JacksonF

Great, thank you for this!

The body that came with this chassis is the one in the background of the posted pictures. On the post I made a month or so ago, there is a grainy picture of the carriage fully assembled. This picture was from a local newspaper that did an article about the discovery in 1942 in a field near Chickopee, MA. From my research, the body looks almost identical to a 1903 American Motor Carriage Runabout, but the chassis and everything else mechanically looks nothing like I have found in pictures.

This project was started by our clients' father who has since passed away, then his brother did some work on it before he passed away, and the parts we have are the only known parts remaining somehow. They had the chassis powder coated and used modern hardware just to mock up the chassis while building a game plan for the build. I agree that the idea of 4-wheel steering seems far-fetched and very advanced for the time period, but it seems odd to have the rear wheels not completely fixed if some kind of rear steering wasn't part of the plan. It seems that it would have been a whole lot easier to implement a solid rear axle. I have done a good amount of research on the rear axle trying to tie it to Brennan, but all I have been able to find is a transmission they made that mounts directly off of the motor with a more conventional rear differential on the rear axle. Obviously that doesn't mean that it is not made by Brennan, I just have not been able to find anything remotely close and it has not been recognized by the Brennan guru's I have spoken to so far.

We are only speculating that is has 4-wheel steering because the rear wheels pivot on those plungers inside the coil springs, and it has universal joints on the axle to allow some movement. There are open threaded holes about 6" inboard of the wheels, so possibly a mounting point for a steering arm, or possibly there was an arm that mounted to the bottom shank of the plunger? Again, this is just speculation based on the fact that the rear wheels are not 100% fixed

I truly appreciate the suggestions, and I will have to look more into the Stevens carriages. I did quite a bit of research on Duryea being that it was found so close to their facility, but I could not find anything that resembled what we have. On the motor, I was put in touch with George Albright who is very knowledgeable on Brennan motors and the vehicles they made. We are both very confident that the motor is a Brennan opposed twin cylinder air cooled motor. There are no castings or stampings on it, but this is not unheard of according to George. The biggest mystery left is to identify the chassis and the transmission/differential. We have yet to find anything that resembles it at all. I have attached 2 more detailed photos of the internal workings of the transmission/differential in case that helps anyone identify it. I truly appreciate your help. Our shop specializes in classic Mercedes' restorations, so stuff like this is out of our wheelhouse.

I agree that there is enough to reverse engineer it, it would just be nice if we could identify what it is so we can restore it back exactly how it was back in the day.

Any insight or help is much appreciated

Thank you for your response, I will look into that and see if I can find any pictures of it to compare to what we have here at our shop. This carriage was found in the '40's in a field in Chicopee, MA and it was a complete carriage at the time. The local newspaper did an article on it with a few pictures that show that it did indeed have that chassis on it at the time of discovery, so that kind of rules out any possibility of a much more recent build on this

Will do, thank you

Hello all, I am looking for help in identifying this carriage that was brought to us by a client of ours. After doing some research myself, it appears that the body highly resembles a 1902-1903 American gasoline runabout, but the chassis is a bit of a mystery as it does not resemble anything that came with those models. It has 4-wheel steering, a twin cylinder air-cooled Brennan engine (at least that is what it looks like), and a planetary transmission. The carriage was found in a field in Massachusetts in the late 40's, but very little is known about it other than this information. I have attached a few pictures for reference, as well as a picture of a 1902 American runabout to compare to what we have at our shop. Any and all information would be much appreciated!