Category Archives: Auto photos 1885 – 1920
The Southern California Edison Los Angeles Night Gang
The hundredth anniversary of this photo made by Bishop G. Haven will soon be upon us. On June 6, 1913, the Night Gang of the Trouble Department of the Edison Electric Company took a moment to pose for the camera with their diverse group of service vehicles. In the background we see a rare Alco truck, and a Pope-Hartford equipped with a large spotlight. The two motorcycles out front are a Flying Merkel on the left with a Harley-Davidson on the right. We suspect that the big spotlight was used to locate problems in overhead wires and leads us to think that the Pope may have been equipped with an electric starter and a generator.
Also visible at the extreme left in the first thumbnail (above) is a ladder mounted on the back of the Pope. The rear of the body of the car may have been removed or it could be a roadster with a service bed added onto the back. While we are quite confident of the make of the “ladder car”, we are not entirely sure of it’s year of manufacture and invite our readers to offer opinions on that point.
In the late 1880′s several small independent electric companies were working to bring power to Southern California. By 1897, the West Side Lighting Company and Los Angeles Electric Company had merged to form the Edison Electric Company of Los Angeles, which would go on to acquire other local companies and eventually become an international conglomerate. It was already well established and growing rapidly with the city of Los Angeles by the time that this photo was taken. Photo courtesy of The Huntington Library.
Principles of Cycle Car Construction – Part III
Today we have another installment of our ongoing series about the weirdly wonderful world of cycle cars. The top photo comes to us courtesy of Adrian Ward and even though it does not fit the strict definition a cycle car it sure is an interesting little car. Unfortunately, we cannot find any details about this machine and based on the extremely high hood line, we think the inline four might be either an overhead valve design or perhaps even use an overhead cam.
Certainly the charming young lady behind the wheel isn’t revealing any of the car’s secrets, although she looks quite the daredevil in her skull-and-crossbones helmet. We invite any of our readers who might know a little more about the “Hefling Special” to enlighten us about it’s origins and eventual fate of the car and it’s pretty pilot.
Below, you can examine a few more pages from that definitive article on the type from the January 15, 1914 issue of The Automobile magazine that appeared in part one of this series. You can read about the many different makes and the almost endless variety of engine placements, seating arrangements and steering and suspension systems that were employed. This creative approach mirrors that of the larger cars of the day and is a fundamental factor in our fascination with this Pre-war era; a time when there was no design rulebook and innovation and experimentation were the norm.
The center image (above) shows the side-mounted amidship engine placement of the Cricket car, a larger picture of which can be seen (center, below) . A brief paragraph on the third page (above) describes it’s transatlantic origins. Photos at the bottom of that same page show the Trumbull, built by the American Cyclecar Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, which displays a much more conventional appearance. The Scripps-Booth “Rocket” gets a mention on that page as well, the product of a manufacturer whose penchant for the unconventional included the bizarre 1913 Bi-Autogo.
In the first thumbnail (below). you can clearly see the incredibly light construction of the frame and front suspension of the Falcon cyclecar that figured so prominently in part one of this series. It makes us wonder how durable it would have been in the long run, had not larger and more conventional cars like the Model “T” Ford made cyclecars obsolete.
Lastly, we have another mystery cycle car whose passenger accommodations reminds us of other cycle cars where the passenger also precedes the driver. This one is decidedly French and comes to us from the National Library of France. What caught our eye is the extreme rearward placement of the driver. The cheerful and confident expressions of both occupants seem to belie the total lack of wheel mounted brakes!
A 1907 Thomas-Flyer Sight Seeing Car in Stillwater, Minnesota
This 1907 Thomas 60 h.p. 7 passenger touring utilized a 118″ w.b. chassis that was quite similar to the 1908 New York to Paris Race Thomas, that we have been covering in in the series about the race. For our readers interested in the mechanical details of the Thomas, we have included a three page article, which was published in the Oct. 31, 1906 Horseless Age Magazine, telling all the details of the new 1907 car and the changes from the 1906 model.
The Thomas in the photo, courtesy of the Hennepin County Library, shows a car filled with the wives of members of the Elks Club. They were in Stillwater, MN., for a convention and are seen here out for a ride to see the sights in the city, which is just northeast of Minneapolis.
Posted in Auto photos 1885 - 1920
Tagged 1907 Thomas, Elks Club Convention, Stillwater Minnesota
