Too cool!

That is beyond cool! I wanna park there when I come over! I suspect you will be a grand tour guide! I love all that historical stuff!
Thanks for the lesson!   

Quote from: djfordmanjack on 2023-11-16 14:30back to 57 content !
Time to go to sleep for a few months over here. getting colder by the day, freezing nights, and all. I pulled the license plates and going to hand them to the insurance company tomorrow, until March or so. That means I get a tax and insurance refund for that time.

looking pretty in the sun, but it's already cold....She only needs a generator overhaul ( cleaning the armature and maybe new brushes), I will do that over winter.




the weekend before I took her downtown with a friend. By total coincidence, I parked her in central downtown, literally, where you never usually find a parking lot. I never thought I'd park there once in my life. no- that is NOT a night club in the background, it is the toy museum. All the buildings around are at least 200 years old, but foundations are between 500 and 900/1000 yo. actually just behind my 57CS ( literally 100 yards) is the residence of the LAST Emperor of the Holy Roman German Empire. Emperor Friedrich III of Habsburg (1440), and his insignia stones (A.E.I.O.U. = Austria erit in orbe ultima) are set all over the place still, 500 years later. The 57 is parked where the center of (Continental) Europe was from 1440 to 1493 (approx). That is the same time range as 1492....
I think that is pretty cool....  

Good Pics Gunther - let your CS have good winter Sleep!

Awesome 

History is important, be it sunvisor mounts for Business Coupes or where Frederich laid his head.
Now give us a lesson on the different dimensions on the plates, How many variations, custom made? that kind of stuff.
Terry
 

thanx guys! Are you trying to make fun of my useless posts, or really interested in our plates, Terry ? 
Well....
The white plates are the second set of plates style for street use ( after WWII). Before that were black plates with region specific letters and numbers only ( still valid if on an original owner pre-'91 registered car, getting fewer every year).
Now we can have all kind of number and letter combos, with personalized plates at extra cost ( approx US$ 200).
Austria has always issued several different size plates for the rear of the car. Our regular plates are HUGE ! they are over 22" wide. They will fit most (modern) cars, but won't work on some vans ( with hinged rear doors), trailers, OR vintage cars. Oftentimes the space on vintage bumpers is way too small for our large plates ( single line). And/or the license plate lights are not spaced wide enough to brighten up the full plate. That's when the rectangular dual line plates come in. They cannot be had for every car. just if tech inspection approves in the vehicle papers. To get more complicated, some older cars can have both, single line (long) and dual (rectangular) plates . IN THE BACK that is. ( f.e. VW beetles, T1 split window buses and such).
To make things weirder, there are several different dimensions for rectangular rear plates (4x) depending on type of vehicle, registration type aso. Some of these don't lend themselves for personalized plates, because they will incorrectly abbreviate the words. On top of that we have green plates ( in all shapes) for vehicles that need to be driven abroad without current registration, and blue plates for shop/garage use.
None of the regular plates stay on the car, they have to be turned in and scrapped as soon as a car gets taken off the road or sold. The green plates can stay on the car. The blue plates MUST NOT stay on any car, except for the time or day of use.....     I think by now you get the picture. Bureaucracy is a historic and still up to date thing here. I am pretty sure the license plate rules date back to Friedrich III ! At least !..... I guess he implied an exempt for rectangular plates because it better fitted his emperor coach....

WOW!!! I thought the various states were difficult to deal with here! Sheesh!

Hugh, when you come over here to visit, I will gladly fill you in with all details of Continental living and you will be happy to return back home asap without a single tear shed.... I will be coming with you, so I can finally see and hear the Petersens, live !   

I love this country, and each has their pros and cons....and we have a lot of those....

Being a lover of the history of that part of the world...I will be soaking it up like a sponge!

I would not make fun of your useless points until after we shared a few beers.

I am a Director for the Specialty Vehicle Association of British Columbia (https://sva.bc.ca/) which represents 42 car clubs here and we lobby the Government and the government run insurance company.  You can see on the website, policies that have been changed over our 42-year history, like fenderless cars being legal.  We are also working on a Preservation classification license plate for non-restored cars and the ability to run year of make license plates that some provinces and US states already have.

