Did You Know?

Henry Ford once owned an imported Minerva, his personal car. Barney Olfeld once built cars bearing his name in Los Angeles, California, from 1917 to 1922. There was once an Olfeld tire, made in Firestone. There was once a "Danpatch" car, built in Minneapolis in 1911, a "Bugmobile" built in Chicago in 1907, and the "Seven Little Buffalos" built in Buffalo, New York.

There was once a "Climber" car built in Little Rock, Arkansas, and a "Clymer" built in St. Louis, Missouri. Adolf Hitler may have promised a "People's" car, which he never delivered. But, the "People's" car was built in 1901 in Cleveland, Ohio.

There was a car built in Traverse City, Michigan, called the "Napoleon". The K.R.I.T. built in Detroit from 1909 to 1916 used the swastika as a trademark long before Hitler was ever heard of. The "Greats" included the Great Arrow, the Great Eagle, Great Smith and Great Southern and the last of the "Great" cars to go was the GReat Western. The Carter Twin Engine had two engines, each independent of the other (not the Cartercar). The Buckmobile was built in Utica, New York in 1903.

The "Air Cooled" Chevrolet was actually a copper cooled car with copper fins on the cylinders to radiate the heat. The first front wheel driven car was the Auto Fore Carriage, built in 1900 in New York City.

With hindsight we know who the big players turned out to be- Ford, GMC, and Chrysler. But, who is to say that the winds of fortune have been a blown Zentmobile, Nachtwey, or Ogden into the Big Three Status? Had the breaks gone just a bit differently, we might have car enthusiasts in the 21st Century arguing the relative merits of the Snoburner versus the neighbor's McQuestion Steam. Would the NASCAR look all that different if Jeff Gorden drove a Smisor, Tony Stewart drove a Choate, and Dale Earnhart Jr. drove a Ogontz?

The Saturday Evening Post carried its first automobile advertisement in 1900. In 1903 Buick built its orginal engine, it was a valve-in -head. The valve-in-head design has been a Buick feature ever since. The first Studebaker gasoline car was sold in 1904, they built both gasoline and electric cars.

In 1906, L.L. Whitman drove an air cooled Franklin from New York to San Francisco in 15 days, 2 hours, and 15 minutes, which was a new record.

In 1909, Louis Chevrolet, a famous automobile racer, started building his first six cylinder overhead valve engines in his shop on Grand River Boulevard in Detroit. After having built Steam Automobiles for several years, the White Sewing Machine Co., built it's first gasoline powered car in 1909. The first Buick "Six" was built in 1910.

In 1911 REO established a new record from New York to San Francisco of 10 days, 3hours, and 13 minutes, cutting nearly four days off the previous record.

In 1911, Buick built its first closed automobile. In 1912, Walter P. Chrysler started working as Works Manager of the Buick Motor Company, under the direction of Charles W. Nash, who was then president of Buick. In 1913, Chevrolet moved to Flint, Michigan, and merged with the Little Motor Car Company. The Ford built 1,000 cars a day for the first time in 1913.

In 1913, Chevrolet started building a four cylinder car. They built a few V8s later in 1917 and early 1918; they built four cylinder cars until 1929 when they came out with thier "6". In 1922, Chevrolet built an air cooled car or rather displayed it at the automobile shows- But, made few if any sales. William C. Durant succeeded Charles Nash, as president of the General Motors Corporation in 1916. In 1917, the Nash car succeeded the Jeffery.