# What would you pay for a Roberts Limo



## SouthernTrails

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No idea on what a used one sells for, I googled them and found a brand new one just like that for 6,300.00 Roberts Carriages vis-a-vis limousine

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## greentree

Wow, that's a big carriage! I would think 3000 very fair!


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## BoldComic

Sounds fair to me. A nice Doctors Buggy is going for that around here.


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## Clayton Taffy

That is way to big for one horse to pull, except on very flat paved roads.


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## nitapitalou

Taffy you are back!!!!!

I have been thinking a lot about you as I have been really using your older harnessing critique thread to try to line out everything with my big girl. By the way, the very pretty pinto that has no handler has recently come up for sale. 

Anyway, as to the size and weight of the wagon. My plan initially, large draft (1800-2000 lbs) on level, good roads with short drive times only. Hoping to make it a team shortly....


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## Change

That's a nice Limo. $3K seems like a great price.


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## jeannie123

beautiful limo. looks well worth the money. have fun.


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## Change

By the way, nitapitalou - if you decide not to buy that limo, PM me. My sister may be interested.


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## nitapitalou

Change, I did buy it.  I have just a bit more to do to get it back on the road. It was pretty close, but needed to fix the brakes and some paint. However, life has put other things as priorities.


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## Change

Nitapitalou - are you in the carriage business, or do you just drive for fun as a hobby? 

Just curious, because my sister has a carriage company operating out of Phoenix, and if you're in the biz, thought maybe you might know each other.


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## nitapitalou

Change, I haven't officially started yet, but I will be after the first of the year, yes, I will operating a carriage business. Originally was to start in October, but had a few life delays. I am really looking forward to it!


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## Change

nitapitalou said:


> Change, I haven't officially started yet, but I will be after the first of the year, yes, I will operating a carriage business. Originally was to start in October, but had a few life delays. I am really looking forward to it!


Good luck! It's a lot of hard work, long hours, and for some reason people seem to assume you have lots of money because "you have horses and carriages!" 

Be sure to check CA requirements for minimum insurance for your company. My sister carried $1M liability - and that doesn't include the insurance coverage for the horses and equipment.


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## nitapitalou

Yeah, insurance is CRAZY expensive. I haven't gotten it yet, wanted to have a definite "go" date before I did. Glad I didn't or I'd be paying for it, but doing nothing. Thankfully my husband is very supportive of this venture. He keeps telling me that he wants it to be fun, not just a way to make money, if it makes any. My hope is to have it just help pay the feed bill, and have these ******s do a bit to earn their keep. 

I hope your sister's business is doing well!


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## Change

nitapitalou said:


> I hope your sister's business is doing well!


She's been in continuous business in the Phoenix area for over 22 years now. She doesn't do street rides anymore, but she does weddings, funerals, special events, quincenieras, baraat weddings, parades, etc. She has 8 percherons and (I think) 27 wagons... including the 1890 hearse, stage coach, hotel surrey, 1850 c-spring... hmm. Doctor's buggy, landaulette, nanny wagon, chuck wagon... party barge... and, oh yeah - a couple of vis-à-vis. There're more - I just can't think of 'em all.


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## stevenson

Nita what part of CA ? There is a lady in my town that does carriage rides. I had thought about it, but decided the risk outweighed the profit. Good luck in your venture.


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## nitapitalou

Stevenson, I am on the Central Coast. If everything goes according to plan, I will be working with a winery. I don't plan on doing anything on public roads for a quite a while.

Change, how does she store them all!!!??? I already have 3, a 4th on loan that is going back soon and plans to make what we are jokingly calling "The Ghetto cart". Can't wait to start a thread for that when I start it!!!


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## Change

nitapitalou said:


> Change, how does she store them all!!!???


She had two semi boxes, a tarp cover between, and a Very. Large. Storage rental unit.


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## stevenson

that should work out pretty good, with the winery , doing tours of vineyard with all the wine tasters.. lol.. we drove over to the coast for my b-day and was surprised at all the growth just before Paso Robles, and all the for sale signs on wineries. We saw some people unloading at Oceano to ride, but the wind was blowing so hard i don't see how they had a good time.