On the  history side of it, my Mother's family name was Enns, the oldest town in Austria.

Terry
 

Awesome Terry ! Always great to know somebody actively working on preserving classic cars and the official homework to keep them running and street legal, in these times. Are that your Shoebox and green Pickup truck on the homepage ?
We have similar interest groups over here, more so in Germany but also in Austria, the ÖMVV, Österreichisches Motor Veteranen Register = Austrian classic vehicle register. There is also an official list of historical, classic and replica cars, Veteranen-Register, which is the foundation of being able to make these street legal over here, at all. Usually all polluting emission vehicles are banned, with the exception of said  vehicles in list, which can be added to. Also replica models like GT40, Cobra and such. They are called Erhaltungswürdige Fahrzeuge, vehicles, worth keeping. it is kind of a cultural exempt, much like keeping historical buildings with old roofing, shingles, doors and windows, without having to adapt to modern standards.
I am all into that. all kinds. Living in an 80+ year old house, driving , mostly 55+ yo cars, music 50yo +. Can't seem to adapt to modern society....
Thanx for your interest and also thanx for actively working for the classic cars crowd !

Enns is about 120 miles or so only from my place. I have friends VERY close to that place, many in Linz, some in Asten and Steyr. I have been going to a private car BBQ , like no 5 miles from Enns for years and years, visiting friends. Yes those are among the oldest towns in Austria. Most of them date back to the Roman Empire, also my home town. Vienna is actually Roman/Latin/Celtic and older ! Vindobona = Celtic Roman Name for our Capitol Vienna (Wien). There are Roman Villae under our local airfield and a mile from my place are Celtic/Roman 1500+ yo grave mounds, still just there in the woods.
This is a crazy story. A friend of mine was hiking certain known grounds with his sons and he was just casually  moving molehills with his shoes, and found a Roman coin ca 200ad. No lie, it happened, saw the coin.

I am also interested in recent history ( ie 250+ years back) and we have fantastic military maps of Empress Maria Theresia ( ca 1750+), I can literally search those old maps by the yard or even closer ( 0.0001 degrees of latitude and longitude) and compare to the actual google maps, or on site. it is crazy. You can often literally make out old buildings, foundations, roads between the old maps and now. I can see ridges in my property, where a field corner had been 200 years ago. I am just crazy, I confess...

I believe, as an individual person, we are just here for that time, but we are part of something much bigger and longer lasting. History is everywhere, if and when you care to look for it.

Terry, you can't see it, but right behind my 64 Transit Van (literally no 100 yards away), runs the river Enns, which finally runs down to Enns city and unites with river Danube.
That is the Grimming summit in the backdrop, elev. 2315meters, that's approx 7.000 ft. MAJESTIC !

Yes, those are a couple of my fleet. 
I got involved with SVABC when the government insurance company (ICBC) would not give me a collector plate for my 1951 Mercury, which has original paint (faded and patina'd naturally) and it has a name on the door (a made up company name).  They told me if I re-painted the truck and then wrapped it in a 'patina look' they would give me collector status.  The difference is $230.00 vs. $1,500.00 per year insurance.  The guy told me he knows how I felt because he had a dune buggy in high school, I do not think he was prepared for my reply.
Now I am on a quest to get a preservation classification for the hobby, a slow and frustrating process dealing with non-car people who keep changing positions within government agencies.
Terry
 

same here Terry !
cars condition 3- ( average og or repaint) are frowned upon and getting outruled. It is insane. I am not talking about artificial crazy patina or those rat rods. just neat old cars, with not perfect paint. My 57CS was close to getting outruled. Luckily mine has a decent amount of og paint and mostly original ( Except mild lowering) so it checked out ok some way.

If there is one thing about governments world wide...it is that ALL of them could dry up a wet dream with their inane rules and regulations these days re: cars and their looks.