some cool photos from some of my favorite sites

 it is an American LaFrance speedster, they made a lot of firetrucks.  http://bubblevisor.blogspot.com/

 wheelie bars, pro stock/pro street.. so very 1970's. Love it. http://endlessme.tumblr.com

 1947 Dutch railways, Fiat Topolino, the only one I've ever seen as a railcar. http://t-s-k-b.tumblr.com

 possibly a Red Bug or Oriental Buckboard, with either the Briggs and Stratton motor wheel or a Smith Motor wheel http://www.reservatory6.blogspot.com

how do you keep this from flipping over? http://bubblevisor.blogspot.com/

1930's Austin (Amerrican Bantam)  http://www.reservatory6.blogspot.com

The oldest car collection in the US... the Larz Anderson museum in Brookline Mass

The collection has the following
1899 Winton
1900 Rochet-Schneider
1901 Winton Bullet
1903 Gardner-Serpollet
1905 Electromobile
1906 CGV
1907 FIAT
Powerful and bold, the Andersons’ 1907 Fiat was the supercar of its time.  Even the motto of the automobile, No Hill Can Stop Me, reflected its strength, for many automobiles at this time had difficulty going up hills.  This 11-liter, 6-cylinder Fiat boasted a strength of 65 horsepower; only 86 were manufactured.  Bought by the Andersons while they were on vacation in Europe, the car was then shipped to New York to be re-bodied by the Hol-Tan Company.
1908 Bailey Electric
1910 Panhard et Levasor
1912 Renault
1915 Packard Twin Six
1924 Renault Torpedo
1925 Luxor Taxi
1926 Lincoln
and small sidenote, the museum collection (in a 1888 carriage house) was voted as one of the Top 10 Boston Museums for a wedding

This year, the Pebble Beach Concours has invited the Larz Anderson museum to bring the 1907 Fiat, and it needs a couple of tires. http://larzanderson.org/1907fiat/

You'll understand that car museums in Massachusetts are off the beaten path of tourists, and door donations might be a bit down lately... but the car is IMPRESSIVE! It has been a feature of the collection that has been open to the public for viewing.... get this, since 1927. The Museum was founded in 1949, and might be the oldest car museum in America that is still open.

 It just needs a couple of dollars to get tires.

The 1907 Fiat was last was operated in 1919, and the workshop of  "The Old Motor" David is getting it ready to be shipped to Pebble Beach, read about that at http://theoldmotor.com/?p=50392 .

David is one of the few who are expert at brass era and classics, and is buying one tire, handling all the work of fixing the rims, handling the lubrication (etc etc etc) but is not set to sponsor more than the one tire as they are about $500 apiece.

Follow this link directly to the Larz Anderson website were you can donateby credit card or mail. If you donate by mail enclose a note that it is for the 1907 Fiat. The cost for the transportation out and back has already been taken care of by a donation and The Old Motor has also donated all of its time and facilities to help them out.  Please remember that any amount you can help with will count and add up.

The rear tires were close to impossible to get off the without harming the rims. We could have cut them off, but chose instead to save them as they are part of the history of the car. Both rear tires being 8-ply truck tires, have a side walls that are over 1/2″ thick and being 80-90 years old are dried out and very inflexible. It was a long and very hard job to get them off intact, without bending or harming the rims, but with some patience it was eventually accomplished. Very soon it will be on all four new tires and tubes and we will show you more of this fine cars features in photos.

In the mean time, please contribute to the Larz Anderson Auto Museum if you can, as they count totally on donations to carry on their educational mission. In the future The Old Motor is going to continue to support them and we are working with them to help start a Preservation Fund, which can be used for the other needs of the core Anderson Collection of Automobiles in the future.

I'd love to be there when they fire up the motor for the first time in 93 years.

1957 Fiat Eden Rock (or Marina) built on a Multipla chassis by PininFarina because the Fiat founding family wanted a go-fer car for their French resort villa

The car was commissioned by the family that founded Fiat, the Agnelli family. They also had the largest holdings on the Italian stock exchange. They owned a remarkable French villa, one famous for once having been owned by kings, and entered the car in the 1957 Paris auto show... and I guess that is where the Cord and Doheny family saw it and bought it, because they had it at their vacation resort, Lake Arrowhead California by 1959. 

