No problem, copy and paste are wonderful tools. Good early Miller pic below. Looks like one of the TNT SOHC 4 holers, ala the Golden Sub.
I think this is the Golden Sub after Oldfield stripped the enclosed body off of it. Roscoe Sarles drove the car at Indy in 1919.
I am amazed at the knowledge and photos on this thread. This is great stuff. I've always been fascinated with Walter Christie's racing cars. Do any of you have or know of Christie photos besides the few that have been published ? I've been to the National Automotive History Collection in Detroit and they have an amazing Christie photo collection. Mostly Nathan Lazarnick's stuff.
Welcome to the HAMB! There is a great feature on the Christie front drives in Automobile Quarterly, must be 25-30 years ago.
Buildy, thanks for the pic. That is a great pic and it does look like Elgin. I know they were partial to the #28 on the car. They ran it with the #28 with the Sub enclosed body as well starting in 1917. Would have to search my records abit to see if they had #28 on the car at Elgin in 1919. Probably a good guess though. Lee welcome to the HAMB. The Lazarnick photos are some of the best. They used to be a bit more research friendly at the Detroit Library. I spent hundreds of hours back there in the old days and had kind of a run of the place. Not any more. If I had to research there to any real extent today I believe I would give up. The girls were really nice the last few times I was there. The guy in charge I cannot say the same about. To copy a photo there today you would think you were asking or a meeting with the Pope. Hopefully they are getting better-they need to-it is the PUBLIC library but then again some people seem to forget that we pay their wages and deserve just a smidgen of common courtesy. Somewhere I have some pics of Christie although the quality is not great and it has been a long time since I have seen them. They must be really buried somewhere. If and when I find them I will try to remember you. Doug nice blurb. I have one similar-maybe a bit more detailed that I found a few years ago on the internet-Jim
Buildy, Great photos for such a small fee. I'm going to take a guess here but i think the first of your photos is either the 1916 Nov.16th Vanderbilt Cup race in which Dario Resta was the victor in a Peugeot and Eddie Pullen finished 4th in the Mercer or it could be the American Grand Prize race held two days later{i don't have results for this race}. Both races were held in Santa Monica. Omar Toft also raced the chopped up Miller Sub at Santa Monica in a 250 miler and at Ascot in 1919. Here are some more photos.
Bob, Brad54 and I got to watch it go around the stadium a few times- that Mercer is gorgeous- and the owner wasn't afraid to let it slide in the corners a bit!
Kurtis, I`m pretty sure the Toft car was another Miller built car built in the same time frame as the Golden Sub. It was owned originally by AA Caldwell,according to the Miller Dynasty by Mark Dees. Note what look to me like hydraulic front brakes on the Toft car-in 1919!
"That MERCER was at Hershey last month, perfectly restored. " I took,many,many photos of the Mercer at Hershey in Oct.
don't know if i would use the word "restored"...remember one tale turns into 2 tails...turns into wrote...turns into the "new truth"...but that aside i like it! could the car on the right be a Knox?
I don`t know the details on the Mercer,but it is the closest thing to the car in the photo I bought left in the world,whether replica,combination restoration/replica parts or what. Fairly sure it has to contain at least some of the original parts for consideration at AACA events. Whatever the car is,it is a work of art.
I make the point, especially on this thread, that due diligence is very very important. I have no desire to bash any car or thier owner. but stating things like a car is "restored", "recreated", or a "replica" on a forum like this, where comments are easily researched and diseminated over a large audience, needs to be taken very seriously. We have a certain degree of responsibilty to make more accurate statements, or atleast note that a statement may be (unknowingly/unwittingly) not entirely true. There is alot of knowledge on here...use it for good. Remember, an innocent but false statement may mean some poor sod 10 years or 20 years from now get screwed (while buying an "original" car). Just go back through the archives in this place...it never goes away.
Not sure if you are directing this toward 37 kid or me. I believe he meant perfectly restored in a general way,not whether the car is 100 percent original or not. I will agree a replica should not be passed off as original. That does not mean an accurate replica cannot be appreciated,at least in my opinion. I`d rather have this car to admire and see run,along with ones such as the Blitzen Benz recently completed,and the Golden Sub recreation than not to have them at all. Now if the owner tried to pass them off as something they aren`t is another thing. As I say,I don`t know the amount of the original car on this Mercer,but at least some of it is from the Original car as far as I do know. If I am wrong about the Mercer having some original parts,I will stand corrected.
