regarding the Willys Knight-sleeve valve engine and also a very fine car in it's day. Years ago a W K would fetch very big money. Bill Harrah had a few in his collection. Today, nobody knows anything about them, let alone heard of one.
At that age now when I can look back over 50-years to the heyday of the real antique automobile hobby. Then, I was one of the youngsters as a card carrying member in some very old organizations in New England. Recall back in the early 1970s, when I had to park my 1934 Ford V8 outside the gates of the vintage meet at the Larz Anderson estate in Brookline, Massachusetts. Thing was, the V8 Ford was "too new" and did not qualify as an antique automobile.
Remember in the late 1960s driving over the inbound upper level of the Mystic River bridge into Boston with more than 70 pre-1930 antique automobiles. My 1930 Ford Model A just made the upper age bar. That procession was led by a 1912 Model T Ford that chugged along at about 30-miles an hour. Our club had over 600 total members then with around 900 "antique" cars on the roster. Not kidding! There was every imaginable automotive marquee listed on those sheets. Remember some of the regular members drove odd named vehicles such as Lafayette Touring car, Rickenbacker roadster, Franklin formal sedan (air cooled) and others with names such as Reo, Moon, Locomobile, Whippet, Overland, Cleveland, Maxwell, Star, Hupmobile among many others. There were of course the standard bunches of teens and 1920s era Cadillacs, Packards and Pierce-Arrows. The car meets then were huge events with many real antique cars.
Back in the early 1970s, as secretary of one these clubs, I was contacted by the associate Producer of the original Great Gatsby movie with Robert Redford. He had an interesting name that is remembered - "Hank Moonjean". The production needed "expensive type" early 1920s automobiles as owned and driven by the wealthy. No Model T Fords need apply. Since our oldest American antique car club was roster heavy with that type vehicle we managed to supply about 20 fancy cars. It was left to me to drive a 1922 Wills-St Claire sedan from Georgetown, Massachusetts (Merrimack Valley) down through Boston all the way to the film location in Newport, Rhode Island. Our convoy that early Sunday morning was something like 15 pre-1923 automobiles. Recall at the time being then impressed at the roadworthy qualities of those then 50-year old automobiles. As it ended up, I drove that car in a couple of scenes in that movie. The Wills-St Claire piloted by myself is in traffic on the bridge three cars behind Daisy (Mia Farrow) and Gatsby (Redford) in the yellow Rolls-Royce.
Often speculate as to where most or all of those cars ended up. A couple of generations have mostly passed since then. Now, good old 1922 Willys-Knight Phaetons show up in garages here n' there. The orphaned cars are unwanted by most who value the space they occupy more than the intrinsic item itself.
