1911 Mercer (I've been wanting to post this picture here for a while. I found it in the Detroit Public Library.)

[AHa]

I've been wanting to post this picture here for a while. I found it in the Detroit Public Library. It is labeled, Hughie Hughes in Mercer 6 in Grand Prize, 1911, on back. From what I can gather, Mercer made two six cylinder cars in 1911, this being one of them. Only, I believe this is Grover Truckstell behind the wheel. Grover Truckstell was in charge of Mercer's racing division at this time and has this distinctive nose. I would like to know what six cylinder motor was used in this car and anything else that could be shared.

[John E. Guitar]

I'm not sure on the motor in the 1911 car but here are a few photos of Glover Ruckstell for comparison.

 

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A249648

 

View of Hughie Hughes posing in Mercer racecar. Onlookers in background. Printed on front: "Foltz." Handwritten on back: Hughie Hughes in Mercer '6' in Grand Prize, app. 1911."

 

 

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A170938

 

View of driver Hughie Hughes standing next to Mercer racecar at Vanderbilt Cup race, October 1912.

 

 

Race car driver Glover Ruckstell and his mechanic "Quicksell" after the pair came in second at the July 4, 1914 Montamarathon driving the #16 yellow Mercer.

 

 

1914 Tacoma Speedway Glover Ruckstell in Mercer

 

 

Edited March 7 by John E. Guitar (see edit history)

[TAKerry]

Cool pics, car looks extremely comfortable to drive🤪

[AHa]

It looks as though the name on the picture may be correct. The closeup of Hughie Hughes does resemble the driver of the 6 cylinder Mercer. I've noticed Mercer has a cult like following. My suspicion is very few people ever knew Mercer produced a 6cylinder car in 1911. Mr Google can find nothing more than this picture. If I didn't know a couple of early Mercer guys, neither would I. Google the cars and you will see Mercer used 4 cylinder Wisconsin motors exclusively, but even that is not true. A customer could have any motor they wanted in the early life of the company. As I understand it, there are records of how many cars were produced with Rutenber, Continental, and other motors. I am just at a loss as to what 6 might have been used in these two cars.

 

I might have accidentally answered my own question. Rutenber and Continental were both making a six cylinder motor in 1911. Both were rated at 60 hp but the Rutenber was a well tested motor while continental had just developed their 6 that year.

[Peter Gariepy]

[Peter Gariepy]

https://www.firstsuperspeedway.com/photo-gallery/hughie-hughes-american-grand-prize

 

https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/artifact/378112

 

https://digitalcollections.detroitpubliclibrary.org/islandora/object/islandora%3A179658

 

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/may-2015/100/hughie-who/

[58L-Y8]

Touching up two:

[AHa]

Here is the 6 cylinder Mercer at the 1911 Grand Prize race, Hughie Hughes driving. It was knocked out of the race due to magneto trouble. I guess it's  just me, but very little seems to be known about this car.

 

[1912Staver]

I really like Mercers, but I guess their rarity and sky high value makes most things Mercer of secondary interest to me. Reference material is scarce , even the Mercer book { which I would really like to have but at the going price these days I will probably never own }seems very hard to get a copy of.

 For example your mention of Mercer using Wisconsin engines is news to me. I have seen reference to the very early cars using Wisconsin Beaver engines, but I always assumed that after the first year or two of production they switched to their own T head.   

 

As far as I know the L head cars use a Mercer designed and built engine.

 

 A very interesting car. And these very rare 6's even more so.

Edited March 10 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[AHa]

Greg,

My interest is not in the value of the  cars but in the history and the truth of what is reported. From what I can ascertain from those who have driven the early cars, they truly are remarkable feats of engineering. It is not just hype. Mr Google reports that all the early cars came equipped with the Wisconsin T head motors and it is reported that Mercer asked Wisconsin to increase the compression ratio from 4-1 to 7-1. The thing that makes these cars so outstanding is the power to weight ratio, which also improves handling and they were lowered by using a smaller diameter wheel.

 

The six cylinder cars, however, seem to be virtually unknown outside Mercer's inner circle. From my research, Wisconsin did not make a six in 1911, which begs the question, what motor did Mercer use in these cars. They did exist, and not just in pictures. I would also like to know if Wisconsin redesigned the motors before increasing horsepower. Mr Fred Hoch probably knows these answers. I have found him to be a real delight to talk to and I may have to call him again.