Jim, I agree 110 percent with your observations on the Detroit Public Library. I only have a fraction of the knowledge of some of you guys but I do know a bit about Christie. One of the photo's of the 1907 Grand Prix Christie on the first page of this thread was new to me however. Anyway, thank you for the welcome - back to the Golden Sub discussion !
Lee, Here are some more photos of the Christie. I would like some more information about this car, in particular the modified version at the hands of Oldfield. I know about it's European adventure's and the free ride it recieved in the Vanderbilt Cup, but as i'm still researching and learning about racing in America, i'm not up to scratch in regards to it's life in the U.S.
Kurtis, Thanks for the photos, I don't know how you find them ! I did not have a good copy of the cowled Christie photo. That cowling didn't stay on long. I can tell you more about the cars when I get off work, but what you have shown are the last 2 racing cars built by Walter Christie. The famous lower photo is Barney Oldfield in the last Christie racer. All the other photos are of the 1907 Grand Prix Christie. I call it the GP car because of course it ran in the French GP that year. Maybe it was the only Grand Prix then. The photo of the car in white above is Walter Christie in France. If you go back to page one of this thread, there are two excellent photos of the GP Christie late in it's life, after the body had been stripped off.
Buildy, as to your inquiry on the #3 and #4 car in your post 560, here are a couple of items showing the car is the Tahis. The one page is Motor Age March 18, 1915 p.21 showing the lineup of some of the cars for the Vanderbilt Cup held at San Francisco on March 6. Although it is hard to read the table at the top it points out the #3 car is the Tahis (when I shrunk it it became hard to read). I have other records of the race as well and they all point this out. When it ran at San Diego I have seen reference to it as the Robinson/Wisconsin/Tahis and at San Fran they referred to it as the Robinson/Wisconsin special but the table at the top just calls it the Tahis. There is no question the #3 is the Tahis. Pullen drove this Type 45 with the #4 at San Fran and Ruckstell drove the #4 at San Diego in January. I originally thought (without really thinking it out) it may be 1916 because it looked like Pullen in the 45 and looked like Corona but after thinking for a few moments I seemed to remember that they changed the bodywork. I believe they changed to what the car looks like today in late 1915 for the 1916 season (Randy Reed would know for sure-I talked to him back in 1989 on this topic but I guess the old CRS has taken over). I probably have notes somewhere, God only knows where. At Corona though the #4 was a Mercer but so was the #3 (Ruckstell) so that does not fit. Not sure the car would have even been eligible for Corona in 1916 as I am not sure they were allowing the big inch cars-maybe. You can see the Tahis is the seventh car from the right and in the blow up pic you can see that it is the same car as your pic, #3 and all. With the big 450 ci Wisconsin it was allowed in the Vanderbilt Cup as they allowed up to 600 ci (Class E cars) but was too large for many of the upcoming events (300ci max). The Tahis stayed mainly on the West Coast and ran events that allowed the larger outdated engines. Also in looking for my Tahis notes I never found, I found the program with Rodger Ward signature. As to the discussion on restored vs recreation etc etc if only the truth be told on many of these so-called racers that people get all weak in knees over-well the real deal racers would fit in a small parking lot. Many of these Millers today were basically built from an original piece or two. I corresponded with Ed Roy on some of the cars in the Indy museum and their provenance is not bullet proof in my opinion. There is talk of a new Miller I believe being built from an original AAA tag. I have seen some of the building of early racers and they are not as original as some let on. Many others keep hush hush on what they have done. I remember in 2005 at Pebble Beach with people gushing about how no one could question the provenance of the TT Sunbeam-it spent the past how many years in such and such museum and other BS. The talk was so syrupy that it made one sick almost. So I walk up to one of the guys at Laguna Seca and said "geez it is incredible what you guys have done with so little" and then the guy tells me well we had a bit and he tells me what and I said typical hype mixed with total BS. If that is bullet proof provenance that the term is pretty useless. That being said I appreciate seeing the "recreations" (or whatever the racecar gestapo demand what we call the car) but I also want just a smattering of the truth. I have had people tell me right to my face thngs about their car I KNOW is nonsense, but give them the Uh Huh treatment and walkaway mumbling "Whatever". I really like the Sub but some guys know the real story and are pretty passionate about what Buck has said in the past. I pretty give almost all of these guys a pass. If it were not for these guys spending a virtual fortune to bring these cars back to life then we would have to live only through pictures. I am forever grateful for what they have done.-Jim
Jim, could you send me a copy of the motor age scan uncondensed? I recently acquired a pre-15 car...I have been mapping out the SF course, and think that i can get access to much of what is left and will post some pics hopefully soon...as I drive it my car.
