History We ALL Love a DARE! PIX of TRULY Extinct Makes?

HJ said: Hmmmm

Hj, a crazy thought just occurred to me, and I don't know WHY only NOW. Duh! We've got the closest things to MASTER lists of defunct U.S. car makes, in Wiki's and the Mother List.

BUT, here's my MOTHER OF ALL QUESTIONS: Don't all or most of the car museums in North America participate in some sort of association? And, assuming YES, wouldn't there be a central LIST of WHAT cars are in museum collections AND where???

Wouldn't/shouldn't someone be able to, relatively easily, LOOK UP surviving Jordan Little Customs -- or any OTHER darn car and see if any survive? Or, am I crediting technology too much? (Or, am I, maybe, under-estimating museums' provincialism or territoriality?)

 

One may think that, but as far as I know, there is no sanctioning body for museums of this kind. Not like there may be in the art world.
Many are set up as privately owned or set up as a non-profit. But no searchable database, most do not even have a posted list of what they have on display, but that is understandable as well as displays are constantly changing. Many museums "change out" mtheir displays as they may have more cars than they can actually display properly.

I got a toutr of the GM Heritage museum, and that is not open to the public normally. They have off the top of my head under 200 cars on display, but own over 600. Of course, recently they have sold off some.
The Walter P. Chrysler museum switches out their cars as well.

And some museums have cars on display that are on loan, or privatly owned that move in and out.

Oftentimes, car museums bidgets are bare minimum, and only exist through volunteerism.

The Buffalo Transportation Museum is the vision of James Sandoro who has devoted his life to the collection of buffalo Automotive History. He is the founder, and curator, but he still has to answer to a board of directors who are bean counters. The Museum will be his sole beneficiary when he passes.

On this forum I have seen examples of what are displayed at other locations I may never get to.
I photograph everything when I get out and about and host them on webshots.
http://community.webshots.com/user/swi66

 

Picture of a Stutz Monte Carlo

That Wasn't hard.
1933 Stutz Monte Carlo
The 1933 Stutz Monte Carlo was the largest and most expensive Stutz model for 1933 and features a custom aluminim body by famed coachbuilder Weymann, best known for their light-weight fabric covered bodies.
Engine: 8-cylinder
Horsepower: 115
Wheelbase: 156 inches
Total Produced: 50 (approx)
Original Price: $6,595

 

I'll have to go look it up but I doubt that Stutz made 50 of those. Probably more like 10 or 15 max By 1933 production was getting very very slow. In 34 they might have only made 50 cars the whole year. It's hard to tell but that actually may be the one in the Gilmore.

 

From my copy of the Splendid Stutz (a must have btw, go the the stutz club website to buy) total production of all series was 110 cars in 1933. This would include any SV16s that got built too. It is estimated that 6 cars were built in 1934 and none were thought to be made in 1935.

While we are on the subject of Stutz, near and dear to my heart have you seen my thread on the Stutz SuperCharger:

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=222832&highlight=stutz+supercharger

 

AlsAncle, THANKS for your last post!!! a BIG yes! I checked out your 2-year-old thread ... and it's is FASCINATING!!!

I was extremely interested in the contribution of one of your respondents, as follows:

The most successful, affordable, and effective part-time supercharger is still nitrous oxide. It's adjustable, simple, and actually cools the incoming charge when it's activated. But.......it ain't traditional (yet!)

OOPS, that was only part of the excerpts. Gotta go back and ifnd the other 2 paragraphs!!!!!!! -- Jimi

 

WOW! That Stutz looking Jordan is SUPER COOL!

Here's a picture of a 1933 Stutz Monte Carlo that lives here. It should be noted for those that may not know that some of these like the one pictured here have an ALL FABRIC body

There IS a National Association Of Automobile Museums

Go Here:

http://www.naam.museum/

 

This is confusing. Koen must be the 1908 model in the drivers seat. Cause the car is obviously a much later then 1908 Model "T" Roadster. Don't see anything else that would make it a Koen

 

There IS a National Association Of Automobile Museums

Go Here:

http://www.naam.museum/[/QUOTE]

If you look on the member list you will see the Crawford Auto-Aviation Museum is NOT a member of NAAM mainly because they do not follow some of there bylaws especially the ones regarding sale of the collection to pay off debt.

