Location of Leslie Special & Prof Fate's Hannibal Twin-8

[MarkM]

A minor correction about the location of the Stahl's Automobile Museum referenced in the discussions about the locations of the Leslie Special cars and Professor Fate's Hannibal Twin-8 cars: it is in Chesterfield, Michigan (not Missouri as mentioned in the Leslie Special blog or Detroit as mentioned in the Hannibal Twin-8 blog). When I last visited the museum in July 2015, the Hannibal Twin-8 was on display, but not the Leslie Special.

[ric]

A minor correction about the location of the Stahl's Automobile Museum referenced in the discussions about the locations of the Leslie Special cars and Professor Fate's Hannibal Twin-8 cars: it is in Chesterfield, Michigan (not Missouri as mentioned in the Leslie Special blog or Detroit as mentioned in the Hannibal Twin-8 blog).

Thanks for the corrections, I've updated those pages.

When I last visited the museum in July 2015, the Hannibal Twin-8 was on display, but not the Leslie Special.

I think Ted Stahl regularly takes the Leslie Special out to events, e.g.
http://www.greatrace.com/news/the-lesli ... -2014.html

Edit: Yup, he headed off to Missouri with it in mid June 2015
http://tedstahl.com/tag/leslie-special/

[dmcglynn]

This is one of the first movies I ever remember watching, and also one of the first VHS movies my parents ever bought back when they got their first VCR second-hand in the early 80s.. My dad proposed to my mom after taking her to see this movie in 1965, so it holds a special place in the hearts of my family.

After celebrating their 50th anniversary last weekend, I watched it with my wife and 3 kids the other night, and it got me interested again and made me check the internet for more information. ( Apparently it stuck with my son as well, as the next day, I woke up and he had made a Leslie-Special and Hannibal Twin-8 out of legos. .. and even Ms DuBois' camera! ) I've always LOVED the Hannibal Twin-8. Imagine my surprise that the Stahl museum is located right on the route I take to get to my brother's house, so I've driven past that location about 100 times without realizing those cars were in there! ( and a Tucker too!.. always loved that movie. )

Thanks for making this site. I hope it survives like the movie - it continues to hold up!

David

[ric]

When you drop in, see what you can find about the current state of both Hannibal 8's.
One was still being restored in the last photos I saw.

I'd love to nail down the history of both cars, e.g.

• which scenes each was used for
• if either of them was used in the "Charge of the Model T's" film...

[ric]

...( Apparently it stuck with my son as well, as the next day, I woke up and he had made a Leslie-Special and Hannibal Twin-8 out of legos. .. and even Ms DuBois' camera! )

Take some photos before he re-uses the bricks!

Did it end up anything like this? http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.p ... opic=29403

[dmcglynn]

Take some photos before he re-uses the bricks!

I will see if he still has them put together.. It is no where as detailed and fancy as that one! I think he had to scale it all down to match the few wheels we had on hand, which were very small.

And I'll inquire about the other HT8 when I go to the Stahl museum. I noticed they have a google-streets-ish 360 degree view of the museum on their website, and you can actually see the cars. Here's a screen-shot of my browser:

stahl_museum.jpg (109.09 KiB) Viewed 31961 times

David

[dmcglynn]

I haven't made it to the museum yet, and I was also unable to get a picture of the lego-cars from my son.

I just noticed how strange the black-tires look on the Leslie-Special when I looked at that picture again from my previous post. I never even noticed it before today.

[ric]

...
I just noticed how strange the black-tires look on the Leslie-Special when I looked at that picture again from my previous post. I never even noticed it before today.

Fred Stahl really does drive that car around a few times a year, so obviously the original white tyres have worn out, or have been preserved somewhere.
You can still buy brand new white "non skid" tyres, but they're not cheap!
https://www.cokertire.com/firestone-non ... white.html

Firestone-NonSkid-33x5-white-600.jpg (34.08 KiB) Viewed 31818 times

[ric]

One of the surviving Leslie Specials sold at auction earlier this year.
See: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17#p49