Why a Pierce-Arrow?…

I grew up with our Pierce Arrow, it’s been in the family a little longer than I have.

Back in the mid 60’s my Dad purchased a ’26 Rickenbacker E6 Brougham and one of my uncles picked up a ’24 Chrysler Model B Roadster. A few weeks later another uncle bought a ’29 Franklin Victoria.

All three brothers joined the Roaring 20’s Car Club and enjoyed driving their cars and meeting other old car people. It was this new circle of friends that led to the Pierce Arrow.

At a gathering someone mentioned a lead on a Pierce Arrow for sale. It was a big car and was in great, all original shape. My Dad and one of my uncles went to see the car and decided it was a good car at a fair price. Since my Grandfather did not own an old car they talked him into buying it. It was an all original ’29 Pierce Arrow 143 ED Limousine in fantastic shape. Now they each had old cars to drive and tinker with.

The Pierce was my Grandfather’s pride and joy. He didn’t drive it very often but he’d call my Dad and we’d go over, pull the cover off and extract it from its hiding place. He loved the car and was, at times, a little paranoid about something happening to it. For this reason the garage that he kept it hidden in had no hinges on the door and from the outside the door appeared to be just another portion of the wall of an outbuilding on his former chicken ranch. The door was also only about 6 inches wider than the car giving you 3 inches on either side to slip it out into a large concrete slab. You had to enter the garage from a side door and have someone on the outside get ready while you removed four large pins at each corner holding the door in place. Then you had to push the door out and help the person on the outside slide the door to the side.

As far back as I can remember this was the beginning of our ritual when we’d take the car out for a ride. My Grandfather was an expert at tuning a motor by ear and he’d make sure everything was just right before we’d head out. Some of my fondest memories of my Grandpa revolve around the Pierce.

The Pierce was the wedding car for my Aunt’s wedding and even though she passed before her oldest son got married, the Pierce was used for his wedding as a connection to his mom. I was chosen to drive the car for my cousin’s wedding since out of all the grandchildren I knew the car the best having spent the most time with the car. It was also at my Grandfather’s funeral parked at the curb right in front of the church doorway.

Once my Grandfather passed my Dad took possession of the Pierce and I began to really dig into the mechanics of the car and form an intimate knowledge of all the quirks Grandpa’s Pierce had to offer. I quickly became the main mechanic and driver.

Even though the Pierce had been in the family for quite a few years we were never active in the PAS. I’m not really sure why.

I did join the PAS in the late 90’s, I think it was, but after a few years I let my membership lapse. Shorty thereafter my Grandfather passed and my Dad got the Pierce since he had been the main one pressing Grandpa to buy the car. In 2005 my Dad joined the PAS and decided he wanted to take Grandpa’s Pierce to the National PAS Meet in Oregon. The car had a few things that needed to be ironed out so I worked on the car at my place and then joined the PAS in early 2006 to have easier access to technical info.

The Oregon PAS Meet was an amazing event for our family and it was incredible to be able to drive Grandpa’s Pierce through the Cascades surrounded by so many other stately Pierce Arrows. The scenery was breathtaking, the other Pierce Arrows were gorgeous and most of all the other members were warm and welcoming, treating us like old friends.

In 4 months it will two years since my Dad passed and I became owner of Grandpa’s Pierce and Dad’s Rickenbacker.

At this point I don’t know who the Pierce will be passed on to, I just know that as this generation’s caretaker I will do everything I can to keep it as original as possible and preserve our little piece of family history for the next generation to enjoy.

My first Pierce showed up in a used car lot about 1/2 mile from my house. The owner of the car lot did a lot of Hot-Rodding [aka destroying] on older cars. and this stodgy, upright, wood wheeled 4-door sedan was definitely out of place in his lot..

I drove by it for several weeks, until I had a good friend with me, we were on our way to dinner, and he saw the old car and recognized it to be a Pierce Arrow. I asked him how he knew what make it was, and of course he said the fender headlamps were a Pierce Arrow trademark.. He also commented that when he was growing up, his father alway had Packards, but thought well of the Pierce Arrows, and had often considered buying one instead of a Packard..

My friend and I were already co-owners of a ’37 Bentley, and he said he’d consider buying the Pierce with me if I’d do the work needed . So we stopped and looked it over after dinner.

The engine compartment was untouched, and a mess, the body had had the fenders repainted, and some touchup paint on the body and doors, the interior was recent’y redone in nice gray wool. Many door handles and headlamp parts were missing.

I knew nothing about Pierce arrow cars but the name on the hubcaps confirmed my friends’ identification.

I did a little research, mainly by looking through a Hemmings, but still couldn’t learn much, prices and models were very confusing.

A day or two later, I stopped again at the car lot, and at that time there was a sign in the window of the car, stating that it was a ’27 model 80. Now I knew two more morsels of info about the car.

Back to the Hemmings, and a few phone calls to sellers of Pierce cars netted me a suggestion to join the Pierce Arrow Society..

Another day and I stopped by the used car lot again and I no more got out of my car and a guy comes running out of the office to see me.. He greets me with this comment: You’ve been here two or three times that I know of, looking at this car, today you are going to take it home with you!! I laughed, and told him he didn’t know how shallow my pockets were!. He said: that I was the ONLY person to even give the car a second glance and it was going to be mine.

He said it just wasn’t a car he could ‘do’ anything with, [IE: hot rod] and he just wanted to sell it.. He’d bought the car as a part of a group of four cars he’d bought to get just two, and he needed to move this one on..

He stated a price, I grinned and said I just couldn’t do it.., I asked if the car ran, he got in and got it running, it sounded TERRIBLE, more like a threshing machine than an engine. It showed zero oil pressure and was running on maybe 3 or 4 cylinders.

He said it needed a tune up.. I laughed and said, I know engines, showed him my dirty fingernails and told him it needed a full rebuild, and where and how would I find parts for a 60 year old car?? . He shrugged and lowered the price.. I asked about the missing handles and headlights, he said: what you see is what you get.

I said if you really want it gone, . and..gulp.. I offered half his asking price and he quickly held out his hand and said SOLD!! [ I should have offered 1/3 his price!!] I did drive the car home that day, a very noisy rough 1/2 mile to my garage.

What impressed me was the solidness of the the car, when I disassembled the engine to asses its situation I was very impressed by the roller cam followers, the huge crankshaft and bearings, and enormous frame and rear differential, it looked more like a two-ton truck chassis than a motor car.

I’m still very impressed by Series 80 cars, And have acquired several since my first. All Pierce Arrow cars are very strongly built, and have proven themselves to last a long time.

Greg Long

Yep,it were those headlamps!They said Rushmore on the glass reflector that was silvered to multiply the burning acetylene flame.

Six or so lenses were ground in such a way to magnify and diffuse the

beam.There were no better headlamps available and they didn’t even offer

a line of sidelights,to concentrate on perfecting their product.A device

on the dash allowed the chauffeur to turn on the gas and electronically

ignite the flame.I’ve never seen this device on any other make and it was on every Pierce in ’12.Tt’s been around 40 years and I’m still trying to

figure a way to get the headlights attached to the fenders.