Motor City

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RM Motor City 2014 Highlights – 1976 Toyota FJ40 Land Cruiser is Flawless, Earns $70k

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“Icon” or “hall of fame” status for a new automobile is never a sure thing. Those first few hundred models roll out from an engineer’s blueprints, down the assembly line, and into global showrooms (relatively) untested and unproven. Will it sell? Will it break down? Time will tell. So nobody claims current cars are icons right away. Even fewer automakers would say: will this truck define the brand (and even ‘Made in Japan’) in the eyes of global car shoppers from this point forward? Will it be a good reputation? All of these are lofty goals, but ones the FJ40 …

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1940 Packard Custom Super Eight Convertible Sedan by Darrin

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Here is a gorgeous car with a unique back-story ahead of the RM Auctions Motor City event on July 26th in Plymouth, Michigan. After working as a master apprentice with French coachbuilders for more than a decade, Dutch Darrin returned to America to set up his own shop. The French coach-built car industry from the 1920s to the 1930s was the absolute best in the world – delivering wild one-off creations to buyers around the world. Cars like the Delehaye 139, the Hispano-Suiza Xenia or the Rolls-Royce Round Door Coupe all came from this small piece of land around and …

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RM Auctions Motor City 2014 Preview – 1934 Chrysler Airflow Eight Sedan Is First Family Cruiser

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The ‘first family cruiser’… is a nice way of re-writing my original headline: ‘first mini-van?’ So was it the first mini-van as we know them? No. But it does have the tall shape and profile of a useful family car, particularly versus the panel trucks, Model A tourers, or the rumble seat two-doors that were most plentiful in this time period and affordable price range. Few other non-luxury cars could fit a family inside an enclosed cabin in 1934. What was the need? Where would you all “go” together?  This was before most paved roads, let alone interstates. RM Auctions …

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