ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my friend Keith Marcero, who got me interested in cars at a time when I thought comic books were way more exciting. Thanks to the many people who provided information or pointed the way toward information, including Bette Carrothers, Kent Cole, Leigh Cole, Eric Gala, Rich Gonyeau, Frank and Sherrel Hissong, Dave Keck, Marty Krist, Bob and Geri Mack, Phyllis and Chuck Maddix, Jammie Naldrett, Ron and Norma Naldrett, Craig Neinhaus, Bob and Laverne Nett, Ruth Presutti, Paul Torney, Gail Zabowski, Ron Bluhm of the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum and Romie Minor of the National Automotive History Collection of the Detroit Public Library. Thanks to Lynn Keck Lyon, who shot pictures, transported me in her automobile to many car museums and long-lost auto factories, proofread and gave me many good ideas while writing this book. Thanks also to Sally, Lynns GPS device, who helped us find all those retired auto factories. Id also like to give many thanks to Dave Castle, who edited the manuscript into legible reading material and made many major contributions and suggestions.
INTRODUCTION
The first motorcar was most likely the steam-powered auto built by Jesuit missionary Ferdinand Verbiest while he was living in China in 1678. Its interesting that a Jesuit minister was the inventor of what parents in the 1950s considered the number one corruptor of morals. The next notable motor-powered vehicle was the 1769 steam vehicle of French army officer Nicolas Cugnot.
By 1801, English inventors Richard Trevithick and Sir Goldsworthy Gurney had built notable steam carriages. And the battle was onnot only to produce new motorized conveyances but to decide what to call them! At first, horseless carriage was often used, especially when many of the early autos were built on buggy frames. As time went on, motor car came into prominence as many new car companies used motorcar in their company name. It is spelled as either two words or one wordmotorcar. In Latin, auto means itself and mobile means moving. Automobile technically meant moving by itself. First used in France, the name automobile in the United States is traced most often to an 1897 article in the New York Times lamenting the new automobiles that had become so popular. That same year, reporter Charlie Shanks wrote about a Winton long-distance trek, calling the vehicle they were traveling in an automobile.
In the United States, Oliver Evans demonstrated a steam carriage in 1805 that worked on land and sea. Steam-powered vehicles were the rage as the Steamer twins, Francis and Freelan, manufactured the Stanley Steamer and other steam vehicles from 1896 all the way up until 1925.
Richard Davenport is credited with building the first working model of an electric car in 1836. By 1900, they were the most popular type of car, at least for women, probably because they were silent, didnt give off noxious fumes and didnt require a crank to start. Even so, all motor-powered vehicles, or horseless carriages, were not too well regarded in their early days.
In Vermont, an 1896 law required a pedestrian to walk one hundred feet in front of the vehicle to warn anyone who might be in the vicinity. In England, the Red Flag law was passed in 1865 stating that a motorcar couldnt go faster than four miles an hour in the country and two miles an hour in the city and that an attendant had to walk ahead of the vehicle with a red flag as a warning to others. This law wasnt repealed until 1896.
Gasoline-powered vehicles were made possible through French inventor Jean Joseph Lenoirs 1863 development of a one-cylinder gas-powered engine. The first to use the engine to power a vehicle was Austrian Siegfried Marcus in 1864. From Germany, Gottlieb Daimler and Karl Benz refined the engineering and began to produce vehicles powered by gasoline. The Daimler Benz Motor Company was formed.
In 188485, John Clegg and his son, Thomas, built a vehicle known as the Thing and drove it on the streets of Memphis, Michigan. It was a four-seater, powered by a single-cylinder steam engine with a tubular boiler carried in the rear.
The 1893 Benz Velo, short for velocipede, is credited as being the first standard automobile. Authors collection.
The Duryea brothers, Charles and Frank, as the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, built the first successful commercial gas-powered vehicle in the United States in 1893. They had sold twelve of them by 1896.
In 1896, Charles Brady Kings motorcar was the first to be driven on Detroit streets, with Henry Ford following in his own car a few months later. Also in late 1896, Ransom E. Olds drove his first vehicle on the streets of Lansing, Michigan.
The earliest days of the auto industry, starting in the 1890s and before, were referred to as the Veteran Era. Next was the Brass Era, which was from the 1900s to 1915 and was called that because of all the brass used in the early vehicles, usually in the lights or radiators. The next era, from 1915 until 1935, was called the Vintage Era. The short Prewar Era, from 1936 to 1941, ushered in the War Era, which lasted until 1951. The period from 1952 until 1959 was referred to as the Postwar Era, and from 1960 until 1985 was the Classic Era. Everything since 1985 is known as the Modern Era.
By 1900, the U.S. auto industry had been producing vehicles for sale to the general public for barely four years. Steam vehicles comprised about 40 percent of the market, electric vehicles captured 38 percent and gas-powered vehicles brought up the rear at about 22 percent of the market. But both steam and electricity had their drawbacks as fuel for motorcars. Steam cars could take thirty minutes or more for the steam to heat up enough to power the car. Also, riding on top of or alongside the boiler of live steam was dangerous, and many people were scalded to death.
Electric cars had their drawbacks as well. The farthest the best of them could go without a recharge was fifty miles. Running out of power in an area with no electricity was a frequent problem.
Charles Brady King and Henry Ford, along with many other competitors, began producing gasoline-powered motorcars in the 1890s. More than two hundred different companies tried their luck at producing all three types of vehicles, but only a few survived. The companies that lasted bear the names that are the most well-known. They are the Big Three