How do you want me to send it? I can scan it to an email program or copy it and send it by normal mail. Also my original scan if over 1MB. It is reasonably clear but not perfect. Let me know what you want or how much and I will ship it to you. What car so I can keep my eyes open?-Jim
In case I missed it (sorry), what kinds of speeds were these first cars getting, say...the guys back in 1894-5? I'll re-read, but, got any engine size specs or anything? This is cool, I'm actually getting ready to give an "impromptu" speech at my NCO leadership school on the roots of racing, from the very start, till now...this topic is PERFECT and just may kill a minute or two
I am not sure of what they were running in 1894 speed wise. I believe there were some electric cars in the late 1890s from speeds in the 40mph to 68mph or so-of course this would be in Europe. Internal combustion I am not so sure. By 1905 guys were running over 100 on the beach at Daytona. Stanley in his steam car "Rocket" turned 127mph in 1906 at Daytona. This is where it gets dicey because there were American spped records and International records. This Rocket would smoke anything they had in Europe and that couldn't stand that so there was an easy solution and the French sanctioning body once again reached in their useless bag of rules and gave him the record for the kilo and not the mile, at least in the international community. As Kurtis pointed out in another thread the Blitzen Benz 100 years ago yesterday turned a perfectly acceptable slower time of 125.9mph that was recognized by the International community. This was really a great accomplishment for an internal combustion engine. In my opinion a big deal. But when Oldfield upped it in 1910 to 131.2 and Burman to 131.3 with basically the same car this time on American soil (Daytona), the French once again said "hold the phone we cant have these upstarts in USA stealing our thunder so we will pull another rule out of our ever expanding bag of rules" (more correctly bag of wind) and they set the new requirement of two way runs. America had their own set of rules and we did not follow the new rule set out by the French. When you look at speed records you may have to decipher whose spectacles you are looking through. Kurtis may be more familiar with some of the early records internationally.Good luck with your piece-Jim
I think the post was directed at me.............but your reply is just about word for word what I would have typed. The #4 MERCER at Hershey was perfectly "Restored" IMO, how much of the original car was there to start with I don't know ( same goes for 99.9% of all restored cars) I enjoy seeing a different car the owner brings cross country every year and having a chat with him. He had a book of photos to point out it was the car Wisehart was killed in and later driven by Pullen. The Golden Sub was at Hershey years ago but NEVER recieved an award, it is a replica/clone/ trubute. Yes, the engine is a MILLER, but an Aero engine I believe. Sure seeing it run around is great, but it isn't THE Sub. Having an AACA Race Car Certification oval says something about the car, the commettee has approved that what you have IS that car, but the restoration is up to the owner to bring back to the "Day of The Race" condition.
I need a good camera, and Santa has been told so. If you need a good copy of this for your Christie file i can take the postcard to UPS and get a great color copy made, still black and white but great detail. Note the WC (Walter Christie) preceding the number, all the cars in the GP had a letter so you knew what make car flashed past you. The cast bronze front wheels are a real piece of artwork.
Jim, That #3 at SF is certainly the one in my photo. So then it is 1915 either at SF with Pullen in the Mercer,or San Diego with Ruckstell in the Mercer. What is the big tank on that car for? Certainly a spotting feature in a crowd of race cars.
The street behind the car/in front of my grandparents house (Chatsworth blvd in Point Loma) was part of the San Diego Road Race curcuit. If you follow the road to the right of the car you come to "dead mans corner" to this day it is a nastly fast right hander that tucks in tight to the right about 2/3rds the way through. (though it was a left hand corner in the race) Somewhere I have some pics of a "retracing" of the race that was done almost 20 years ago. The below link is well worth the dowload time, it has a great description of lots of courses. If you scroll almost to the bottom, you can see the Point Loma road race course. My grandparents house is just after (100' or so) the corner where Lytton turns into Chatsworth. http://www.teamdan.com/archive/book/venues.pdf Next time i go home, will snap some pics.
You just got lucky! I just turned up a clipping from a 1900 issue of Harpers Weekley with a short article on racing. That 1894 Paris to Rouen race was won by a steam powered de Dion-Bouton with ad adverage speed of 20 kilometers an hour
The Jalopy Journal