[Terry Harper]

1 hour ago, AHa said:

Greg,

My interest is not in the value of the  cars but in the history and the truth of what is reported. From what I can ascertain from those who have driven the early cars, they truly are remarkable feats of engineering. It is not just hype. Mr Google reports that all the early cars came equipped with the Wisconsin T head motors and it is reported that Mercer asked Wisconsin to increase the compression ratio from 4-1 to 7-1. The thing that makes these cars so outstanding is the power to weight ratio, which also improves handling and they were lowered by using a smaller diameter wheel.

 

The six cylinder cars, however, seem to be virtually unknown outside Mercer's inner circle. From my research, Wisconsin did not make a six in 1911, which begs the question, what motor did Mercer use in these cars. They did exist, and not just in pictures. I would also like to know if Wisconsin redesigned the motors before increasing horsepower. Mr Fred Hoch probably knows these answers. I have found him to be a real delight to talk to and I may have to call him again.

I was always understood that Mercer purchased motors from Beaver Manufacturing while Stutz did in fact use Wisconsin T-Heads. 
 

All of Wisconsin’s 6 cylinder motors were large, low rpm (1200-1400) beasts designed for marine, truck, tractor or industrial use. 

[AHa]

This is from SuperCars.Net:

"The first Mercer was the Type 30 and the Type 35 became Mercer’s second car. It had a new T-shaped cylinder head designed by Finley Robertson Porter that produced around 60 bhp. At the time, the Porter engine was running on much higher compression than it’s contemporary cars and could produce more horsepower from less displacement. This meant the Type 35 was both powerful and light and essentially became the first production race car. The first Mercers featured a T-head engine which utilized massive 2.25 inch valves. These valves, with high-compression pistons and high lift cams, offered 56 horsepower at 1900 rpm."

 

I was sure I had read on numerous occasions that Mercer used Wisconsin T head motors but that looks to be erroneous.

 

This information from SuperCars.Net might also answer my other question as well. If Mercer built a 6 cylinder car, most likely Porter designed and built the motor.

Edited March 10 by AHa (see edit history)

[Terry Harper]

2 hours ago, AHa said:

This is from SuperCars.Net:

"The first Mercer was the Type 30 and the Type 35 became Mercer’s second car. It had a new T-shaped cylinder head designed by Finley Robertson Porter that produced around 60 bhp. At the time, the Porter engine was running on much higher compression than it’s contemporary cars and could produce more horsepower from less displacement. This meant the Type 35 was both powerful and light and essentially became the first production race car. The first Mercers featured a T-head engine which utilized massive 2.25 inch valves. These valves, with high-compression pistons and high lift cams, offered 56 horsepower at 1900 rpm."

 

I was sure I had read on numerous occasions that Mercer used Wisconsin T head motors but that looks to be erroneous.

 

This information from SuperCars.Net might also answer my other question as well. If Mercer built a 6 cylinder car, most likely Porter designed and built the motor.

Mercer sourced engines from Beaver though one source claims that Finley Robertson Porter tuned them if you will. However I cannot find any primary source material that supports that. The outlier are the race cars built I believe in 1908 under the Roebling-Planche name that used a beast of an engine that may have been designed by Etienne Planche but no one knows for sure.

 

Remember also that Finley Robertson Porter seemed to have an affinity for large four cylinder engines as witnessed by his development of the big thumping four cylinder, overhead cam FRP and his swan song Porter automobile which used the FRP engine as well.
 

As far as I know, until the introduction of the later L-head, the T-heads used by  Mercer were traditional T-heads with no separate head.

 

Since Mercer, like many other manufacturers, purchased their engines from various suppliers, they seem to have tended to keep that knowledge hush hush to a certain degree. For instance there are a number of period articles on the various Mercers which dive into great detail on the engines but seldom mention that they were supplied by an outside source.

 

the later Mercer L-Head was designed in-house by Eric H. Delling who later designed and attempted to bring to market a fascinating steam automobile.

 

Do a Google Books search for Mercer automobile, Beaver engines etc. Pretty cool period articles crop up. It can quickly turn into a very deep rabbit hole!

