The Porter & FRP Automobile

[Walt G]

OK, so to keep all of you who like the Porter and F.R.P. cars awake (!!!) here is a factory photo of the Porter at the factory in Ct. , beyond the car in the window sits a secretary busy at work , note the rolled up striped awning above the window lowered and raised  by hand with a rod and a crank st the end of the rod not electrically like now. The Porter had wheel wells in BOTH front fenders for spare tires you can see the one here in this photo for the right side- I have other photos of the same car that shows the left front fender had one too. . Notice the lack of any trunk rack no brackets no nuttin. Just to the right of the tail light is a bracket to mount the license plate that hung from the holes in the top of the plate . Car is right hand drive too.

this should keep my friend Ed occupied for a few heart beats.😎

[charlespetty]

 

[Seal Cove]

You might enjoy reading the section about the FRP in Harrah's Automobile Collection, One Man's Tribute to the Great Automobiles of the World by Dean Batchelor. The paragraphs devoted to the F.R.P. go on to talk about the car being Bill Harra's "most wanted" and describe its ultimate purchase from Mr. Bowdish. According to the narrative, Bowdish was not the original owner but had purchased it from a doctor. As for the race car assembled by Curtis Graff, I believe it went to the L'Aventure Michelin Museum after its showing at Retromobile. Some of you may remember seeing the F.R.P. at the Amelia Island Concours d'Elegance in 2010. If not, I invite you to see it up close and personal at the Seal Cove Auto Museum. It runs well and is occasionaly taken out and demonstrated. https://www.facebook.com/.../pcb.../3217461945168866

[John Bloom]

On 4/8/2022 at 6:35 AM, John Bloom said:

Jumping back onto this thread because of a bizarre encounter I had this week.  Apologies to AJ since this thread is about the Porter, but this is tangent to it and mentioned several times in the thread.

 

I'm a dentist.  My partner and I have a fairly large practice so it can be a bit hectic some days with patients coming and going in our treatment rooms as well as the Hygienists rooms which are also having patients come and go.  Great staff, but in a practice like ours, there are lots of "car guys" or just mechanical type guys coming and going.  The women in my office roll their eyes when one of them is in my chair because they know...."great, they'll talk cars the whole time and then we'll be running behind".  I consider myself guilty of that charge.  Let me also say that I'd never talk openly about a patient of mine for Privacy/HIPPA reasons, but this patient told me to tell the story, with that behind us.....

 

I had a patient in my chair that I left for a few minutes to check my patient Ken Bowdish in one of our hygienists chairs.  retired, second generation of a machine design business owned by his father and then him.  Great guy, very bright, builds airplanes in retirement....  They did a lot of machine and design for Pratt Whitney engines, all kinds of stuff.  It is always good to talk to Ken.  In my 5 minutes in the room with him this week at his appointment, I was getting ready to walk away and he says "how is your Packard doing"....so we stopped and talked cars for a few minutes and then he tells me a story about when he was a kid, climbing around on a car his dad had.  He said, "you probably have never heard of it, it was an FRP".  I told him that I had heard of it because of a thread I'd read on the AACA forum.  He said, there are only 2 or 3 of them, my dad sold his to Harrah's in the 70's.  I told him I'd reach out to him to hear more of the story and left to go back to my patient.  

 

I sat with him yesterday and visited about his dad's car.  He has lots of pictures at home of it and I asked him to show them to me.  

 

He had two FRP's that he bought from the original owner.  He pain 144 dollars for one and mentions that he "caddied, mowed lawns and borrowed from his girlfriend to get that car" (he later married that girl and that is Ken's mom.  Ken says the FRP's were a part of his childhood.  He crawled around on them as a little kid and remembers in the 70's when Harrahs came with a truck and took one away.  

  

There is a whole lot more to this story and I'll jump back in later to add some more.  Ken has photos.  One he showed me with his mom and dad standing by what he says was one of the two FRP's his dad owned.  I think that the one that was sold to Harrah's was restored and is the one at the Seal Cove auto museum.  Not sure about that.  The other one, I don't know the status of it.  The car with his parents standing in front of it looks newer to me than anything from 1915.  

 

fun day at the office...I had never heard of Porter or FRP until AJ started this thread....and I have a patient who lived with them for 35 years.  

