A Rolls is just a Rolls, but a factory 1954 Lincon show car was kinda nice
A fool and his money are soon parted. I can attest that it is true. Before I got my first Rolls, everybody I know who had one said that they were absolutely trouble free. AFTER I bought one they confessed that they were quite trouble prone. NOW they tell me. The first year I had the second one, it spent the majority of its time in the shop. I only put 2500 miles on it that year. Like to buy a low mileage Rolls only driven by a foolish middle-aged crazy man?
The 1954 Lincoln next to it was another matter. I bought that from the Allison family, the “Detroit” Allisons. Before they closed the Lincoln production line in 1953, the Ford Motor Company built five cars with all 1954 parts and a few uncatalogued extras. This car was shown at the New York Auto Show. Besides being hand-built and line-walked, it had a number of non-standard extras.
There were the five Kelly-Haines wire wheels.
There was an after-market non-stock fancy Continental kit.
All of the interior chrome pieces were gold-plated with real gold.
The car was painted a pearlescent blue that used low-grade genuine pearl, rather than ground-up abalone shell.
The interior seat outlines were done in light blue leather with silk-satin tuck-and-roll inserts.
The kick panels were real leather.
The door panels were silk-satin with palm trees hand-embroidered on each of the two doors. Beside the rear seat, the panels were also silk-satin with tropical flowers hand-embroidered into it.
It had a rear window blower-defroster. For 1954, the air conditioning was going to be a trunk unit, but they felt air conditioning would be gauche or noveau riche for New York. The unit was removed before delivery and the blower unit was retained to recirculate supposedly warmer cab air against the window.
The serial number was 4 for the year and the production car model code was a “special.”
The Pictures...
Gentlepersons:
These recently uploaded pictures have no artistic value. They were just uploaded to be representative of color picture recording during about 75+ years that I was able to take color pictures, mostly slides at first. Unlike in today’s digital world it took time, money and effort to make a color slide. We took fewer pictures back then, trying to stretch resources, but some sere still frivolous.
I’m 97. In between health downturns, I fear this will be my last chance to post much. The ratio of today’s digital pictures that are kept for any length of time and/or printed is much less than the film photos taken in days past. History will be lost. Meanwhile you get to be bored by some old Kodachromes, Anscochromes, a Dufaycolor and perhaps an old black & white or so.
The Camera: Is unknown.... but believed to be a relatively new Nikon SLR.
The Film: The film was a then current Kodachrome from which the prints I scanned were made.
The Scanner: Epson 2450, Circa 2002
Scanning was done with an Epson 2450 flatbed scanner at the 2400PPI setting but probably only 1600PPI of information went into the scan.
A Rolls is just a Rolls, but a factory 1954 Lincon show car was kinda nice
A fool and his money are soon parted. I can attest that it is true. Before I got my first Rolls, everybody I know who had one said that they were absolutely trouble free. AFTER I bought one they confessed that they were quite trouble prone. NOW they tell me. The first year I had the second one, it spent the majority of its time in the shop. I only put 2500 miles on it that year. Like to buy a low mileage Rolls only driven by a foolish middle-aged crazy man?
The 1954 Lincoln next to it was another matter. I bought that from the Allison family, the “Detroit” Allisons. Before they closed the Lincoln production line in 1953, the Ford Motor Company built five cars with all 1954 parts and a few uncatalogued extras. This car was shown at the New York Auto Show. Besides being hand-built and line-walked, it had a number of non-standard extras.
There were the five Kelly-Haines wire wheels.
There was an after-market non-stock fancy Continental kit.
All of the interior chrome pieces were gold-plated with real gold.
The car was painted a pearlescent blue that used low-grade genuine pearl, rather than ground-up abalone shell.
The interior seat outlines were done in light blue leather with silk-satin tuck-and-roll inserts.
The kick panels were real leather.
The door panels were silk-satin with palm trees hand-embroidered on each of the two doors. Beside the rear seat, the panels were also silk-satin with tropical flowers hand-embroidered into it.
It had a rear window blower-defroster. For 1954, the air conditioning was going to be a trunk unit, but they felt air conditioning would be gauche or noveau riche for New York. The unit was removed before delivery and the blower unit was retained to recirculate supposedly warmer cab air against the window.
The serial number was 4 for the year and the production car model code was a “special.”
The Pictures...
Gentlepersons:
These recently uploaded pictures have no artistic value. They were just uploaded to be representative of color picture recording during about 75+ years that I was able to take color pictures, mostly slides at first. Unlike in today’s digital world it took time, money and effort to make a color slide. We took fewer pictures back then, trying to stretch resources, but some sere still frivolous.
I’m 97. In between health downturns, I fear this will be my last chance to post much. The ratio of today’s digital pictures that are kept for any length of time and/or printed is much less than the film photos taken in days past. History will be lost. Meanwhile you get to be bored by some old Kodachromes, Anscochromes, a Dufaycolor and perhaps an old black & white or so.
The Camera: Is unknown.... but believed to be a relatively new Nikon SLR.
The Film: The film was a then current Kodachrome from which the prints I scanned were made.
The Scanner: Epson 2450, Circa 2002
Scanning was done with an Epson 2450 flatbed scanner at the 2400PPI setting but probably only 1600PPI of information went into the scan.