Jump to content

Car pictures


Xander Wildeisen

Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

Vegas trip 187.jpg

 

 

 

 

The French built such wonderful cars in the early days! These De Dion Bouton cars were, and still are amazing. Quite popular still for early Veteran era (English and European pre 1905) runs (like the London to Brighton). They are quite small. Consider that is a Curved Dash Oldsmobile it is sitting next to. The CDO is nearly twice the size of the De Dion Bouton, yet the CDO is about a third the size of a model T Ford! That several of these little cars run the sixty plus miles in the L to B nearly every year and nearly all of them finish, nearly every year, is incredible!

 

It should also be remembered that De Dion also sold many hundreds of engines around the world to other small beginning automobile manufacturers. Many American cars from 1898 to 1902 used De Dion engines, including Crestmobile, and if I recall correctly, the few first Pierce automobiles. De Dion engines were also manufactured under license in this country.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

23 minutes ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

If the lights went out...... and no one was looking.......:lol:

Vegas trip 224.jpg

Vegas trip 225.jpg

 

 

Ah, the wonderful Mercer Raceabout! Certainly a favorite for many if not most of the Horseless Carriage crowd. For me, a curious memory. When I was still in high school (I was a strange kid, loved antique automobiles from the time I began walking), I had heard about a big tour in a nearby town. The Santa Clara Horseless Carriage Club was hosting its annual "Blossom Tour". I talked my mom (best mom ever!) into taking a like-minded friend and I to where the tour's host hotel was just to look at the cars. While walking around, admiring the cars, a yellow flash went by, and stopped not thirty feet from where I stood! It was one of Harrahs crew, driving a Mercer Raceabout. When I went through the remaining collection a few years ago, and again now, I cannot help but wonder whether that could be the Mercer I saw, and heard, that day nearly fifty years ago?

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

Vegas trip 189.jpg

 

 

The Duryea brothers are famous for being clearly one of the first, if not THE first, gasoline powered automobiles built in America. They also won one of the first true automobile races in the world, the 1895 Chicago race. Remember, this is before Henry Ford's first car was made to run. Shortly after these successes, Charles and Frank had a falling out over which of the two were most responsible for their success. Frank went on to engineer for a few automobiles for other companies. One company became known as one of the best automobiles of the era, The Stevens Duryea. Charles went on to work on mostly smaller and less grand automobiles, several under variations of the "Charles Duryea" name, where they made a number of unusual cars and even oddities. This tricycle was one such unusual car. These were also sold with a matching trailer to carry additional passengers.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Xander Wildeisen said:

Vegas trip 257.jpg

Vegas trip 258.jpg

 

 

Xander W has shown several Franklin automobiles. If were better with computers.I would "quote" all of them into a single post, but as I am?

This one is one of my favorite Franklins.

William Harrah had a fondness for Franklin automobiles also. Before he died, he had amassed the largest collection of Franklin automobiles in the world. At least one for every year they were manufactured.

In the realm of the largest of the many early collectors of historic automobiles, he was a relative newcomer, beginning his collection about 1950. Barney Pollard, H A Clark, and James Melton among others had been collecting since before World War II. Thousands of antique automobiles were saved for future generations because of these early collectors. But Harrah surpassed them all. He not only amassed the largest collection, he did something even more important. While the earlier collectors may have saved more cars, Harrah began setting a higher standard for restoration. While the earlier collectors showed and drove survivor cars, and did in fact restore many cars, Bill Harrah presented cars nearly as close to how they were when they were new as his resources would allow. I never got to meet Bill Harrah, I had several friends that knew him, and had he lived a few years longer, it is likely I would have. It is a regret that I didn't make the effort early enough. But I was just a kid in those days.

  • Like 1
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...