Thirties rural South Australia fuel delivery car and trailer

[Saltbush]

Car make? Year/s?

 

C.O.R. on the trailer. Commonwealth Oil Refineries (COR) was an Australian oil company that operated between 1920 and 1952 as a joint venture of the Australian government and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. It was sold to BP in 1952.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Saltbush (see edit history)

[Saltbush]

DOH! Found it, I think, 1924 Hupmobile?

[nzcarnerd]

8 hours ago, Saltbush said:

DOH! Found it, I think, 1924 Hupmobile?

 

It could also be a few years earlier. They didn't change much.

[58L-Y8]

I note most 1920's cars in your country had/have wire wheels, was a reason for that?

[Saltbush]

No, plenty of wooden spokes. I don't know if there was a higher prevalence of wires...

[nzcarnerd]

On 12/11/2020 at 3:51 AM, 58L-Y8 said:

I note most 1920's cars in your country had/have wire wheels, was a reason for that?

 

I discussed this subject just yesterday at a 'coffee and cars' event here in New Zealand. Even though there were plenty of wood wheel cars in Australia some parts of the country did have problems with 'wood worm'. Also it is very dry in some parts of the country and the opportunity to run through a ford to wet the wheels and fix the loose spokes was not the same as in wetter parts.

[wayne sheldon]

The subject of wheel type comes up often. 

Some of this is opinion. Some educated guesses, and suppositions based upon some known histories, and studies in economics.

 

There are only a few types of wood suitable for wheel spokes. Soft woods obviously cannot take the punishment of speeds and rough roads, especially back in the dys when most roads weren't very solid or smooth. Surprisingly to most people, is that most hard woods are also NOT suitable for wheel spokes! Some moderately hard woods are still too soft for wheel use. The oak family on the other hand, is too hard, and in fact too brittle. Oak wood wheels have been used on heavy duty trucks since the beginning well into the 1920s. The wheels can be made solid enough, and the vehicles were always driven slow enough, that oak worked fine, on slow trucks. Automobiles, at rip-roaring high speeds often in excess of forty miles per hour and screaming around tight corners at break-neck speeds? All too often stressed the wheels too much. Hit with just a bit of side stress, oak spokes would sometimes shatter, almost like glass. Wooden spokes, on fast automobiles, needed to be resilient. they needed to be hard enough to take the wear of a thousand revolutions per mile (do the math!), and the shock of a pothole on a turn at speed.

There are only a few woods in the world that are hard enough yet resilient enough to be practical for automobile wheel spokes. Interestingly enough, a couple such woods are native to Australia and surrounding areas. If I recall the name correctly Osage orange is one such wood. I haven't heard of anything definitive, however certain types of gum or eucalyptus may work. However, those areas of the world were not major production centers for automobiles. Throughout United Kingdom and Europe, there is very little in the way of suitable wheel wood grown. America, on the other hand, had tens of thousands of acres of native Hickory! One of the best woods anywhere on Earth for wooden spoke automobile wheels!

It was natural evolution for automobiles to follow the carriage trade that came before it. Lower speeds and somewhat lower weight made wooden spoke wheels practical on horse drawn carriages, all around the world. However, early in automobile development, it was found that the weight and vibration of the motor, especially on gasoline engine cars, in addition to the higher speeds, required wheels much stronger and more resilient. In America, those Hickory forests provided plenty of the perfect wood for American cars and markets. There was simply not much incentive to use anything else. On the other side of that 'pond' however, United Kingdom and Europe didn't have enough suitable wood for the growing automobile market. And, transporting suitable woods from America or British colonies halfway around the world ran the costs of wood for UK and European markets up enough that other solutions needed to be found. 

Both American and UK/European early automobiles (late 1890s to about 1905), many automobiles had steel wire spoke wheels. Those wire wheels were little more than bicycle wheels. They were adequate for small and relatively slow early cars. They were NOT adequate for the larger and much heavier cars being manufactured by 1905. For Americans it was too easy to just fall back on those Hickory forests! However UK/Europe needed something else. The steel wire wheels were redesigned and improved enough for use on bigger and faster cars. And other designs of pressed steel, steel disc, or cast spokes were also developed. While some American automobiles used steel wire or disc wheels during the 1910s into the mid 1920s, the vast majority of American cars had wooden spoke wheels those years. Meanwhile, in UK/Europe, newer type wheels became the norm. Steel disc and wire wheels were becoming common there by 1910

 

Culture can be a funny thing. Most of the British colonies followed Britain's lead on cultural issues. They read newspapers and magazines, and saw advertisements for automobiles in the UK. Since many cars there had wire wheels? Wherever in the colonies? There was a tendency to expect wire wheels, no matter from where the car came.

 

And an economics lesson comes into play. It costs almost as much to ship a cheap car halfway around the world as it does an expensive car. Whether in Australia or Africa, the shipping cost is a huge part of the final 'out the door' price. The few dollars more for wire wheels didn't amount to much when considered alongside the shipping charges!

 

So, small wonder that we see so many era photos showing wire wheels on American-built cars in those parts of the world. Many American cars sold very well in places like Australia, New Zealand, and Africa. And a lot of them had upgrades, whether wheels, custom bodies or whatever else.

 

The Hupmobile in the OP sure looks nice that way! Even the trailer had wire wheels!