Peter Stark of Memory Motorsports, LLC was the first to solve the mystery!

Hi Randy:
Saw the article on foxnews.com and the next day saw a car go across the auction block at Gooding & Co. w/ the exact same gauge cluster...it's from a Hupmobile. The one at Gooding was a 1929 Hupmobile Century Six Sedan, but a google image search of the words "hupmobile" and "dash" yields lots of pictures of this cluster in various Hupmobiles. Not sure if this was really a mystery or just a genius piece of marketing/advertising, but either way, I'm damn near positive this is what it came out of!
All the best.
-Peter

Peter Stark
Memory Motorsports, LLC

I found the "mystery gauge" panel while visiting a swap meet during the Hot August Nights event in Reno, NV. The silver plated panel had some nice detail, and was filled with Stewart Warner gauges from the late twenties and early thirties. I recognized the fonts and appearance of the gauges from other gauge sets I have restored in the past, but when I contacted several car clubs and resources they could not identify this panel. Since I regularly have a booth at the Barrett Jackson auction in Scottsdale, I decided to bring this panel with me. Thousands of car enthusiasts attend this event every year, so I was pretty sure someone would recognize this set of gauges. Early in the week, Mike Joy and Bob Golfen from SpeedTV stopped by my booth and decided to post an article to see if any of their fans could identify my find. Fox News.com also picked up the article, and the rest is history. I received about 20 to 50 responses a day with various guesses and stories about the set of gauges, but had not received a verifiable answer until Saturday, Jan 22, 2011 when Peter Stark sent in the solution.
I would like to thank Peter for taking the time to send in his email. Mike and Bob for writing the story, and Fox News for picking up the link. I also thank everyone for your responses to the “Mystery of the Gauges”

• Hupmobile was an automobile built by the Hupp Motor Company from 1909 thru 1940. The Hupp Motor Company of Detroit, Michigan, started building automobiles in 1908 and introduced their creation, called the Model 20, to the public at the Detroit Auto Show in February 1909. The company's philosophy was to build a car in the working man's price range. That idea, along with a strong commitment to quality and workmanship, produced many years of dependable, tough and durable machines.
• Hupmobile made a total of 500,000 automobiles during the 30 years of production. In 1909 over 500 cars were produced. By 1929, Hupp was producing over 53,300 cars per year (their best year). A workers' strike in 1937 resulted in very few, if any, cars being made during 1937. A low production of cars were made from 1938 through 1940.
• To help prove the reliability and dependability of the Model 20 Hupmobile, a 4-passenger touring car began an around-the-world trip on November 10, 1910. The car traveled through 26 different countries (14 of which had never seen an automobile), covered 48,600 land miles plus 28,000 shipboard miles, and ended in Detroit on January 24, 1912.
  In 2003, a book was written about this trip. The book: Three Men in a Hupp, Around the World by Automobile, 1910-1912, written by James A. Ward, was published by Stanford University Press, Stanford, California.
  Note: The car that made this trip is on display at the Crawford Car-Aviation Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
• The first police car for Detroit was a 1910 Hupmobile.
• The US Army used Hupmobiles in WWI as General staff cars, to visit the front lines, and as ambulances.
• Train/car race from Capetown to Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1924 (Train won the race). Train/car rematch race in 1990, (Car won this time).
• In 1927 a survey showed that over 40% of Hupmobile owners were repeat buyers when their old Hupps came due for replacing. Another survey in 1937 showed that over 200,000 Hupmobiles were still licensed in the USA and 57% were still driven by their original owners. This survey also showed that more than 75% wanted to stick to Hupmobiles.
• 1932 Indianapolis 500 race (finished 5th)
• It was rumored that the car on the old-style US $10 bill is a Hupmobile. This has been strongly denied by the US Mint and the Bureau of Engraving. The original engraver used a composite of many US cars so as not to favor any one manufacturer.