Please read the following articles. It is about the CAAM restoration facility. feel free to post a comment at the end of the articles.

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/12/western_reserve_historical_soc_2.html

Here are some more about what is happening to the CAAM.

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/125067064055920.xml&coll=2

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/post_37.html

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/08/western_reserve_historical_soc_1.html

http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/post_31.html

http://www.cleveland.com/editorials/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/1254385810214240.xml&coll=2

I just attended a personal Christmas party attended by many of the volunteers and not one of us are renewing our WRHS membership. It is required that all volunteers are dues paying members. Some of the more vocal volunteers have received registered letters telling them they are not welcome. One of them has been a volunteer since the program was started.

The list of NAAM member museums seems quite small and if there were a comprehensive vehicle list it would be only of the NAAM member collections. Think of all the county or local historical societies that might have a small number of vehicles (1 or 2) in their collections. There are probably thousands, not to mention private collections.

 

<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=738><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top background=/images/crawford/bg_content.gif width=546>1929 Jordan
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Listen to the 1929 Jordan​

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<HR style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e5e5e5; COLOR: #e5e5e5" SIZE=1> <!-- / icon and title --><!-- message -->
Quote:
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1908 Koen Runabout
James R. Koen, Buffalo, NY
Only year built
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This is confusing. Koen must be the 1908 model in the drivers seat. Cause the car is obviously a much later then 1908 Model "T" Roadster. Don't see anything else that would make it a Koen

From another source: The James B Koen Company was organized in Buffalo early in 1908 with a capitol stock of $10,000 for the manufacture of automobilles.
I wonder if the source where I got the picture mis labeled the picture? My other source shows no picture. Or I wonder if he just modified a T. They were listed in my second source as a "questionable" manufacturer, as there is no evidence they actually produced a car, or got beyond the prototype stage.
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So did you know the Checker Motor company can trace its roots to Buffalo NY?

In 1908 a man named William A. Schaum produced an odd two-cylinder high-wheeler named the Seven Little Buffaloes. This car was the first link in a complicated chain eventually leading to the formation of Checker Motors Corporation in 1922. The ''Seven Little Buffaloes'' was a big enough seller to encourage Schaum to relocate into a larger factoryfrom Buffalo NY. With the help of a group of investors, a new facility was found in Normal, NY The company name was changed from the Deschaum Motor Car Co. to The De Schaum-Hornell Motor Car Co.
In 1910 the company moved again, this time to Ecorse, MI where they made new four and six-cylinder cars called Suburbans. In September 1911 the Deschaum-Hornell Co. became the Suburban Motor Car Corp. In 1912 a Mr. Palmer became involved with the corporation.
The Suburban Motor Car Co. became the Palmer Motor Car Co. and a new seven passenger six-cylinder touring sedan was manufactured in 1913. Not having a good dealer network, Palmer went into partnership with Partin cars thereby creating another new company called the Partin-Palmer Manufacturing Co. Two years later the Partin-Palmer Manufacturing Co. became the Commonwealth Motor Co. and moved to Joliet, IL in 1919. That is when the first links with Checker were formed.
American manufacturing boomed during this period, and so did the taxicab industry. There were many small operators of cabs during this time, but bigger companies, such as Checker Taxi of Chicago, soon bought out most of the ones in the Chicago area. Checker was buying up so many of these smaller cab companies that they soon found that their only rival was Yellow Cab of Chicago.