 

 

 

 

I am posting this comment I made on this thread back in April just for reference and to bring context on my post today.  

 

Again I want to say.......AJ, thanks for starting this thread.  Your initial post caught my eye (as well as many others), because of it, I learned quite a bit about a car I had never heard of, and then a one in a million occurrence happened and because I had read AJ's thread, when my patient said "my dad had a car you've probably never heard of".....I had actually just read and learned quite a bit about it from this thread.  Lots to love about the AACA Forum.

 

I spent two hours yesterday with Ken Bowdish.  What a great guy.  The kind of guy who makes the world run on time as it should.  Kind, funny, smart, and the kind of guy who can make/fabricate anything.  He told me after our brief talk in April, that he went looking for all the stuff he remembered seeing about the FRP years ago and couldn't find it.  My wife and I vacationed in Maine this Sept and saw the Bowdish FRP at the Seal Cove Museum.  Ethan Yankura the Executive Director was so kind and we talked a lot about the FRP and my interest in it because of Ken.  I bought a couple of items at their gift shop that prominently display the FRP and when I saw Ken about a month ago.  I gave them to him.  That caused him to look again for the FRP items and his brother told him he had them in a box at his house.  Ken told me "If we hadn't had these conversations about this car of our family, I fear that all the contents in the box may have just ended up forgotten and in a dumpster at some point"

 

I took over 100 pictures and didn't capture all that is there but for the FRP (and also the Porter marque), it is a treasure of vital information.  Significant paperwork and letters typed between Mrs Bowdish and Keith Marvin (Secretary of The Record Newspaper Troy, NY / writer for "The Automobilist of the Upper Hudson Valley" for research he did on FRP/Porter in 1959.  Additionally there are letters from Mrs Bowdish and Dr George Westgate, who had three FRP's in Lake Geneva.  Ken has a very large 4' x 6' blueprint/draft of the FRP chassis.

 

Documents mention:  

 

-Parts for 10 cars were purchased, but not assembled because of the war interruption.

-Six cars were paid for and built for Mr Allen. 

-Additionally a car was built as a personal car for FIndley Robertson Porter, and also for a Mr Degnan in Mass.

-It isn't clear if the Findley Robertson Porter and Mr Degnan car were in addition to the six for Mr Allen, or were actually two of the six Mr Allen had built.  

-Three of the cars built for Mr Allen were built as Touring cars and bodied in Aluminum by Brewster.

-Mr Allen's sister Gertrude married Dr George Westgate which caused three cars to be brought to Lake Geneva Wisconsin.

-One of those three was converted into a Roadster.

-The three cars ownership went from Dr Westgate, to Lloyd McElwain of Walworth Wisconsin.

-Two of those cars were bought by Ken Bowdish's dad Lawren Bowdish.  One was the converted roadster, the other was a Touring car.

-Lawren Bowdish wrecked the roadster, and he sold the Touring car and parts from the Roadster to Harrah's in 1976.  

 

There is just so much more information.  Two hours wasn't nearly enough time to digest all the facts and details this box has.  Ken was so kind to share this with me and he knows I am on this thread to share with others.  

 

The Bowdish car being bought and loaded by Harrah's

 

 

 

[John Bloom]

[Walt G]

Thank you John, what a great read and way to start off the new year. It brings a lot of information to people here who have not had access or know about the previous articles that were published. Austin Clark and I used to have a drink at the restaurant on Bowden Square on Southampton  - Herb McCarthy's , and toast Finley Robertson Porter the creator of the F.R.P and Porter cars  who if I recall also had a lot to say in the creation of the type 35 Mercer. Finley Porter's house was right opposite Herb McCarthy's restaurant on Bowden Square - thus our raising a glass of adult beverage in his honor every time we were there. We then went back to Austin's L.I. Auto Museum about a mile away west of the restaurant and would take out his Mercer raceabout for a drive up and back North Sea Road to Sag Harbor, NY and back , at speeds well beyond the legal limit. The local law left us alone because they knew who Austin was . As Austin told me when we would go for a ride in that car " turn around and hold on to the top of the gas tank cap with one arm/hand because if we hit a bump you will fall out and get "seriously killed." The Mercer raceabout has no windshield, doors, dashboard etc to secure the passenger , but a brass rod screwed to the toe board you can hook you heals onto. Despite the fortification of a glass of adult beverage I still had white knuckles and the complexion of an albino after one of those rides...........

