Heine-Velox Update 1
Greetings -
While we continue to work on the Stevens-Duryea I thought I'd post a quick update on the progress made on our 1921 Heine-velox. A link to our last Heine update can be found here -
http://fountainheadauto.blogspot.com/2009/10/restoration-check-up.html
Right now we're going through the decision process of what color to paint the vehicle.
Here's an original photo of the Heine-Velox parked in front of the Heine Piano Company showroom in San Francisco. In all the original (B & W) photos we have, of this vehicle as well as the Limo and one sedan, they all appear to be a gray primer color or perhaps not painted at all but bare metal. The story is that Heine planned to paint the vehicles whatever color the new owners wanted, but he never actually sold any of the five that were built.
Here's a shot of the 'before' restoration. It was not in too bad a shape, structurally, but needed a lot of love, as well as a new paint and upholstery. My first thought was to keep it true to the original and leave it bare metal. But that, of course, would be terribly impractical and painting it gray would not be flattering. The Harrah's collection painted ours in this off white color that isn't too bad, but it doesn't have the heir of luxury befitting of this massive vehicle. We are currently leaning toward a Chocolate brown body & wheels, black fenders & a tan top. But the debate continues. :-)
In describing the development of the Heine-Velox automobile, the company issued this statement -
"Heine Velox Motorcars in Beauty have been pronounced the CLASSIC CREATION of the century. The object of constructing this car was to manufacture an automobile superior to anything that had ever been built, about twenty years of thought and experimental work was carried on before the first model was completed." It goes on to list 13 features which were highly advanced for the day and some even revolutionary. We probably won't get to see the Heine here in Fairbanks until the end of Summer, 2010. But keep an eye out here on the blog for updates. We'll plan to post another once it get's painted.
Derik
While we continue to work on the Stevens-Duryea I thought I'd post a quick update on the progress made on our 1921 Heine-velox. A link to our last Heine update can be found here -
http://fountainheadauto.blogspot.com/2009/10/restoration-check-up.html
Right now we're going through the decision process of what color to paint the vehicle.
In describing the development of the Heine-Velox automobile, the company issued this statement -
"Heine Velox Motorcars in Beauty have been pronounced the CLASSIC CREATION of the century. The object of constructing this car was to manufacture an automobile superior to anything that had ever been built, about twenty years of thought and experimental work was carried on before the first model was completed." It goes on to list 13 features which were highly advanced for the day and some even revolutionary. We probably won't get to see the Heine here in Fairbanks until the end of Summer, 2010. But keep an eye out here on the blog for updates. We'll plan to post another once it get's painted.
Derik