 

In the fall of 2001, the 1901 Neff Steam Buggy, Ontario's oldest surviving automobile and probably Canada's second oldest, was repatriated back from the US to the Port Colborne Historical and Marine Museum in Port Colborne, Ontario, a few blocks from where it was built in Humberstone (now Port Colborne) at the Neff Foundry and Machine Shop by Benton Neff in 1901. Fairly comprehensive contemporary newspaper accounts follow its construction progress from January to September of 1901. Port Colborne is only about 15 miles from the border at Buffalo and on Mar.13, 1901 Benton Neff crossed the border and visited the Schaeffer, Bunce and Marvin (S.B.M.) steam parts factory in Lockport, NY where he "received the dynamo" for his automobile (actually a 4 and 1/2 horsepower 2 cylinder engine) On Mar.23, 1901 he was in Buffalo "purchasing parts for the automobile he is building", at which time he ordered the "buggy box" which he picked up in Buffalo the following week, with the expressed purpose of having local copies being made for future production. Research seems to indicate that these 'parts' were probably purchased at the 'Conrad Motor Carriage Company' in Buffalo. This is buttressed by the fact that a photograph has recently surfaced in Canada of a 1902 Conrad Steamer Dos-A-Dos built in Buffalo whose body very much resembles the Neff. Unfortunately, the 'Standard Catalog of American Cars' does not contain any pictures of either the 1901 Conrad Steamer or in fact any Conrad Steamer pictures. Does anyone know whether or not there are any Conrad steamers remaining in existence, or in fact any pictures of them (other than the 1902 picture in Canada)? Also, are there any S.B.M. Steamers still in existence, other than the artist's contemporary representation of one which is depicted in 'Standard Catalog of American Cars..' Any information relating to these two American steam autos will be very helpful in completing the research compilation on our Neff Steam Buggy


This one is Canada's Oldest!

 

Conrad Motor Carriage Co.[1]​

1417 Niagara Street
Buffalo, NY
1900 &#8211; August 1903.
As with most minor steam car makers, little is known about the Conrad Motor Carriage Company.
The Conrad Motor Carriage Company of Buffalo, NY was incorporated in April 1900 with a woefully inadequate capital stock of $25,000. During Christmas 1901, a &#8220;large Conrad delivery wagon ran for a week making deliveries for a large Buffalo department Store. It did the work of three horse-drawn vehicles without trouble. A similar wagon carried mail from the main post office in Buffalo to the Pas American Exposition.&#8221;[2]
In 1902, the Conrad Motor Carriage Company began manufacturing gasoline cars. The company failed in July 1903 and declared bankruptcy in August 1903. [3]
Bently describes the technical details of the Conrad. The &#8220;1903 Steam Model 65 Special [was] powered by a two-cylinder, six hp engine located amidships under the frame and enclosed in a special hood.&#8221; &#8220;A 20 in. boiler (at rear) produced super-heated steam from 650 copper tubes at 160 psi, water being stored in a 35 gallon tank. Eight gallons of gasoline fed the burner which had a patented pilot light to keep up a head of steam. Weight of this buggy was 1,004 pounds with a two-passenger panel back seat body and full tanks. One of four models (two of them commercial vehicles) with a price of $800 - $2,500.&#8221; [4]
The 1903 Steam Model 65 Special was priced at $850.
Conrad produced a Dos-a-Dos in 1902.[5]
Floyd Clymer&#8217;s 1945 Steam Car Scrapbook lists three models of the Conrad in 1903.[6]
The Conrad Steam Model 65 Special: &#8220;Two-passenger; panel back seat; weight with tanks filled, 1,004 pounds; 2½-inch tires; 28-inch wheels; capacity of gasoline tanks, 8 gallons; capacity of water tanks, 35 gallons. Price $850.&#8221;
Conrad Steam Model 70: &#8220;Dos-a-Dos; stick back seat; seating capacity 4 passengers; weight, tanks filled, 1,000 pounds; 2½-inch tires; 28-inch wheels; capacity of gasoline tanks, 8 gallons; capacity of water tank, 38 gallons. Price, $800.&#8221;
Conrad Steam Model 77½: &#8220;Panel seat; seating capacity, 4 passengers; 3-inch tires; 28-inch wheels; gasoline tank capacity, 8 gallons; water tank capacity, 38 gallons. Price, 1,200.&#8221;

This small advertisement appeared in the Scientific American of May 17, 1902, Vol. LXXXVI, No. 20, page 358.​

 

My motive for revisiting Jordan is that I've still not come up with a PIC of the ill-fated "Little Custom" that fatally wounded the successful Jordan company. Help, guys! Surely, one must survive in a museum???

