Buildy good artwork-looks pretty cool. Doug, I am sure IMS would love to claim that it is the DePalma car from 1912 but it may take more than a sign board to convince me it is the car he was famous for pushing back to the pits (not across the stripe as some have tried to claim). Now IMS does have a pretty good claim to the #8 Miller in the collection being a DePalma car.-Jim
That #19 would be Otto Salzer DNF, winner Christian Lautenschlager was #35 and #2 Willy Poge was 5th but hey, they all looked alike before they get hot rodded I agree with that car should have been left as Larry Beales built it.
You have all been busy while I was at work. It will take awhile to read through all this excellent material! "That's pretty good. I like that. Do you mind if i steal that?" Kurtis, Be my guest,I just do those for fun.
An amateur race at Daytona including a Mercer Raceabout a motorcycle and the Ford Garage special. The Ford must have an overhead valve head as it exhausts on the opposite side that it originally did. We will have to assume the plane was not included.
This looks like the Buick team was also at Daytona as the two cars indicate. I am guessing the time period was around 1909 -10. The other car looks like one of the underslung ones they built judging by the lower height.
A little more action on the beach at Daytona. The building in the third photo is the Hotel Clarendon.
There's a nice Aftermarket T radiator shell (along the lines of #8 in T-Head's pic) on fleabay right now... will get the info when I get home. It's just what I was looking for, but out of my range- maybe someone on here wants it?
1st photo: Lucien Hautvast @ 1904 Circuit des Ardennes. DNF. 2nd photo: He crashed out during the 1907 Kaiserpreis @ the Taunus Circuit but did manage to finish 3rd in Heat 1 and race in the Final the following day and placing 2nd. The Pipe was amongst the fastest with two other cars entered, C. Deplus also placing 3rd in Heat 2 but didn't have a great showing in the Final. Pierre de Caters race in the third car was unforgettable. Race details: Two heats of 2 laps {1 lap: 117.723km} on the 13th of June and the 4 lap Final run the following day. The FIAT was too strong. Nazzaro winning Heat 2 and the Final while Carl Jorns and Michel in the Opel were consistent.
Kurtis.......thanks for the information and photos. Here is a photo of a much more know early racer, a Napier.
Selwyn Francis Edge should be the most famous racer to come from Australia but there isn't much written about him here. I spent a weekend at the State Library and i did find some info, in some cases he was branded as an Englishman but these were British publications. His success in the Gordon Bennett Cup obviously made him a popular figure in the Motherland. There were some fantastic cars built by the firm, something i'm sure the British are proud of. The aero engines they produced were some of the most powerful in the world, the Napier Lion being my favorite. First 3 photos: Clifford Earp on his way to the unfortunate accident on the first lap in the 1904 Gordon Bennett Trials @ Isle if Man. 4th photo: Francis Selwyn Edge before the 24hr race @ Brooklands. 1907. 5th photo: Edge again at Brooklands, 1907. in the 90hp Samson.
After all of the Mercedes photos and information yesterday I thought I would post these photos. They are two hand colored lithographs I have by Harry Elliot from England. The first is the De La Coupe-Gorden Bennett. The second litho is untitled but dated 1904. It is what is called a yard long (36") and the first litho is 26" long.
The 1904 Gordon Bennett Racer which at one time was here in George Waterman's collection. A lithograph of a Napier at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
1906 Isle of Man September 28th Graphic" Trophy Race won by Mr C. A. Glentworth on a Napier car. more later (hopefully) . .
The 1903 Gordon Bennett car when it was in an exhibit of cars from the Waterman Collection at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1970. Please excuse the reflections, it is a hugh poster and hard to photograph.
Any car that's painted British {should be Aussie} Racing Green looks spectacular. Great photos David. The first Napier i was to read about was the 17 liter, 2 tonne entry for the 1901 Gordon Bennett Cup. Now when i look at the cars that followed my conscious tells me that everyone of them weighs exactly the same. To me they all look like tanks that should've fought in the Great War. I knew i had some photos of McDonald's car hidden away. All from 1905 Ormond Beach. I have always liked the Mercedes of Thomas, maybe it's the wheel discs that do it for me.
Keith the frame on that Napier looks like something from an Erector set with all those lightening holes punched in it. T-Head-great photos of the 1902 Napier!
Charles Rolls aboard his Panhard 8hp. Or 6hp, depending on which historian you talk to. Reputed to be the first car in Britain. I don't know where this photo was taken but he did participate in a trial at Crystal Palace in 1899 and later in June that same year he was at Richmond for a week of driving tests but suffered problems with the chain. Later in the week he would drive a Benz but would retire with problems. He repaired his Panhard in time to win the Silver Cup for best private entry. In July he was at Inslington for the Agricultural Hall Show and won a Gold Trophy for two trips to Baldock and back.{144 Miles} The first took over 8 hours but only 3 hours were required for the return.?? He would later race in the Paris-Ostend race in the Panhard 8hp being joined by Lord Montague. The first Brits to race on the continent. I believe this is the car he used. In 1900 he was the ride along mechanic for Selwyn Edge in the Paris-Toulouse-Paris race.
