The restoration took 5 years of off and on work. We farm by trade/occupation so the work/repairs on the farm take priority. This car is probably 90% factory accurate (pebble beach quality it is not) This car is meant to be driven as in we put about 500 miles a year on it and most of that is done over a continuous 3-5 day time period. So some things have been upgraded to modern materials. For example, all the leather seals replaced with something made with rubber. Clutch and brake linings re-lined with modern compounds. Back up fuel system (hidden). More modern carburetor, modern tires (still tube type though), electrics are probably the weakest link because the 6V genorator is gear driven off the secondary crankshaft(that operates the sleeves) so it was rebuilt and a a new voltage cut-out, wiring is modern wires that "look" old, new bulb sockets. Also we added some removable turn signals only because we kinda found out that people today don't understand hand signals (even though they are on any driving test)
The car is accutally has some modern-esque comforts/technology for its day. And its pretty powerfull our car has the small Knight 6 (56 horsepower) but they made a big 6 that made over 80 horsepower that was put into the roadster model.
12 gallon rear mounted fuel tank with vaccum canister type fuel pump. Ford, Chevy, Dodge, ect... had gravity fed 3-4 gallon tanks in the cowl area.
Shock absorbers, crude cavas strapping inside a recoil type housing (think pull start mechanisim with a heavy spring to control the leaf springs up and down motion) again Ford, Chevy, Dodge ect... had nothing.
Electric and crank handle starting, not a universal thing on all cars of the time.
4 wheel mechanical brakes, again most cars just had 2 wheel rear brakes.
Speedometer Volt meter, oil pressure, Coolant temperature, Fuell level gauges, again most cars either had none or just one or two of these gauges.
Willy's "finger tip control" a rotary switch mounted in the center of the steering wheel controled all the lights, horn and starter. press for electric (oooogah) horn, turn right and left for parking/head/driving/dome light, lift the button for the starter.
Interior dome light, again most cars didn't have one.
Oil rectifier, early attempt at an oil filter. it had screens for filter material and a anode type rod that was connected to the exhaust system that was to burn off the "coke" in the oil so it could settle to the bottom of the canister. This was before oils had any detergents and most engines needed torn down every 10,000 miles for "de-coking" The sleeve valve engines are notorious for going 50,000+ miles before needing tear downs and or cleaning.
Closed water pump circulatory cooling system, earlier cars of the day usually just had a open convection type cooling system so adding water/coolant/alcohol to the cooling system was routine maintence.
Distributor ignition, not as common on other vehicles of the day some (Ford) still used buzz coils for each cylinider.
I am kinda comparing the technology/features to the Models "T" and "A" aprox. retail price of those were $400-800 the Willys Knight 70 series retailed for $2200. I have some of the sales liturature and advertisements.