The special 600 was called the "Eden Roc" as the promontory overlooking Cap d'Antibes along the coastline of Cote d'Azur where the Villa Leopolda is, in the town of Villefranche-sur-Mer. The little Fiat was used to shuttle guests around the 20-acre villa and town.

 In the late '60s, this car was taken to the Lingotto in Turin and replaced the Fiat 1900 Cabriolet Boano used by Prof. Valletta to lead guests to visit the factory. http://www.alfabb.com/bb/forums/other-italian-cars/160958-funny-fiat.html

The French resort was Villa Leopolda, owned by King Leopold of Belgium, and King Albert after him. It was used in the Hitchcock movie "To Catch A aThief" that starred grace Kelly, later Princess of Monaco. 

Most recently, according to Wikipedia, it's owned by the Russian billionaire, and he bought it for the world record price of 370 Euro http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villa_Leopolda

 The Doheny family connection is interesting, as their former mansion, Graystone, is the site of the Beverly Hills concours I went a couple weeks ago. Doheny was an oil magnate, and married the daughter of the Cord Automobile company founder. Cord company holding included American Airways, Checker Cabs, Cord and Auburn automobile companies

Zagato bodied Fiat and Alfa Romeos from the Graystone Concours

 1954 Fiat 8V

The white Alfa is a 1962 TZ

 and this blue Alfa is a 1954 1900 SS

Jay Leno brought his awe inspiring 1917 race car, the Botafogo Special, powered by a Fiat A12, 21.7 liter engine, to the Graystone Mansion concours!

for more photos and videos:

http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/cars/fiat/1917-fiat-botafogo-special/index.shtml#item=234644 the video starts with a commercial, but it's incredibly informative. For example, I knew the engine had enormous displacement, but when Jay tells you that each cylinder is the equal of a Chevy 327... just one cylinder of this Fiat engine, 350 cu inches... that is a good reason to watch the video and learn from Jay all about this car and it's WW1 aircraft engine

Could probably reach speeds around 150 mph, but on dual chain drives, and only rear mechanical brakes... only gets about 1500 rpm, and would likely not sustain that for long before the block repair, the valves, the cam gear drive, the chains, or something failed horribly, and might be a suicide run. Better to just think about it at speed, than to experience it

built in Argentina,  because the owner was inspired by Mefistofele, the land speed record (146mph) making car, fastest car in the world at the time, and last land speed record set on public roads... so the Argentinian sourced a similar engine, and had a car built. No transmission or brakes. Yeah, he died in the car, about 20 years later, but still.

Jay Leno arrived about 10:20 am, long after all the other vehicles, and it was so quiet that you could hear this rumble from the bottom of the hill, steadily getting louder as he pulled up into the parking lot, and everyone seemed to stop what they were doing and talking about to get over to where he came driving through. I turned to a couple guys nearby, and said "That is how you make an entrance"

Mefistofele is a famous Fiat, and you can see a photo, a painting, and learn about it in this post: http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2010/02/just-cool-photography-thats-what-i-like.html or http://thechicaneblog.com/2010/03/04/art-appreciation-mefistofele and another at http://theoldmotor.com/?p=22586

 no power steering is my guess, and this is where they directed him to park? A testament to dedication to driving old cars. He didn't insist on an easy parking spot, or that the van get moved (though after he was parked it was moved so the crowd could see the Fiat and Jay)

 Though after parking, and not during the drive, Jay discovered that the brake cable fastener was loose, and the brakes wouldn't keep the car from rolling back. So he got busy fixing it. That isn't unusual in the least from the many accounts I've heard of Jay Leno, he works on his cars.

 and after getting the brake cable fasterner tightened up, he was quickly mobbed for interviews and photos.

 Jay was really nice and patient with all the well wishers that wanted their pictures taken with him, and it caused me to wonder how much he gets to enjoy a car show, when so many people request his attention.

 this car was located in Argentina 20-30 years or so ago. Jay talks about that in his video

that is a lot of shock absorber / friction dampeners. 2 per side, 4 total in front. normally you see one per side on old cars

here is the carb. It's bigger than the huge Holley on the Packard V16 that powered the PT boats in my post about the Nethercutt Museum

 That spotty area to the left of the magneto is the crankcase repair from the 1950's, still holding

 these are the parts controlled by the levers attached to the steering column (seen below)