and a long list of other print and online media outlets began running stories on the car, and the debate that had raged on and off over the years over the car’s legitimacy reached new heights.

Everybody seems to love a good mystery, and Cole soon found himself not only in charge of figuring out how to finish a car that had no blueprint, but he was also thrust into the role as curator, caretaker and defender of the car’s legend.

“It’s the talk of our showroom, that’s for sure. So many people want to talk about the car,” he said. “The vast majority are just people interested in the car, and it’s a fascination for so many people because of the history of the Tucker automobile. And the story was really brought back to life with the movie and a whole generation of people not old enough to have seen a Tucker when they were made back in ’48 — they know it from that movie.”

“It’s just such a unique car. I would have to say the vast majority of phone calls and e-mails we get about the car are positive.”

Not long after starting work on the Tucker, Cole launched a Web site, www.tuckerconvertible.com, to help him fight the P.R. battle. On the site, Benchmark has posted photos of the car during the build and made public much of the evidence that Cole insists back the claims that the car was a factory project. For all his efforts, Cole knew that he would never convince everybody of the car’s pedigree, however. Front and center in non-believer camp are a group of vocal doubters with ties to the Tucker Club of America (www.tuckerclub.org)

The fact that Cole is an affable sort who is clearly long on patience has certainly helped him survive his roller-coaster ride. He has heard every possible criticism, accusation and pointed question imaginable when it comes to the legitimacy of his Tucker, and he doesn’t fluster easily. There is no hint of doubt in his voice when he states his case. He has clearly done his share of homework and compiled as much proof as he can that the car was started in the Tucker factory. He believes what he believes, and doesn’t back down.

“I get things from people or in blogs where people are attacking the car or me personally,” Cole said. “For people to say things about me and my business that have never even met me or been in my shop … People hide behind some screen name and write stuff – I’ve got no respect for someone like that. But that kind of stuff has probably taken about one-half of 1 percent of my time. Overall, it’s been a very positive experience, and I’ve learned a ton going through the process.

“I could probably write a book about the experience, because it’s been a full year now.”

Cole laughs when thinks back to his original plan to have the car completed by May of 2009. That was the month when the car made its first truly “public” appearance at the Keels & Wheels event in Seabrook, Texas.

“The organizer there called and said, ‘This is the date of the show, and we want that car here.’ I told him I didn’t think we’d ever have it done by then, and they said, ‘Well, bring it in whatever condition it’s in…

“At that point we had a rolling body. It was painted in primer, but you could get a real good idea of what it looked like. We were probably only 60 percent done with it, but it was the star of the show … Of course, 1 out of every 15 or 20 people would say something under their breath. ‘It’s the fake Tucker convertible, or ‘They made that Tucker up,’ but overall it was a very positive experience.”

The car’s next appearance came at the Auto Historica show in Highland Park, Ill., in July, then it was at the center of a whirlwind trip to Connecticut for the Fairfield County Concours in September.

“Our goal was to have a finished car for that show. Well, we didn’t quite have a finished car, but we certainly tried as hard as we could,” Cole said. “We had people working on that car ’round the clock. We actually had three different shifts at one point. I was out getting pizza and energy drinks to keep people going.

“We kept it [at home] until the last minute, then the guys went from Madison to Westport, Conn., straight through stopping only for fuel… It was crazy, because they got there, and said ‘We still need to adjust stuff’ and this and that. ‘We forgot extension cords and we need to buff it out again.’ I actually met everybody at a shopping center and went and bought extension cords. So here we are 30 minutes from the show, getting it as ready as we can. Then we finally roll in and they open the gates as soon as we get the car in place. And it was the star of that show there, too. It was nonstop.”

Then came a stop in Hershey, Pa., in October, where Cole thought he actually had the car sold to an East Coast collector. The man and his wife told Cole they wanted the car and negotiated a price, but the deal fell through a few days later when the couple apparently couldn’t get their finances arranged.

“I was just like, ‘Oh my God,’” Cole admits. “I really thought we had it sold. I’ve gotten pretty good at gauging people. If I spend a little time on the phone with someone I have a pretty good idea if I’m going to wind up selling a car to them. I really had a good feeling about this guy, but sometimes things just don’t work out.

“I thought there was a chance we’d find a buyer in Hershey, and we did find a buyer, it just didn’t work out.”

Cole can’t be certain there will be a buyer stepping forward in Scottsdale, either. By then, he estimates he and his crew will have 4,000 man hours into the car and the night will be bittersweet whether the car sells or not.

“I’m confident it will sell on the block at Russo & Steele,” he said. “They think it’s going to sell, too. They are very confident it will. The literal million dollar question is exactly how much is it going to sell for? Their estimate is somewhere more than a $1 million. But beyond that, who knows? Some people are saying that it could set a record for an American-built car.

“It’s gonna be a spectacle. I think anybody who is anybody in the classic car business when it comes to collecting high-dollar cars, selling high-dollar cars and buying high-dollars cars is going to be there. I try not to ever get exited until a car is sold, I have the money and see the taillights going down the road… But I do catch myself daydreaming about what could happen. I’d be lying if I said I don’t get excited thinking about it.”

Regardless of what happens on that fateful Saturday night, Cole knows his shop definitely won’t be the same if the Tucker leaves Arizona in somebody else’s trailer.

“I’d love to hold onto the car because of what it is. There isn’t a collector out there that I know that doesn’t want 1-of-1 cars,” Cole said. “I’d like to have it as our showroom centerpiece for as long as possible. So on that side I won’t be too excited to see it go.

“But on the other side, I’ve put so much time and effort into it, and so have my employees. It will nice to finally be paid for that.

“I’ve thought from Day 1 if we brought that thing to our shop and completed it properly and it looked as good as it possibly could, it would do good things for not only my business, but for the hobby in general. Benchmark Classics as a business was only nine months old when the Tucker rolled into our restoration shop and that was absolutely going through my head [when they bought it]. I was thinking, ‘This car is a piece of history, no matter how you look at it. ’”

So would he do it again? If another automotive unicorn or Holy Grail opportunity came up, would the guy who made the Tucker convertible come to life be willing to go through the headaches, heartaches and insanity all over again?

“Oh yeah, I definitely would,” Cole said. “I undershot my estimate on how long it would take, but I definitely wouldn’t trade it.”