Mystery vintage car

[Bob Purton]

Can anyone identify this vintage car for me please? This time rather than a game the question has a purpose, the curator of one of the museums I work for has asked me to ID it as it has something to do with an forthcoming exhibition. Any ideas?

[Jonathan Poll]

Can anyone identify this vintage car for me please? This time rather than a game the question has a purpose, the curator of one of the museums I work for has asked me to ID it as it has something to do with an forthcoming exhibition. Any ideas?

Don't know, but I [posted it on my facebook group. 136 people on it, quite a few are interested in veteran cars. Maybe they know.

[Bob Purton]

Thanks Jono, all help appreciated.

[Rusty Chrome (Malcolm Parker)]

It looks like a Delahaye from around 1903-04

[Barry]

Enhanced - Still not a clue!

[marcus]

The bonnet has a slightly French/Renault look to it. Big windscreen!

[richard]

just spent a very enjoyable time wading through The Complete Encyclopaedia of Motor Cars 1885-1968 4,000 makes of car featured ! still highly regarded by afficienados edited by nick georgano . 2" thick and very comprehensive . my copy is the 1968 edition but i believe it was later updated . i cant find this particular car i dont think anyway . after finishing the A's i had 3 possibles . will try and post some pics, couldnt find the 1904 delahaye , though other delahayes were. any idea of country of origin bob . plenty of mystery micro's though mainly 1920's

[marcus]

A knowledge of number plates might help to identify its nationality. That one actually looks a bit British.
Perhaps it's a Leyland Metro prototype from the late 1970s!

[richard]

A1350 ? i think but doesnt mean its in its original country

[Bob Purton]

I will ask if there are any clues, the last one he asked me to ID was Belgian, a Minerva as I recall.

[richard]

hi isetta owner remind me how you do this photo enhancement its terrific

[Big Al]

Can be French as in the early days the cars were for the wealthy and normally chauffeur driven. These quality cars were driven from the right hand side of the car late into the 20's. Just to add some Gallic flare to the driving experience in the early days it was normal to change the side of the road on reaching a town! Clearly it was realised this was probably not a very good idea for a number of reason and Napoleonic rules were applied rather the our Knightly/chivalry based ones. This also fails to take into account most people being right handed and thus the better arm to use on the steering wheel permanently as it tends to be stronger and better wired for accuracy. A reason for higher base accident rates in countries that comply with Napoleonic rule. But since Napoleon seemed as happy to kill people as Hitler I guess that is fine save if it were quoted as Hitlarian we probably would not be doing it. What so all darned good about Napoleon anyway?

Any way the point is old French cars look like they might be 'British' - or other like minded markets. Being French they were far earlier into style than many and the coal scuttle bonnet is one idealised form that found favour and got copied.

[Barry]

hi isetta owner remind me how you do this photo enhancement its terrific

There are many photo editing programs out there and some are very expensive.
The one I use is quite cheap.  It can be free if you use an old version.

The enhancement can be as simple as a one click 'Auto Exposure' with miraculous results.
There are some simple editing tools for removing marks and defects on the scan.
There are lots and lots of manual settings and enhancements if you really want to spend some time.

The biggest help is the ability to batch resize photos.  If I have say 20 photos all at 3mb (too big to send by email), I can resize the whole lot in one go to any percentage.  30% might come down to 280kb

The program is Acdsee Photo Manager and is at release 14 at the moment.  Looks like you can try before you buy.

http://www.acdsee.com/en/products/acdsee-14

If you already own it you can get a 40% discount for an upgrade.  Try getting an old version free first, then upgrade?

There is a sister program called Acdsee Photo editior (version 12 I think) This is for much more serious photo editing and real restoration of old cracked prints.  Very time consuming but worthwhile.  It is a bit like Photoshop but at a fraction of the cost.

For me it was money well spent and I use photomanager almost daily.

Good Luck
Barry - Happy to talk on the phone if you need more info.  let me know and I will message my number (anyone).

[richard]

thanks i did rather hopefully think it might be a bit easier - it is an amazing process isnt it . i do have an old photo of me in my first four wheeler . i will post it seperately . thanks though

[Barry]

It is very easy - honestly!

If you send a scan to me by email I will happily press a few buttons and see what comes out.
The higher resolution the scan, the better the results will be.

If you just want to send the photo to me by post, I would be happy to scan it and have a play with the settings - I can do this as a bmp (bitmap file) which will be better but very big.
A jpg (Jpeg) file would be OK 1200dpi resolution but 600 would still be OK.

Send me a personal message for my full details.

Barry