1931 Jordan "Sportsman" 5-passenger sedan, bodied by Baker, Rauch & Lange[/QUOTE]

I am going to follow this to see if I can find something on the "Little Custom". I am confident that Rauch and Lang Carriage co. most likely built it for Jordan.

BTW I had worked at Baker Lift Trucks as a contract designer/draftsman back in the late 1970's at their headquarter on Lake Rd and w80th in Cleveland. Shame that I was not interested in automobile history back then as I had complete access to the drawing vault and they went back to the beginning. It's a shame that youth is wasted on the young.

Rauch & Lang Carriage Co. had a well-earned reputation for their coachwork, and many of the region’s automakers such as Biddle-Crane, Cadillac, Duesenberg, Franklin, Gardner (1930), Hupmobile, Jordan, Lex&shy;ington, Packard, Peerless, Reo, Ruxton (1930), Stanley, Stearns-Knight and Wills Ste. Claire, would become Raulang customers. Other activities of the body division included the design and building of prototype models for the large automobile manufacturers in Detroit. Not only did Raulang produce automobile bodies, through 1928 they built bus bodies for their distant cousin, the White Motor Co., as well as for Yellow Coach, General Motors and Reo.
Additional body-building capacity was acquired in January of 1924 with the purchase the former Leon Rubay Co. factory. Although Rubay went out of business in 1923, Baker-Raulang continued to supply leftover Rubay bodies to Rubay’s former customers and as late as 1927, a Rubay-designed town car body was used on Moon’s Diana Town Car. Raulang even made an appearance at the 1929 Auto Salons where they displayed a custom-bodied Ruxton Town Car. Although Budd built all of the Ruxton’s closed production bodies, Raulang furnished the bodies for Ruxton’s roadster, their most popular model.

 

I'm a little confused by the caption at the bottom of this picture. This is from the second quarter 1975 of Automobile Quarterly. Is it possible the "Little Custom" is also in fact the Tomboy? I can find little reference on either of the 2. But this car pictured surely is a small car by comparison to the larger Jordans. Sorry for the poor scan, I did not want to damage the binding in the book, of course it is in overleaf form.

 

LOTS of good stuff coming out here, guys! HJ, I surely AGREE, youth is wasted on the young; but now that I'm 59 & my interests & priorities have "wised up," I'd just settle for the ENERGY of being young!!!

Swi, you may HAVE something, man! When Jordan couldn't move the Little Custom at $1,600, just MAYBE, they renamed some of the left-overs to get them out of their inventory. (They'd cancelled the model well before the regular '27 production run would have ended, so maybe they also still had bodies & chasses on order -- with concomitant financial commitments!)

It all helps explain why Jordan finished 1927 $1.4 MILLION in the hole -- back when that was some SERIOUS money -- especially for a company that barely a decade earleir had posted 1,900-percent profits on investments!!!

 

Anybody have this book (or access t one), written by James H. Lackey?
Surely, there must be at least one photograph or ad drawing of a Jordan
"Little Custom" in it.



Expensive book (from 2005, McFarland & Co.). But it seems to be a definitive
history, so I'm thinking there might be a TON more DETAILS on the ill-fated
model. It's MENTIONED everywhere on Ned Jordan write-ups, but details are
sorely lacking -- especially in terms of what measures Jordan may have em-
ployed to bail themselves out of this debacle.

 

Post #1251

"Little Playboy"

 

Did any of you guys click on the link under yhe pic?

 

I think I may have found something!

