March 26, 2024

Dear automotive enthusiasts, restorers, collectors, and investors,

Through the years I have completed restorations on many vintage cars and motorcycles with great interest in early Cadillac cars from the early brass era to the teens’ era before I found my niche with the multi cylinder (V-16) Cadillacs. We presently have five in the collection with one very rare 1933 Madame X Model 5555C Imperial Cabriolet in its final stages and another "one off" 1931 V-16 Victoria with body by Lansfield of London. However, in 2004 I was in the right place at the right time and was lucky to come across that “proverbial lost Duesenberg”... A 1934 Convertible Sedan by Derham Model J-505. Since then I have been on a search for other Duesenberg cars, or Duesenberg powered cars, and today have twelve in my collection.

My crew and I have restored many cars over the past fifty years. Once in a while we will pick one out to be displayed in the PROJECTS section on our website with detailed photos of the restoration as it proceeds. Many of the cars that we have restored over the years have been pulled from junkyards with most people feeling that they were beyond restoration. We refer to those as "resurrections" rather than restorations.

I would like to direct your attention to one of these "resurrections" that is in the final stage and almost ready for show. Several years ago we purchased a 1925 Duesenberg Model A Roadster from a collector in upstate New York who had pulled the car out of a junkyard and placed it in a truck body container where it sat until I discovered it. You can view photos of the entire restoration on my PROJECTS page where there are presently 203 photos of this documented restoration. I have selected eight photos below to pique your interest. It is our intent to display this car at the Auburn Cord Duesenberg show in Auburn Indiana this coming Labor Day weekend as it is "The Year Of The Duesenberg" (2024).

This week’s feature is a 1939 Ahrens Fox HT Hercules. The Rhode Island Antique Fire Apparatus Society (RIAFAS) hosted The SPAAMFAA 2023 Summer National Conference and Muster at the Crown Plaza hotel in Warwick. My 1939 Ahrens Fox Hercules won the award for “Most Original Apparatus.”

Come visit our showrooms, in Providence and Warwick Rhode Island, where we have over fifty cars and fifty vintage motorcycles on display. By appointment only.

Best Regards,

1000 GPM pumper with booster tank mounted on a giant 202 inch wheel base chassis. Built for the town of Belleville, New Jersey and delivered on October 30, 1939. The last HT built before WW2 and considered the Rolls Royce of fire trucks.

This truck entered the 2023 Society for the Preserv­ation and App­recia­tion of Antique Motor Fire Apparatus in Amer­ica national summer Con­fer­ence and muster in War­wick, Rhode Island on July 11 - July 15. Click here for more photos and the full article.

This truck won the award for "Most Orig­inal Apparatus". See award here.