Edited January 8, 2023 by Walt G (see edit history)

[John Bloom]

[1937hd45]

What a great discovery, all that FRP info in a box and it is now out for all to enjoy. I remember reading about Bill Harrah buying the car, it was a big deal back then. I watched the Seal Cove video, who gets credit for the body design work, really like the windshield design, has the look of something that could be sitting on a Bentley chassis of the same era. 

[John Bloom]

8 minutes ago, 1937hd45 said:

What a great discovery, all that FRP info in a box and it is now out for all to enjoy. I remember reading about Bill Harrah buying the car, it was a big deal back then. I watched the Seal Cove video, who gets credit for the body design work, really like the windshield design, has the look of something that could be sitting on a Bentley chassis of the same era. 

There is so much information in the box Ken shared with me that it was a little overwhelming. Some of it the family may want to keep out of the public domain. That will be their decision. Ken is a great guy and had spent quite a bit of time organizing things in stacks to show it all to me. It was laid out on a 12 x 8 assembly table at his hanger.

 

[Paul Dobbin]

The first thread on this Forum was a guy in New York trying to find a picture of a FRP.   He livied in the town where the FRP was made and was working on a local history project.   I knew I had photographed the FRP owned and raced in the Great American Race by Curtis Graf in either 1984 or 1987.

We correspned by email a few times and I've never found the photos.   I hope he's still checking the forum and enjoying this FRP information.

The FRP that Curtis had was a race car.  No fenders, no muffler and two seat body.   It had a giant engine that made the ground shake when it was running.   However it did not complete the race and I think it dropped out very early and Curtis went to his 1916 Packard Roadster.

I'm still looking for those pictures.

[1937hd45]

5 hours ago, John Bloom said:

There is so much information in the box Ken shared with me that it was a little overwhelming. Some of it the family may want to keep out of the public domain. That will be their decision. Ken is a great guy and had spent quite a bit of time organizing things in stacks to show it all to me. It was laid out on a 12 x 8 assembly table at his hanger.

 

What was the back story on the car being "found" by Bill Harrah. Was it tucked away and nobody knew about it or a years long negotiating to have the family part with it? 

 

Bob 

[John Bloom]

32 minutes ago, 1937hd45 said:

What was the back story on the car being "found" by Bill Harrah. Was it tucked away and nobody knew about it or a years long negotiating to have the family part with it? 

 

Bob 

 

This was mentioned earlier in the thread.  A couple of people had gotten information from Lawren Bowdish to write up a story about the car in the late 1950's.  The people at Harrahs saw that article and called to see if it lead to the car.  Someone at Harrahs said it was kind of a Holy Grail and the number one car Mr Harrah wanted to find.  They weren't sure any had survived.  

 

 

 

Ken had a lot of notes that were between his parents and the Harrah's representatives.  A couple of them had content that I'm not comfortable sharing, perhaps the family will later.  He did show this to me.  In their search they (Harrahs) came across an article from 1959 and called Lawren Bowdish, who still had the car and the remains of the roadster as well.  This note was dated Dec 1975.  Harrah's picked the car up from Lawren Feb 1976.

 

 

There were some funny letters they had written back to people telling them that the car wasn't for sale at any price.  I think it sat in a garage on their property for 45 years.  Ken remembers playing and climbing around on it as a kid.  

 

 

[1912Staver]

This thread illustrates the dream I had for many years of my youth. To find a more or less intact , moderately  significant car from roughly this time period or up to a decade earlier. I didn't have anything as truly historic as a FRP in mind, just a long time storage , slightly better than average , old car. 

 But most of these cars were found early post war up to the mid 1960's so I am at least a decade if not two, too young.

 I used to leaf through 20 and 30 year old issues of the HCCA Gazette, Antique Automobile and The Bulb Horn in the 1980's and picture myself involved in some of the finds that made the pages of those publications from those already long ago days. . A bit like being on scene with Howard Carter in Egypt in the early 1920's. Thanks John for making this public !

[John Bloom]

What the family seems to think is photographs of the Roadster that was also sold along with parts to Harrahs.

 

 

 

 

[John Bloom]

 

Some specs provided by Lawren Bowdish for a request for an article.  Interesting, 2750 pounds.  Aluminum body may have kept the weight down.  