Edited March 10 by Terry Harper (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

I have not found much at all about Beaver engines. Nor have I heard of any maker beside Mercer who used them. But I have a couple of times heard of them referred to as Wisconsin Beaver engines . And they were made in Wisconsin.  But I don't know if they have any connection with Wisconsin engines such as used in Stutz , FWD trucks and many others. 

[Terry Harper]

1 hour ago, 1912Staver said:

I have not found much at all about Beaver engines. Nor have I heard of any maker beside Mercer who used them. But I have a couple of times heard of them referred to as Wisconsin Beaver engines . And they were made in Wisconsin.  But I don't know if they have any connection with Wisconsin engines such as used in Stutz , FWD trucks and many others. 

 No connection with Wisconsin Motor Manufacturing. Beaver was based in Milwaukee with the parent company listed as Filer & Stowell Co. They appear to have maintained a pretty good level of advertising visibility in period publications.
 

Their advertising targeted manufacturers of cars, trucks and tractors. This was a screen shot taken with my I-Pad so please excuse the un-cropped areas.

 

I am pretty confident this engine powered the Mercer featured in the original post. T-Head, six cylinder, proper time frame and by Beaver of which Mercer used almost exclusively until the advent of the Delling designed L-Head.
 

This was clipped from “The Automobile Trade Journal” (February 1913). Note the reference to 1913 being the “…sixth successful year building six-cylinder motors”

 

Edited March 11 by Terry Harper (see edit history)

[1912Staver]

That is very interesting. I wonder what cars used these engines. Other than the probable handful of Mercer 6's . It does look close to a 6 cyl. version of the 4 cyl. as used by Mercer.

Edited March 11 by 1912Staver (see edit history)

[Terry Harper]

9 hours ago, 1912Staver said:

That is very interesting. I wonder what cars used these engines. Other than the probable handful of Mercer 6's . It does look close to a 6 cyl. version of the 4 cyl. as used by Mercer.

Little bit of but important clarification: The 1909-1910 Mercers used the Beaver built engines. Later Mercers 1911 versions used a Findley Robertson-Porter T-head.

 

Yes, I wonder too who else bought these engines! I have found Beaver advertising through 1924 so they must of had a decent customer base. I suspect that most manufacturers that bought engines from outside suppliers tried to minimize that fact to maintain the impression that everything was made in-house. I find the same thing with Wisconsin engines as well. We know Stutz used them but outside of that not much is know in regards to who they supplied.

[1912Staver]

FWD trucks used a Wisconsin that is quite similar to the Stutz T head. The main difference is the truck engine had narrow mounting arms { part of the crankcase casting } to suit the narrow frame rail spacing on a truck { may have been a sub frame }. The car version had mounting arms that were quite a bit wider. Other detail differences as well, but the truck engines have been used somewhat frequently to keep Stutz cars running. I expect at least as many FWD trucks were built as Stutz cars, perhaps even more when military contracts are taken into account.

[AHa]

From gtr80083 post in Mercer clutch question in 2020.

 

"Continental announced later in 1910 that they had expanded their factory and could now take orders again.   Mercer dropped the Beaver engine, and offered their 1911 cars starting in early July 1910 with Continental engines.   Some months thereafter, they added their own T-head engines in the 1911 cars.   We do know they had at least one T-head engine running in a prototype Raceabout at race tracks starting in August 1910.   It seems that the first appearance of Raceabouts in public was at the Vanderbilt Cup series of races on Long Island in early Oct 1910.  Mercer took 3 cars to that event, 2 racers and a backup car.

 

  Porter indeed "made improvements".  The Raceabout was a fast car right out of the box.  It just needed a good driver to make it win.  Young Washington Roebling 2nd took a Raceabout to Savannah in Nov 1910, and came in 2nd in his very first long-distance race.  One of the drivers he beat was Hughie Hughes, who saw first-hand how good the  Mercer was with just a novice driver.  Either he approached Mercer, or Mercer approached him; either way, he led Mercer to a very successful first full year in racing, in 1911."

 

Really good information Terry. Thanks for posting.

 

I wonder why Mercer didn't continue with the 6. Could it be that the power to weight ratio no longer worked?

Edited March 11 by AHa (see edit history)