Jump to content

Kimono-clad Japanese women in early 20th century car. Can you identify the car?


Guest Kjeld

Recommended Posts

Hi,

I recently bought this very charming card of three Japanese women in kimono enjoying their new toy. Do you happen to know what car this is, and from what year?

Kjeld in Japan

post-72728-143138396038_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Silverghost

Welcome to the forum Kjeld !

What a great colorized photo and quite an impressive auto !

This very grand & large auto has chain drive; so that should narrow our search down quit a bit !

Edited by Silverghost (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know what it is but I agree a very impressive car. I would date it at 1909 or 1910. I hope someone will recognise that oval radiator badge. It looks American but might not be as I think not many American cars had that scroll work around the front of the rear door. I reckon it is a large four rather than a six. Interesting that it has detachable rims which many cars at that time did not have.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Silverghost

Kjeld:

This beautiful photo of this equally impressive & Grand auto seems to have us stumped on this forum !

Most photos are usually fairly easy for the members here to identify quickly .

Do you know any of the photo's history and who might be pictured ?

Could this possibly be a Royal photo ?

Members of the Royal family perhapps ?

Or....

At the very least they are members of a very wealthy family !

The auto is unusual because of it's large radiator size, unusual firewall & cowl, lack of windshield, twin spare tire mounting on the right side,twin chain drive, de-mountable tires, and unusual decorative custom coachwork.

A stunning photo indeed !

Edited by Silverghost (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It has been suggested to me that this might be a FIAT. I found this article - SSRN-The Automobile in Japan by Stewart Lone, Christopher Madeley - which takes a few seconds to download. On page 16 is a quote from Autocar Magazine in 1912 which says that the Royal household had several cars including two 35-50 hp FIATs. This might be one of those.

Edited by nzcarnerd (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, keiser31, Silverghost, nzcarnerd, Manuel and Leif.

nzcarnerd, I found that paper a fascinating read. Very helpful for my research on early 20th century Japan. Thanks.

Manuel, I have made a few enlargements of several parts of the car, including the hubcap.

Kjeld in Japan

post-72728-14313839789_thumb.jpg

post-72728-143138397893_thumb.jpg

post-72728-143138397895_thumb.jpg

post-72728-143138397899_thumb.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could this possibly be a Royal photo ?

Members of the Royal family perhaps ?

Or....

At the very least they are members of a very wealthy family !

Silverghost,

I have no background information about the three women. Royal family members were rarely photographed at this time and such photographs were certainly not allowed to be used on postcards for sale to the general public. Members of a wealthy family is unlikely, too.

More likely is that these women were paid models. Around the turn of the century, models in Japan were almost always geisha or prostitutes. I think that these three women are likely geisha.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The radiator and badge do look like those on this car - http://www.rmauctions.com/images/cars/LF10/LF10_r140_01.jpg - but that one is shaft drive. I don't know much about Itala history of this era except that they built a full range of cars and changed them all every year and all of the surviving cars seem to be shaft drive. I have an Itala front axle - year unknown - and the hubcaps look like the one on the link car with Itala clearly in capital letters with a large A in the middle like on the radiator. The car in Japan does not have Itala hubcaps.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going with the 35 - 50 Fiat. Look at the unique rear doors in the picture. Then compare them to the rear doors of the 1912 Fiat Zero, smaller 12 - 15 HP, in the picture in this link.

The Car Directory - Fiat Zero Image - Fiat Zero (1912)

The car in this link is most definitely not a Model Zero. It looks more like one of the bigger American-built models. Here is a Zero - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Fiat_Zero_blue.jpg - they only began around 1912-13 and most of the surviving examples seem to date from about 1914. They are quite small and usually have torpedo bodies.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Were Fiats chain drive? I have seen those doors on about 5 different makes in my books trying to i.d. the car in question.

Fiat's big race cars of that era were all chain drive. In the 1906-1910 era there was a multiplicity of models and as with many makes of old race car, some were turned into touring cars and there were replicas of the race car chassis built as touring cars. I think at that time the bigger models were assentially custom-built. From about 1912 they were all shaft drive with a range of models which all had similar-appearing side valve four cylinder engines - Tipo Zero (0) and Tipo 1 were 70 x 120 mm about 1800cc, Tipo 2B - 80 x 140 mm about 2800cc , Tipo 3A - 100 x 140 mm about 4500cc, Tipo 4 about 6300cc and Tipo 5 - 130 x 170 mm about 9300 cc. There was also a six of about 8000 cc that was built only in the US. I owned a project 1915 Model 2B many years ago. My main memory of it was how heavily-built everything was.

The car in our picture here being quoted as 35-50 hp is possibly around 6000 cc or more.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Bob Call

Read closer. I didn't say I thought it was a Zero, I said compare the rear doors to those on the picture of a 1912 Zero.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest De Soto Frank

I'll bet Ivan Saxton would know what it is...