The Little Custom Jordan debuted in January 1927 at the New York Automobile Show. “He tried to emulate some of the European [cars] with the Little Jordan Custom,” says Unrein . “They put a lot of their eggs in the basket trying to market these, but people weren’t interested in a smaller, quality car.” One of America’s earliest production compact cars, the Custom, available as a sedan, two-door salon with fixed fabric top and a cabriolet dubbed the Little Tomboy, did not sell well. Jordan ended the year with a nearly $1.5 million deficit.

This may indicate a link to the Tomboy I pictured before.

 

Alright, instead of thickening, seems the PLOT is becoming clearer. And here's
a bit of info I dug up this morning:


I finally ran onto a photo of a Jordan sedan that resembles the Little Custom I remember seeing in a period magazine ad. This was a member car of the Jordan
Motor Car Preservation Association/Jordan Automobile Club. And it was not specifically ID'd. Even the club's list doesn't mention the Little Custom by name
and only ID's many of the member cars as SEDAN, PHAETON, etc.

But this certainly doesn't look like a senior Jordan model to me. Really closer to
the size of a '27 Ford T, I think. Maybe/maybe not a Little Custom, but it seems
to bring us a little closer to solving the mystery. At $1,600, a shopper could
have at least 2.5 fully equipped Fords. SO, people apparently didn't want to
pay top dollar for a car that wasn't too much better than a Ford, eh?

​

 

Swi, did the info for the '27 NY show come from that book? It SURELY seems to DIRECTLY link the Little Custom and the Tom Boy !!!

HJ, my computer has been running like a slug, so NO I haven't had the chance to listen to the audio on that link. Probably would lock up my ocmputer, to be honest. But wouldn't it sound pretty much like other Continental engines? I got to listen to the Speedway Ace (driven at little more than idle speed, albeit) a while back.

 

Hey, guys, NOT to change the subject BUT for a second: Anybody remember the '20s "Bi-Flex" bumpers? They worked very well to prevent damage to car bodies. But the added cost must have been a turn-off for buyers, since it appears they didn't stay around long.

 

Even if he had just modified a Model "T'', it could not of been in 1908. The "T" in the picture is at least a 1917 car and could be any where up to 1925. Here's a picture of a 1909 "T". An '08 wouldn't of looked much different. A definite mystery here.

 

The list of NAAM member museums seems quite small and if there were a comprehensive vehicle list it would be only of the NAAM member collections. Think of all the county or local historical societies that might have a small number of vehicles (1 or 2) in their collections. There are probably thousands, not to mention private collections. <!-- / message --> <!-- sig --> __________________

HJ;

I would have to agree with you here.

 

Biflex Products Corporation was a Winnetka, Illinois based manufacturer of automobile bumpers. In July 1923 the company was listed as a co-conspirator with American Chain Company of New York City in an effort to restrain trade and restrict interstate commerce. A lawsuit in United States Federal Court sought to prevent American Chain Company from acquiring a monopoly in the sales of automobile bumpers. The effort to restrain trade began prior to January 1, 1920

<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference"></sup>
80% of the common stock of Biflex Products Corporation was acquired by General Spring Bumper Corporation of Detroit, Michigan in March 1929. Biflex Products Corporation maintained its corporate identity.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"></sup> By August 1931 Biflex Products Corporation was a subsidiary of Houdaille-Hershey Corporation.<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference"></sup>
<sup id="cite_ref-2" class="reference">
</sup>
Two Biflex Products Corporation plants were sold to Oakes Products Corporation at a receivership sale in Wilmington, Delaware on November 4, 1935. The manufacturing sites were located in Decatur, Illinois and North Chicago, Illinois. The purchase prices were $50,000 and $90,000 respectively.<sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"></sup>

 

<hr style="color: rgb(229, 229, 229); background-color: rgb(229, 229, 229);" size="1"> <!-- / icon and title --> <!-- message --> Jimi; But this certainly doesn't look like a senior Jordan model to me. Really closer to the size of a '27 Ford T.

Sunroof: Maybe because they are pictures and not the real cars sitting next to each other but the Jordan pictured just looks A LOT BIGGER then the 1927 Ford "T" to me.

 

Just a Cool Picture of a 1926 Model "T' Speedster

 

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