Hupp31
May 7
1931 Club Sedan
What can anyone tell me about this 1931 Peerless club sedan? I just found the photo and I absolutely love the body styling. It listed the coach builder as Hayes. Is that correct?
18 Replies
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Replies (18)
· May 7
· May 7
@alsancle Love those huge headlamps!
· May 7
My first interaction with Tom Laferriere. I guess 15 years ago. Wow. Car was sold to long island. Rewooding project was a big deal and expensive and new owner ending up selling to a well respected restorer. Not sure if the car has progressed since then. This car is identical to the Custom Eight owned by Mark Desch. Mark's is in the gallery also and is full restored.
· May 7
@alsancle I never would have guessed that car needed new wood by its outward appearance.
· May 7
@Hupp31 Thats how I always get screwed. Wood is brutally expensive now.
· May 7
Mark's car.
· May 7
I guess I should have looked in the gallery first. I actually found the photo elsewhere. The proportions on this body style are perfect. Nice to see there are two.
· May 8
@Hupp31 Tom had this car for sale about 3 months after we bought our first Packard, a 120 sedan from him for not that much less than this car was. I loved the lines as well but I am no woodworker.... 😆
Its one of those cars thats bigger than it looks in pics.
· May 8
@SteveMackCT @Peerless28 to confirm but I believe 138" wheelbase on the Custom. Maybe you could get away with just fixing the B pillar and not rewooding the entire car. I have never seen any pictures of it during the restoration (which I believe is still in progress).
· May 8
@alsancle hope to see finished car at some point.
· May 8
@alsancle Was the top compromised so it rotted from water ingress or had it rotted from the bottom up?
· May 8
@Hupp31 Since all cars of this era had inserts and not solid roofs there were many ways for water to sneak in. On sedans with center hung doors sometimes they used steel but often a big hunk of wood which was easy to compromise. Sometimes it just gets weaker and loosens with age and the doors opening and closing.
· May 7
I t seems like you don't hear much about Hayes. I wonder what their total production numbers look like? My favorite L29 Cord was a Hayes body. the famous Sakhnoffsky design.
· May 8
@JohnBloom Btw, this car and the Weymann bodied L29 come up often. I believe they are both hidden away in Middle East collections now never to be seen again.
· May 8
@alsancle I heard that about the coupe. What a bummer. This looks like a model I would have wanted to build after school when I was in 6th grade.......
· May 9
@alsancle Three super-nice Peerlesses have gone to a Museum in Cyprus. Not Cyprus, TX, but the island in the Mediterranean. Has anyone ever heard of other cars going that way?
· May 7
The entirety of the 1930-1932 Peerless production benefitted from Hayes and Count Alexis Sakhnoffsky's design.........with a few exceptions you could count on your fingers and toes, probably. The 4 cars driven to Pasadena in 1931 to get Murphy bodies, a handful coachbuilt in Europe like De Ley of Holland, and the custom line of Weymann bodies available in 1930 and 1931.
The main production - remarkably totaling nearly 4,000 examples. Photos of 11 of them, all 3 models, are in the Gallery:
"A" or "Standard Eight"
"B" or "Master Eight"
"C" or "Custom Eight"