StanleyRegister

I have to agree. The lines on that body are identical to the Stanley, as well as on this 1920 period shot. I do notice that the front & rear doors both swing the same way on the Stanley body, leaving a very narrow line between front & rear openings. What mystifies me is why the body flares out in front of the windshield, instead of tapering in toward the hood like on these cars. It tells me that this body started out on something other than a Brewster-nameplate car.

This Stanley is now in the Audrain Automobile Museum. They say it has a top speed of 70, maybe that's all the faster they care to drive it. 🙂 Goggles required... https://audrainautomuseum.org/cars/1908-stanley-model-h-5/

The prices I was estimating were for the standard 20hp size. People have put 26" boilers in condensing cars, and it makes a big improvement in how they drive. Things get a little cramped but it has been done. It doesn't exactly give you more power, but more steam. You can sustain a higher speed. and climb hills faster. Bill Barnes in Lewistown, PA also builds boilers. (No difference in the boiler between condensing and non-condensing.) Actually this car might not be any heavier than a 7-passenger touring car. The body is pretty small, and all wood.

That's the big if. Everything looks fine, but there's no way of knowing what happened on the last drive, and no testing has been done. Engines rarely have trouble, but boilers are often ruined by operator error. A new boiler would run about $6K, a burner maybe $4K, and then you'd have to put them in. The rest of the mechanicals are pretty simple and reliable.

The color choice is definitely beyond my comprehension. I think people typically prefer open Stanleys. There are only about 2 dozen sedans & broughams left. This is such an unique artifact that it's possible it will just catch the right person's eye - difficult to guess whether it will go high or low. It would be worth a couple extra thousand just for the little smile on your face every time you open and close those doors! Man is that body solid.

It doesn't have a price fixed at the moment. Just finished up on eBay, not meeting reserve at $36,900.

Now there's the observation of a real steam guy! :-) I can't imagine it would be very helpful - must have been just decorative. It's definitely all Stanley except the body.

The emblem on the shell is Stanley. I'm not sure what's on the Motometer.

Thinking about the view from the Packard driver's seat - 10 feet of hood and a couple inches of sky? A astonishingly good-looking car, though!

This body was mounted on a bare chassis purchased from Stanley in 1923. But it required some adaptation. It appears that the body itself was built around 1913. The rear fenders look to be from that era, and the body actually flares outward in front of the windshield, as though it were meeting a wide flat firewall. This also makes me think of 1913, when electric cowl lights were first incorporated into flat firewalls, just before the big streamlining change starting in 1914. The body is tiny, probably a 4-passenger sedan or a brougham, but quite elaborate inside. Most of the interior is wood, with a ribbed ceiling, and a rather open driver's seat. The door panels are canework. A modern restorer removed the flat rear fenders and modified some 1923 Stanley fenders to fit. You can see in the modern picture some of the results of the 1923 fitting project - the hood doesn't reach the sills, and there's a deep transition cowl to get from the flared body in to the Stanley hood. The body survived in stunning condition - everything intact, and the doors close with a fantastic solid clunk. It looks like there was a book in 1917 titled "Brewster & Company Automobiles" - would anybody be able to check that for something like this car? Are there any period photos of Brewster bodies from around 1913 that could be used for reference? I'd sure appreciate any ideas on the history of this body. Thanks, Kelly

Thanks for this early stuff, John - it's fabulous!

Pivoting driving light car - '31 Buick, large series. I grew up in a 50 series car.

Maybe a '37, with the smaller grille bars?

Here's another shot at enhancing the '30s car.

Re: Model A Victoria - all trunk hardware identical, yet one trunk is tall and fitted to the rear, and one is short and square? Advertising photos from a trunk-making company?

Thanks coachJC, no accusations, just thinking about things and being careful. Thanks for the explanation, maybe it will help others.

Previous posts have generated links to "content.invision.cic", that ended with ".jpg", for enlargements. These latest posts have generated links to "lh3.googlusercontent.com" with a long string of random characters and no ".jpg". I have not tried to follow one to see if there's a picture there. Did the AACA forum change photo hosts in midstream? Here's another test image to see if the same thing happens for my posts. Later: I see that this post is acting the same as the beginning of this thread. I'd be hesitant to click on the gray object in the posts of earlier today..

I just couldn't resist posting 2 more of the Ullman Raceabout, way up at the top of my list of favorite early hobby Mercer photos. The first shows Ullman, the second shows a later owner, before he removed the wires & electric cowl lights, and repainted the car to the color it is today. I know the wires aren't original, and I like artillery wheels, but the combination of this brand and size and color of wire wheels, on a dark-painted Raceabout, really rings my chimes.

Antique cars in another troubled time - a trio of factory-built Mercer Raceabouts at the AACA club outing at Lamb's Tavern on Sep. 18, 1942. From left to right - Alec Ullman's 1912, before the wire wheels were installed; Jack Fetterolf's 1913; and Sam Baily's 1914. 77 years ago... The Raceabouts were only 28-30 years old. The following year, during gas rationing, both the Ullman and Baily cars were DRIVEN from Philadelphia to a meet at Peter Helck's home in Boston Corners, NY, over 200 miles. Baily's 13-year-old daughter rode in the outside seat over the running board, visible in this photo taken after the car was purchased by Helck. The Ullman car is in a collection in California, the Fetterolf car was on display until 2012 at the Central Texas Museum of Automotive History, and the Baily car is in private hands.

The mile-long Marmon.

In 1913, a Lozier Briarcliff chassis was purchased, and its Massachusetts buyer designed this unusual body and had it fabricated. A very short windshield, no doors, and the spaces alongside the single rear seat were originally occupied by custom-fitted luggage. The car was purchased by Rod Blood in the early 1940s, and by 1954, later owner Richard Shreve altered the rear seat, and softened the "pickup bed" lines in the rear of the body. The car participated in the 1954 Anglo-American Rally in this shape. In 1959, AACA member Don Harter purchased it, still in this condition. He removed the body and had a new, authentic Briarcliff body constructed, turning the car into the magnificent example it is today. But Harter did not discard the original body. At some point it passed through the hands of an east coast broker, and today its whereabouts are unknown. I'm helping the current owner in his diligent search to locate this body, and bring it back into the same stable as the chassis it originally occupied. If you've ever even caught a glimpse of this body in the last 60 years, please contact me with a private message, or with an email to KELFY at yahoo com Any recollection at all will help to fill in the path of this wandering body and guide us to its present day resting place. Kelly Williams Mount Joy, PA

More mud... "You COULD help me, you know." LAPL

Still there! If you go to this page, where the '34 pic came from, https://waterandpower.org/museum/Early_Views_of_Hollywood_(1920_+)_7_of_12.html there are a lot of other great cars and buildings, and a link to a Google street view of the Berman Furs building now - 9169 Sunset Blvd.

The immortal Mercer Raceabout. This one was just 2 or 3 years old when this photo was taken. Then-owner Wally Holland later modified it with a tapered hood and a cowl, and presumably it's now gone. It's a 1915 California plate - as far as I can tell, the available online CA registation books skip over 1915.