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Merry Christmas !
Greg Long
Merry Christmas!
Andy West
Merry Christmas everyone
And Happy New Year
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
We’ve been getting very little snow in Virginia, so a picture without it will have to do….but my little man does have his raincoat on, just in case of rain!
All the best to everyone from Wilma and me.
Bill
Bill,
I was waiting for that photo to arrive!
Merry Christmas to you and to Wilma.
Peter
For those members here who are also on Facebook, these photos would look even better on the Pierce-Arrow Society Facebook page…..just sayin’…
WOW, these are great!!
The pic from Bill Morris makes me wish I could come out on a Frosty morning and see my Pierce Arrow under a fresh blanket of snow, fire it up, and take a cozy ride under the lap blanket to see friends and family.
By the way – what is it like to drive a Pierce Arrow in the snow??
We did it once without incident when I had a storage space issue, but it was definitely sketchy!
Bias Ply tires and heavy vehicles are a dangerous combination, so my one brief experience in about 4 inches of snow with our 1601 will hopefully never have to be repeated.
Dave
Probably NONE of us are actually driving on “snow tires” which were definitely part of winter driving. You also had a set of chains available if it got really bad.
One of scarier things I came across was a drive from Reno, NV to Lake Tahoe for one of the PAS meets there. We were in a modern rental car and when we went over the top of the mountains we hit a hard enough snow to put about two inches on the roads. It wasn’t a problem for our car but once we were at the meet I discovered that Tom Sutphen came the same way we did in his ’29 and he was driving on Lesters. He said that he had to drive pretty slow around the switchbacks!
Bill
Peter, there’s a story behind that photo of the snow archer. The photo below shows our original intent of getting both cars out in an April snow storm and getting some Christmas card photos. Wilma’s in this one. Once we had all the photos we wanted I put the ’29 back in the garage and went to put the ’31 back in. It wouldn’t start! I’d just pulled it out of the garage a half hour earlier and it was fine then.
Longer story shortened IT WAS OUT OF GAS and I’d used up my small supply on the snowthrower. Sooooo, I had to go up to the gas station and get a couple of gallons in what is now a raging snowstorm. Ten minutes later I’m back and installed the two gallons in the tank. As I’m sitting in the car getting ready to start the car I saw the archer buried under the snow and THAT was the picture that I posted earlier. I got the shot, started the car (just fine) and put it away. If I hadn’t run out of gas I’d never have allowed that much snow to get on the car.
I haven’t had my Pierce long enough to have any Christmas memories with it, but right after getting it, on Veterans Day, I figured that would be the last day that I would be able to take it out for a while. Since the car hadn’t been driven much in the past few years, I wanted to get it nice and warmed up before garaging it for the winter. The weather forecast predicted light flurries, ending at 0900. I headed out, filled up the car, and headed east into Chicago’s northern suburbs. As I got further east, the “flurries” turned into wet, slippery, sloppy snow. I turned tail, headed away from Lake Michigan where things dried out. Enroute, I went west on Devon Avenue, through Sauganash Woods. Cars were spinning out all over the place, but I kept the Pierce in second gear, in “positive drive” with the free wheeling cut out, and safely made it out of the bad area, thankfully before there were any salt trucks out. It was a scary experience for my first drive with my new Pierce! I’m waiting for my goddaughter to send me some pics we took of the car last weekend, using the historic houses of River Forest as a backdrop!
Bill, wonderful photos and great story! Thanks for sharing.
Robert
Bill,
That is a funny story and quite understandable.
Apropos of firing up one’s Pierce-Arrow for a ride in the snow, the concept should bring shutters to the hearts of P-A owners who live in the North / Salt-Belt.
Also, we older Northerners understand Dave Stevens’ comments of heavy vehicles with bias ply tires in snow.
A ton of us learned to drive in the snow in the 1950s & 1960s cars when there were no radial tires (1968 in the US – Michelin tubeless, before that tube type only).
I grew up in Buffalo and my Father did not believe in Snow Tires, so we learned the concepts of friction and torque and how they applied to car control.
It made us better drivers, maybe wild at times, but better drivers.
Oh yeah, Pierce-Arrow cars & Snow (and its concomitant RUST), fuggedaboudit!
Peter
Here’s my Pierce, 1931 model 43 coupe
Mike, nice car! Could you send me, or post here, a picture of the clamps that are on the crossbar? I’m assuming they hold the stone guard in place. Thanks [email protected]
Mike,
What is the message / statement on the edge of the hood hinge?
Pierce Arrow Rallye Express?
Peter
New Year’s Day 2017: We left San Leandro at sunrise (7:00 AM) at 40*F to drive the 1918 48-B-5 to the first-Sunday-of-the-month Cars & Coffee at Blackhawk Museum in Danville, 25 miles away, suitably bundled up in my 1920s full-length horsehair coat which weighs at least 15 lbs.
Let’s see if this resize effort works…