Could be. Maybe even the Gordon Bennett Cup when he represented Germany. It sort of reminds me of the 60hp entry of Al Campbell in the '04 Vanderbilt Cup.
While we are on prehistoric' automobiles who can identify this unusual car with what appears to be driven independent front suspension. If you really study the photo, what look like slender drive shafts to the wheel do not appear to be quite on center,so who knows?
Heres some good info on the Miller/offy Harry A. Miller One of the few actual 'Heroes' to me. This guy made himself from nothing in the 'teens and 'twenties. He was still relevant in the 'thirties and early 'forties. His engine designs became the 'Offy' 4 cylinders. Hell, he gave Fred Offenhauser his start. The 'Offy' is in fact the engine that kept the people who worked for Miller working during the depression. It was simply the most economical product for them to make and therefore the most profitable one. Links: http://www.harrymillerclub.com/index.asp Have your headphones ready for when this one loads (then go listen to more clips): http://www.milleroffy.com/ Some text from one of the links: Harry Miller was born in Menomonie, Wisconsin, on December 9, 1875. In 1894 he moved to Los Angeles. During the early 1900s, Miller had been developing an original design for an improved carburetor. With the aid of a used lathe and drill press and a few essential tools, he began production. He filed for a patent to protect his carburetor design in 1909 and received it that December, five days after his 34th birthday. His business career took off with a rush. In 1912, Miller's carburetor company and assets were purchased by the sons of Charles Fairbanks and moved to Indianapolis in April. Miller continued to invent and file patents and in 1913, he incorporated the Master Carburetor Company, for the manufacture and sale of a new and very different carburetor. With brush-fire rapidity, the Master came overwhelmingly to dominate racing in the West, and then spread all the way to the Atlantic Coast. It was a resounding commercial success in the passenger-car, aeronautical, and marine fields. Early in 1912, Miller had developed - with carburetors bodies in mind - an original blend of aluminum, nickel, and copper, which he called Alloyanum. Continuing his experiments, Miller found that his new alloy was good for much more than light, strong carburetor bodies. He found that it made marvelous pistons and by in late 1913 he began pioneering their sale. His pistons swiftly became a virtual necessity for high-performance and aero engines. And, in spite of the Master sale, he continued to design and fabricate special carburetors and inlet manifolds for high power output. These factors, plus a fine machine shop that could duplicate the most exotic parts, served to make the roomy plant of the Harry A. Miller Manufacturing Co. the west coast mecca for anyone and everyone in the country with an interest in optimum performance on land, water, or in the air. By 1915, at age 40, Miller had made it. The first original Miller engine was commissioned in 1915. It was an inline 6, single-overhead-cam aircraft engine designed in the current aero Mercedes manner. An engine followed for "Wild Bob" Burman whose connecting rod broke in his 1913 Grand Prix Peugeot. Aside from a few bits, which could be recuperated from the scattered Peugeot, an entirely new engine and chassis was constructed. Pleased with the result, Bob ordered a totally new car with a new engine, a combination he never saw finished as a result of his horrific fatal accident at Corona in 1916. The second Burman engine was a very different engine design from any other twin-cam engine of the time - it incorporated a totally enclosed valve gear, predating Ballot by three years. In the summer of 1922, Miller began the design of a new engine and car for the 122-ci class. The new engine was only slightly changed: primarily the adoption of a two-valve hemispheric head and a five-main-bearing crankshaft. The bodies of the 183s had been remarkably narrow and lightweight, but those of the 122s seemed to be more so, the drawings calling for a maximum width of 18 in and a total weight of 1350 lbs. Aerodynamically, they were slippery projectiles, as the record list confirmed. The Miller 122 was the first pure racing car to be series produced and about fifteen cars were completed. Three cars were built for European Grand Prix use, driven by Zborowski, De Alzaga, and Murphy. In 1923, 46% of the Indy starting field was Millers; by 1925 it was 73%. Early specimens of the Miller 122s developed around 120 bhp at 5000 rpm. In response to the Duesenberg supercharging innovation, Miller designed a centrifugal supercharger for the 122. It raised the output to 235 bhp at 5800 rpm. In 1924, a Miller 183 chassis set two international speed records: 151.26 mph with a 183-ci engine and 141.17 mph with a 122-ci engine. Many records continued to be established by the 122s in ensuing years. As a result of a request for something uniquely superior to anything in the world, Miller designed and produced the 122 front-drive racing car in late 1924. Two were built before the 91-ci formula was enacted in 1926. If Harry Miller had done nothing more in his highly creative career than give the world front-wheel-drive as