Antique & Classic Cars Blog

The oldest car in the state has now departed–overseas, apparently, along with the rest of the really old technology that accompanied it.

Built long, long ago–before Henry’s time, or Ransom’s, or even Cugnot’s–in a factory you’d need the Millennium Falcon to reach, if it still exists, this machine was at the Science Museum for ten weeks.

I believe we’ve all seen it before, along with Luke and Obi Wan and R2. Although styled a Land Speeder, and thought to move like a hovercraft, the vehicle actually rides on steel belted radials and steel rims and was moved during its heyday on a long arm like a fair ride. For centuries it was thought lost, until it turned up in some Jawa’s barn and then went into the interplanetary version of Hemmings in an ad touting, “Land Speeder, lo mileage, some blaster scoring, AM/FM/XM/ZZM/RMN230/MindSound/cassette; IonicPhasePulse speakers. Salvage title.”

This is the new owner. I asked him how it ran and he swung his arm and knocked me 40 feet across the room.  I took that to mean it needed some tuning and he may have paid too much.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 26th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Car stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.