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## jbuzzitt

It is a pretty good price on it. One single Draft horse will have no issue pulling it around for an event.

If you do not have a place to replace the rubber tires on it - I am in Colorado and I do the tire replacements. The wires do break and need to be replaced. [email protected]


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## BoldComic

So glad you picked up the Roberts Limo. It's really a beautiful vehicle. Working with a Winery sounds wonderful. Will you work as and Independent Contractor and still have to carry your own insurance?

Also, if you figure out a good storage solution please share. We only have on Dr's Buggy, a Meadowbrook, and a mini cart and are already out of storage space...

Good luck on your venture!


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## greentree

Carriages take up SO much space! I need one of those car lifts to store another LAYER! AS IF I could get one for the carriages before DH got one in his garage, lol!

Glad you got the carriage!


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## nitapitalou

My storage solution has been a 40' Hi-Boy Sea train. We had an extra roll up door put on the side as well. At the moment, I am also taking up a chunk of my husband's shop. Well.........like about half of it. LOL I keep telling him if he would build me a barn, I could have room in the sea train for all of my carriages and he can have his shop back. What I like about the Hi-Boy is that I can put my Surrey that has a fixed top in it without taking of the top. And I don't have to put the top down on the Limo either. Once I have a place to store my tack and feed, I will only use it for storing the carriages. I am hoping to get something hooked up to winch in the limo, as I can't put it in by myself. My ramp is a railroad tie, more like a step instead of a ramp. Plus my hay wagon is pretty heavy too. I can bounce the surrey in and out by myself, but it is a lot lighter and springier. 

The holidays and a fund raiser I did for a friend who dealing with breast cancer, has really put me behind my original schedule. I had hoped to be up and operating by now, but...I have probably about 3-4 weeks of painting to do. It is mostly on the wheels. **** thing has spokes, lol. Do you know how long it takes to hand sand each of those ******s? If you don't, its 8 hours per wheel. I am trying to find someone that will blast them, that 1-knows what they are doing and 2-doesn't want to charge me $200 a wheel to be blasted. In the mean time, I am hand sanding. They didn't look too bad, but needed some touch up, and well, once you start, you find that more paint is flaking off, and then more flakes off and pretty soon, you are sanding the whole thing. Unfortunately, I get to be a bit of a perfectionist on some things. I am getting there though!

I started taking some pictures, so will post it all when I get a chance. My life is completely wrapped up in this at the moment. Today is the first time I have gotten onto the forum in over a month and that is only because I am waiting on my daughter for an appointment. 

As to the insurance, I am going to get it to cover me for anything I do. Even if the winery does have insurance to cover the rides. I want my hinny well covered! I will get some nice pictures done when I am up and running to post on here.


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## nitapitalou

*Some new pics*

You will have to forgive me, I have yet to figure out how to add comments between the pictures yet! But I wanted to update everyone on the progress happening with the Limo. Unfortunately, life has continued to put up obstacles at every turn. 2 car accidents for my hubby, one very minor, but a major inconvenience and then another that was major, totaling his commuter car, but thankfully, he was okay other than a couple of scrapes, bruising and a concussion. Young driver pulled out in front of him with a half ton pickup. I'll include the pic of his car. Then I sprained my ankle severely, but I am finally back at it while gimping around a bit.

Back to the progress:

I am still sanding wheels....I maybe doing this for the rest of my days....

Minor repair to the tear in the vinyl top. Still needs a bit of color matching, but I need the wheels back on it to push it out in the sun to get a good match.

Hubby is redoing the master cylinder and moving the brake pedal to a more comfortable location for me. Plus he is adding grease fittings to the 5th wheel so that it won't be so messy.

I did an attempt at "refreshing" the upholstery. And while it needs it, it was an expenditure I was hoping to avoid, but my little attempt will be causing us to reupholster the carriage. Looked much better, but the dye would not stop bleeding any time it got damp. 

The repainting of fenders. 

Sanding begin on the trunk.

Polishing of the wheel hubs, all by hand. Good movie (or 2) a glass of wine (or 3) and one hub would transform.

