Forums at Society of the Military Horse

That description is right for the sort of cars electrics were. They were never viable as "over the road" vehicles for a host of reasons, mostly centering on the impossibility of making batteries that would give them any range. (A problem which still hasn't really been solved) There were el...

I don't really have anything to compare it to...I'm just going by the historical references to how tiring a long ride can be. I think much of it is stress related. It can be genuinely nerve wracking to be constantly on the lookout for nitwits that want to "check out the old car". My favori...

After six hours at the wheel of one of those cars I'd be completely exhausted...and that was 25 years ago. It might bear a stronger resemblance to six hours on a horse than it does to what we think of as driving.

The steering is very light... those front tires are 36" in diameter and react very quickly to the wheel. The transmission has straight cut gears and shifts very easily but is quite loud by modern standards although on an open car you don't hear it. When closed bodies became fashionable in the l...

Yes... restoration grade plywood. Actually the sides of the body were made of an early form of plywood. It wasn't very successful so in 1911 they went to paper mache.

Joe P

The engine's up front in the conventional place on the 30HP.
The driver is a lot older now but just as tired looking.

A 2-cylinder 20HP. The engine is under the seat.

Here's another one... a 1910 Model R 30HP

REO cars had such a good reputation for being rugged and good starters in bad weather that they became very with farmers who often simply took the body off the car and fitted a home made "pickup" bed. The company picked up on this and brought out a line of pickups based roughly on the car ...

Pat, That would have been a thumping big two cylinder REO. 20 HP is about as big as 2 cylinder cars ever got...it would have had pistons the size of paint buckets. The next year they brought out their 4 cylinder Model R - it was rated at 30 HP and had 4 1/4 in pistons so I suspect the 20HP had them ...

I find it hard to imagine that they haven't priced themselves out of the market, especially the small tradesman or someone starting out in a trade. Lord knows agriculture must be even worse. I have a friend who is a licensed plumber and despite all the jokes about what they make, he has a tough time...

Thats a great car and great pictures of it. I'm not sure what it is but its very likely older than the date on the picture... more like 1901-1903 which is a good example of how fast something that was very expensive became "used" was relegated to basically a utility vehicle...

Joe P

The major difference between building coaches and wagons and automobiles is the amount of capital expenditure involved. Assembled cars were popular because they minimized this. Until the 1920s all cars were sold for cash and there was a huge demand so that some of the early companies were literally ...

Sandy, That was the norm at the time. Almost no luxury car makers made the bodies although a few, like Cadillac, bought body companies. I doubt the Duesenberg borthers made starters or electrical stuff but that was not even expected of them. GM bought out the Fisher Brothers and RR bought the Brewst...

Sandy, I don't really know much about Dusenbergs. They are one of the few cars I've never had anything to do with but I would be surprised if they didn't have as many bought-out components as most did. Even the American Rolls-Royce used Buffalo wire wheels, American Bosch electrics and Westinghouse ...

I'd forgotten that Jordan was in the advertising business. The car was a flop but he literally changed almost everything about automotive advertising. It wasn't the first ad aimed a women but I think that is was the first one for a gasoline car aimed at the woman "owner-driver" (in the per...

Pat, Thats the most famous automobile poster of all time. Its considered to have permanently altered automobile advertising and introduced something we take for granted today but didn't exist at all until then. It says absolutely nothing about the car. It doesn't even show us what the car looks like...

Its certainly cheaper than it was just after WWI and I bet its cheaper than it was in the 50s, it may even be less in real terms than it was during the first gas crisis in the 70s.

I suppose it depends on what we think of as average which makes it a very hard question to answer. Certainly the rural and urban poor of 1920 had a much lower standard of living than virtually any "poor" people in America today and they wouldn't have had automobiles. There were also many m...

Without going into how it came to be that way, by the time automobiles came about, American driving was on the right. However, most drivers drove in the middle of the road and only moved to the right when passing another vehicle. Most roads had a crown. I don't know how it would work with a horse-dr...

These are just guesses but I'd say its an 08, 09 or 10 Model T Ford. The three pedals mean it has a planetery transmission. All of the shifting was done with feet. The standing lever is the handbrake and the lever on the steering column is the spark advance. The real giveaway is that its early to ha...