 

 

 

 

 

[wayne sheldon]

Wonderful stuff!  Even though the car is more than slightly obscure, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it all!

 

I recall reading at some point in the 1970s that William Harrah had finally gotten an unnamed car on his most wanted list that they had thought might no longer exist. I can only guess whether this was the one or not. But likely it was. A few basic details I read then seem to match this car. I find it sad that he didn't live much longer to enjoy it more himself.

[edinmass]

Interesting letter…….no name of manufacturer for generator or starter……..12 volt. 

[alsancle]

Great stuff John!

[8E45E]

4 hours ago, edinmass said:

Interesting letter…….no name of manufacturer for generator or starter……..12 volt. 

In the list scanned here:  

 

Craig

[edinmass]

It’s interesting when you take a closer look at the motor in the Porter , it certainly looks more industrial/boat and it does automotive.  It has that stationary power plant look to it. 

[alsancle]

[1937hd45]

This just turned up while looking for something else. I need to talk with Walt about organizing literature. 

 

Bob 

[John Bloom]

[Ozstatman]

Lifted this photo from a Facebook page. 1915 FRP in the Seal Cove Auto Museum.

[John Bloom]

11 hours ago, Ozstatman said:

Lifted this photo from a Facebook page. 1915 FRP in the Seal Cove Auto Museum.

Yes, resides at the seal cove museum. A fabulous place if you’ve never been. We were there last September.   A nice fall vacation mixing sightseeing, great food and classic car shenanigans...... the trip was enhanced by some great lodging and dining suggestions courtesy of AJ and Steve. 
 

 

[John Bloom]

A couple more from my visit. 

[Bill Barter]

Let's wake this page back up!  Seal Cove Auto Museum now has copies of the Bowdish papers and will be scanning the photo negatives.  The less than outstanding braking in the FRP is now typical of a 1915 vehicle. (tentative)  The real news is that the FRP will be shown at the Misselwood Concours d' Elegance in Beverly, Massachusetts so you have the opportunity to see had hear it for yourself!  https://www.misselwood.com/concours-delegance  The car runs as well as it looks and looks great!  When visitors ask me which car in the Seal Cove Auto Museum is my favorite there is no doubt about my answer!  Hope we'll see you at Misselwood or at the Seal Cove Auto Museum!  www.sealcoveautomuseum.org

[dl456]

Hello,

I have an article from Old Cars Weekly Feb. 10, 1976, about Harrah's discovery and acquisition of this car. 

Do you already have this article, or would it be of interest to you?

It is fragile due to the newsprint that OCW used at the time.

If it is not a duplicate, let me know.

Dennis

[Walt G]

Nice to see this topic revived. I have additional images and photographs over and above what I supplied here but since then with the way I was treated/ criticized for the White on White thread posted to perhaps amuse that was then "reworked" by unrelated contributions I will no longer contribute any images or photographs from my archives to the forums . Just not worth the effort and time to then get the lashing I didn't deserve.

[8E45E]

26 minutes ago, Walt G said:

Nice to see this topic revived. I have additional images and photographs over and above what I supplied here but since then with the way I was treated/ criticized for the White on White thread posted to perhaps amuse that was then "reworked" by unrelated contributions I will no longer contribute any images or photographs from my archives to the forums . Just not worth the effort and time to then get the lashing I didn't deserve.

I believe the moderators also had a share in the 'rework' during, and ultimate deletion of the entire post before the miscommunication was resolved.

 

Craig

[LI_BENTLEY]

On 4/12/2023 at 12:18 PM, John Bloom said:

A couple more from my visit. 

Why do they show the FRP with a 1912  NY plate on it when it is a 1915  car?

[Terry Harper]

11 hours ago, Walt G said:

Nice to see this topic revived. I have additional images and photographs over and above what I supplied here but since then with the way I was treated/ criticized for the White on White thread posted to perhaps amuse that was then "reworked" by unrelated contributions I will no longer contribute any images or photographs from my archives to the forums . Just not worth the effort and time to then get the lashing I didn't deserve.

Walt, I am sorry to read this. I always enjoy greatly your posted content and fathomless depth of knowledge. However, I also understand having had content that I spent considerable effort researching and crafting messed about with. It’s the key reason I have not posted much for the last few months and of that I am very sparing.