If I could get a good solid 2 weeks of 40 hours in the shop, I'd be almost finished, but I doubt that will happen. Hopefully in another month or 2 I can be close!


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## nitapitalou

*The totaled Accent*

Forgot the pic of the hubby's car


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## Change

Wow! Looks like you've almost completely disassembled/reassembled the Limo! That's a LOT of work!

Glad your hubby got out of that wreck with only minor injuries. From the looks of the car it could have been MUCH worse.

For getting your carriages in/out of the hi-boy; get an 8' 2x10 and cut it in half. Voila! Ramps. Store them inside the hi-boy except when you need to roll a carriage in or out so they don't weather.

Keep us posted!


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## Zexious

Wow, that's so scary! /subbing


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## nitapitalou

Change, I did exactly that  The surrey I don't bother with them, it is light enough, but I can't get enough momentum going by myself for the limo, even with the ramps. Its kinda uphill. 

The limo could have been used as is, but I wanted a nicer "finished" look. Thankfully, I don't have to rely on the business to support us! 

As to the car accident, the CHP officer said that had my husband not swerved, I would have been a widow. Feeling rather grateful!


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## Change

nitapitalou said:


> As to the car accident, the CHP officer said that had my husband not swerved, I would have been a widow. Feeling rather grateful!


I'm glad he swerved!

It snowed here today. People in Alabama don't know how to drive in it. There was a head on collision right in front of me. I did swerve, but one of the vehicles in the collision spun and slammed into my truck's left front and side, pushing me off the road and I slammed into a fire hydrant. I'm pretty sure my truck was totaled! <sigh>

Luckily, no one appeared seriously injured. The lady in the Toyota (victim 1) was taken to the hospital with slight chest pains - most likely from the air bag. The lady driving the truck that slid into our lanes and caused the crash seemed okay. I got my finger sliced pretty good, and the air bag scraped and bruised my hands, but other than that, I think I'm okay. I'm sure I'll ache tomorrow, though.


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## nitapitalou

Oh no! I am glad you walked away with just minor injuries! If you didn't have any head trauma, take Advil, regularly! It will help. Be sure to visit a chiro and a massage therapist as well. It is such a pain dealing with the fall out of an accident. Because of Ryan's work schedule, I have been dealing with most of the [email protected] for his. It takes forever! 

People need to slow down and if they don't know how to drive for the conditions, stay home! 

Take care of yourself and keep me post on how you are doing. I will be thinking of you!


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## Change

It has been about 10 hrs since the crash, and I am beginning to think I might have fractured something in my left wrist - which is bad because I am left handed. I will be going to the hospital tomorrow for x-rays. <sigh>

Good thing it is supposed to rain all weekend. I would be very ****ed off if this caused me to miss a day of riding!


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## nitapitalou

*More pictures!*

A few more before and after pics

The new upholstery and a new brake pedal push rod. The other install and brake rod was not the best. The angle of the rod ate up the master cylinder. Because of the heel plate, my hubs had to fab together a new rod that would bend differently. All back together, just waiting on new hardware and some polishing.


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## Clayton Taffy

WOW!! Really Nice! I can see that the upholstery was expensive, it looks beautiful.


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## nitapitalou

Thanks Taffy! The pictures, while they show that it is nice, don't do it justice. It was quite a shock on how much reupholstering was. I paid darn near what I paid for the carriage. If I had gone with a cheaper material, it would have saved me quite a bit, but this stuff will probably out last the steel, but is buttery soft.


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## BoldComic

This is turning out amazing! You have quite a talent.


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## nitapitalou

Well guys, here it is, the finished product


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## Change

Can you say which winery, or at least which town you'll be working in? If not, PM me?


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## nitapitalou

I don't have a set winery yet....I am on the Central Coast here in California. I will hopefully do weddings all over San Luis Obispo county.


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## Change

Good luck! That will be a great carriage for wedding parties!


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## BoldComic

It's amazing!!! Beautiful work. Have fun!


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## nitapitalou

I thought I'd show you all the picture that was in the paper of us at the local 4th of July parade.


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