a practical reality, his significant place in history would be assured. The Miller front-wheel-drive car seemed to be a perfectly integrated harmonious whole, as machine and sculptural object. There was something about it that was close to being sublime. Without the driveline through the cockpit, the driver sat some nine inches lower than in the comparable rear-drive car. Miller further reduced the height of the radiator and the result was a low, rakish car of unsurpassed beauty. The long low hood of the new Millers bespoke nothing but power and established a virtual mandate among stylists for a long hood, or the illusion thereof, for decades to come. It was without doubt the greatest single milestone in the development of the appearance of the automobile between the end of the Edwardian era and the streamlining fad of the 1930s. The Miller front-drive was a bombshell of engineering and styling ideas tossed at a somnolent Detroit. There ensued a frenzy of speculation and research into front-wheel drive, which eventually abated after a few front-drive cars were placed into limited production. Only racing cars, rather than passenger cars like the Cord L-29, demonstrated the best possibilities of front-drive until the famous Citroen Traction-Avant of 1934 proved its entire practicality and merit for the road. Harry Miller's fortunes remained steadily ascendant throughout the Roaring Twenties. He made a great deal of money. He had a comfortable house in town, a ranch in the Santa Monica Mountains, and enjoyed the friendship of leading businessmen, sports figures, and Hollywood stars. In response to the new 91.5-ci formula, Miller designed a new engine and racecar. The heart of these cars was a straight-eight engine and body similar in outline and form to the 122. However, every single component, except for proprietary parts, was designed and built anew just for the 91. The Miller 91 rear-drive was built in series production and nine cars were completed. Ten Miller 91 front-drives were built, each an individual design. Factory engines started out with an output of 154 bhp at 7000 rpm. Intercooler innovations and internal refinements by Frank Lockhart pushed the output to 285 bhp at 8000 rpm. If you wanted to win, you had to buy Miller - if you could afford it. A factory rear-drive cost $10,000 and a front-drive cost $15,000. It was the price of admission: from 1926 to 1929, between 71% and 85% of the Indy starting field were Millers. In 1927, a Miller 91 rear-drive set an international speed record of 164.84 mph, including a one-way speed of 171 mph, and an international closed-course speed record of 147.729 mph. In 1930, a Miller 91 front-drive achieved 180.9 mph. Many other international speed records were established. As a result of Miller's car racing dominance, boat owners approached Miller to produce powerplants for racing and sport boats. Miller responded with marine versions of the 122-ci and 91-ci car engines and with new designs of 310-ci straight-eights and 620-ci V16s. One design in particular, that of a simple and reliable 151-ci four-cylinder, was a popular seller and a constant winner. Unfortunately, the looks, durability, and quality of the Miller racecars, those qualities that made them so successful, eventually led to their demise. A Miller chassis was the dream of every racer and would-be racer in the country for dirt track use or, later, for widening to use as a two-man Indy car. Eventually, every rear-drive 91 and all but two 122s were re-engined and otherwise altered so greatly that their original identity was lost YES, you read that right folks, in the late 1920's this guy was building a 91 cubic-inch straight eight, 2-valve-per-cylinder engine that was making 285 HP at 8000 RPM Does your boat need a 148 inch flat eight that makes 260 HP at 6000 rpm? Harry Miller can hook you up. The Barney Oldfield Golden Submarine? That was Harry Miller, too. Got a crankshaft from a 1918 Hudson Super Six and want to build your own racing engine around it? The miller Junior Special is for you. The engine that started Harry Miller's dominance for several decades at Indy: The 183-inch Straight Eight. Which later (due to rules) becomes the Miller 122: The fastest 122's are supercharged of course. Miller Front Drives are the stuff of racing legend. Eventually in the later '20's the rules tighten up again, and the 122 becomes a 91. A 285 HP@8000RPM 91-inch straight-eight. In 1926. I could go on for hours. Click the links, see what this guy (these guys) were able to do.
The car is the Napier L48. Glentworth was a regular driver of various Napiers, although without much success. He seems to have retired from driving after 1907, although Boddy records him as an entrant at Brooklands just after the Great War.
I found a photo of the Napier in the Gordon Bennett they won in 1902 along with a few specs. 127 X 127 mm four ( 5" x 5" ) 6,435 cc, 44.5 bhp at 950.
Although Glentworth set the fastest time in the Graphic Trophy, I'm pretty sure he was later disqualified as the car was a Gordon Bennett Trial chassis fitted with a touring body - the Graphic Trophy was for touring cars only. I have George Barwick (Daimler 38hp) as winner of this very short event which could be described as either a sprint or a hillclimb.
The Jalopy Journal