Quite a striking photo, an example of a hand-tinted black & white photograph.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The cowl is the stickler of the car in question. It has the shape of a speedster cowl, but turns into a tonneau or touring body!?

That style was seen on some more sporting, expensive cars of that era, like this Lozier Briarcliff for example - http://www.velocityjournal.com/images/full/2007/266/lo1911briarwoodsporttour26616408.jpg . That one also has a suicide seat out the side. They were usually known as toy tonneaus. I would think any part of the car would be very breezy to ride in.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think that photo is a good bit newer than the automobile pictured. That's an awfully nice road for the time period, and if you look at the close-ups a lot of that white paint is chipping off, particularly around the valve stem cover on the front wheel (and that wheel in general looks pretty beat).

It's not likely that a car like that would have been in Japan so soon after the war if it were imported, but over here it seems to have been a common thing for people to take good solid unrestored cars and do things like slather a poorly prepped coat of white paint on them and put them back on the road in the early days of the hobby.

I'm going to throw out there that this car might originally have been sold there, but that it was refurbed in the years leading up to the war. Maybe this is a photo from the 1920's or '30's after good roads were developed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree the picture could have been taken a few years after the car was new but not much after. That left front tyre is a type commonly seen on English cars around the WW1 era. From soon after WW1 tyres began to have carbon added to them which gave them the black colour. I suspect the picture was taken in a park or garden area, not on a street.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A quick search for circa 1910 Tokyo pics reveals it to not be the backwater you think...

37.jpg

The Kobe City Hall is a modern building of French Renaissance design, surrounded by curbs,

ditto the Mitsui Bank from the link Kjeld initially posted; look at the pics of the late-Meiji

and Taisho Periods, and you see plenty of modernity. I wouldn't rush to equate concrete

curbing and (possible) pavement as exclusive to an era, nor try to date a photo from a curb.

It looks to me like compacted pea gravel rather than pavement.

As for the car's condition, the paint, balding tires, it's not much worse than some early

Good Roads Tour & Glidden pics of cars I have that were rode hard and put up wet,

and other's family cars that have been frequently posted in "What Is It?"

I'd go back to square one and try to figure out what the car is, not the era the photo was taken.

I have no idea what the car is, but it sure is impressive!

TG

Edited by TG57Roadmaster (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

This car proves to be quite a challenge.

In response to the questions about the period that the image was photographed. The postcard dates to between Mar 28, 1907 and Mar 1, 1918. Looking at the women's hairstyles, I would say early 1910s.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The attached photo shows the winner of the 1908 coppa florio, Bologna in a "FIAT".

The Fiat pictured has hub caps that look just like those in the Japanese photo. The hub caps on both cars, if you look closely, show (8 or so) notches around their outside edge.

It make me lean towards "FIAT" 1907-8.

post-44716-14313840927_thumb.jpg

Edited by drwatson (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the other note - Kjeld, you said you study Japan in early 20th century. Did you know that a company named Laurin & Klement from (before WWI) Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (now known as Skoda in Czech Republic - still in existence) exported their cars (except other countries) to Japan as well? I am attaching few pictures for your (and others as well).

post-42602-143138409304_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409307_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409316_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409568_thumb.jpg

Edited by pepcak (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Silverghost

The only problem I see with this car in question being a Fiat is the fact that none of their big standard production touring road cars are rear chain drive~~~

Only the much smaller specially built race cars seem to be chain drive.

This type of drive was often used for race-only cars .

Many race cars in this time frame were also chain drive !

KJELD:

This has to be the toughest car we have had posted here in many years to get a positive identification on.

This photo should be posted on ~~~

PreWarCar.com ~~~

as this is a European auto website !

Perhapps they can tell us all what brand this grand touring auto actually is ?

Edited by Silverghost (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well, here you have few more FIATs that ARE chain driven - or do you think that room under rear fender is a space for chauffers lunch? :-) NZCARNERD suggests that those top-of-line cars were specials, frequently derived from racers, so why not? The first FIAT I posted has a neat doors (to access to sprocket shaft bearing?) and I would bet I see teeth around rear brake drum. Note the detachable rims at #3 picture, very likely not 1903 car as source suggests.

post-42602-14313840957_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409571_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409573_thumb.jpg

post-42602-143138409575_thumb.jpg

Edited by pepcak (see edit history)
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On the other note - Kjeld, you said you study Japan in early 20th century. Did you know that a company named Laurin & Klement from (before WWI) Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (now known as Skoda in Czech Republic - still in existence) exported their cars (except other countries) to Japan as well? I am attaching few pictures for your (and others as well).

No, I didn't know that. Great photos. Thanks for sharing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

KJELD:

This has to be the toughest car we have had posted here in many years to get a positive identification on.

This photo should be posted on ~~~

PreWarCar.com ~~~

as this is a European auto website !

Perhaps they can tell us all what brand this grand touring auto actually is ?

I really appreciate the time and effort you are all putting into identifying this mystery car. I will post the photos at PreWarCar.com, too. Thanks for the tip!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...