History H.A.M.B. Sleuths, one for you guys to solve.

I'm kind of leaning toward a mid-20s Willys Knight, or possibly Stearns Knight.. Just not sure about any connection with the aluminum bodywork.

 

The Alcoa experimental vehicles used aluminum for a lot more than just body panels. A lot of the parts were aluminum, including driveline bits and pieces. It is an interesting read. Google is your friend................................

 

Ok. Here is what we need to get straight. All of the following is info from research, and therefore supplied by others, not me. The car at the Henry Ford Museum is one of four experimental vehicles produced by Alcoa in the mid 1920's. These used aluminum for a lot of the parts, not just bodies. One was apparently a five-p***enger sedan driven by Arthur Vining Davis, president of Alcoa at the time. More to the point, it would have been driven by his personal driver, Tony Petrilli.

Alcoa also produced aluminum bodies for other vehicles at around the same time. The car in the original post could be either. It certainly has many similarities with the car at the Henry Ford Museum, although it appears to be a seven-p***enger model. Who knows ??? The picture is not of a high enough quality to easily make out the needed details, and we are working with info from almost 100 years ago.

Tony Petrelli (Carla's grandfather), being Arthur Vining Davis's driver at the time, would almost certainly have driven the rare experimental car, along with any other vehicles Davis had at the time. That is the cool part.

 

^^^ See post #38. A good thread is worth the whole read.............................

 

Hopefully, a couple phone calls on Monday will bear fruit!

 

This is starting to get kind of crazy..In a fun way, .I took a trip to the Henry Ford Museum yesterday, long drive from Oregon...so I had Scotty , my pilot, fuel the jet and turn in a flight plan and we were gone...you know that damn place was closed for Thanksgiving....should of called first.
So I went online and took the virtual tour of the museum, ya they got that, found some interesting stuff.
Ya need to go back to the beginning of the thread and start over because things are getting all twisted up.
Also almost every car maker back in the 20's , and there was alot more than the big three back then, was experimenting with building cars and parts with aluminum, and yes cast aluminum too.
Also the car has 3 windows on each side...and there are things that separate it from others that haven't even been brought up yet that are quite obvious....and there are alot of cars that look close ...even Dodge...and tires ,wheels, bumpers can all be options and easily changed.
One other note...remember it was a chauffeur driven car , so most were not just your normal sedans...
Short front compartment with larger rear p***enger areas., tailer roofs.
So carry on...its all fun.

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Note that the info I copied from the site said "The resulting Pierce-Arrow bodies were exceptionally strong and lightweight."

It didn't say anything about being "lighter".

 

The thing that makes me think it is related to the one in the HF Museum is the body line that runs diagonally across the hood. Seems fairly unique for that time period.

 

Just a little bit of info on a possible direction.?.

Aurthur Vining Davis was a very rich man, very close at being the rishest man in the United States at one time.
If you happen to look up some history on owners of
Brunns & Company Coachbuilt motor cars , you will see the name Aurthur Vining Davis on the list .
He also owned alot of aeroplanes and investment properties.
Also the car that the driver is standing next too has the roof line of a limo type , tall roof, car.
And the part of the story that the pictured car is the aluminum car is several year old second hand info.
Even though its claimed that the chauffeur had driven the alcoa aluminum car ,its not definite that the car in the picture is the aluminum car.
No matter what ,Alcoas car was not the first aluminum car to be built.
Its all a good story and history from a looking in instead of looking out info gathering party.
I have learned some from it so far.

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a bit more history on this .... https://www.motoringnz.com/views/2020/4/20/pomeroy-treading-lightly-in-the-1920s

 

All true, and no previous post states anything different...............................

The Alcoa cars were most definately not the first aluminum cars. Many companies in the US, and around the world, flirted with aluminum, mostly using it for bodies and body panels. Some were cast, most were formed sheet over a wood sub-structure. The Alcoa cars were apparently a little unique in the fact that aluminum was used for a whole lot more than just the body parts. This makes them stand out from the crowd.

 

Nice catch. Very interesting.......................................................................
I'm looking for a reason not to award the points.
That is very distinctive hood styling. Maybe to stop the aluminum tin-canning??? (pardon the pun)

 

That is excellent info. Anyone following this thread should read thoroughly.
Much appreciated @raylloyd .

 

That is interesting. My '24 coupe has an aluminum roof panel made of sheet and I know it was not the first.

 

All interesting..
First off I was not criticizing any previous postings, I was just kind of summarizing some of the info gathered, possibly for my own ...like thinking out loud through my fingers....kind of thing..sorry.
I find this kind of research and grouping of idea's and minds interesting, family history interests me.
Like this one , a family member that was good friends or in this case a employee, especially one that was well liked by the boss, of a well known or famous person in history.
They can usually tell you things that no body else could have info on or a inside veiws of things or the what a person really was like.
In my family the story that I find the most interesting was the one of my Grandfather in WW2.
He was a Sargent in the famous U.S. Army Company B and happened too be Sargent of the famed war hero and later movie star Audie Murphy , infact in the book and movie " To Hell and Back" where Audie played him self , when the name " Beltzkie"... not sure of the spelling....came up , they were referring to my grandfather , Sgt. William Beltz, .
He said that he didn't really have a problem with the guy ,
And that alot of the heroics that Audie was getting acknowledged for was more government involved for purposes of people back home wanted Hero stories.
Also apparently Audie had a gambling debt owed to my grandfather that he never paid and when Audie latter became a movie star and was getting famous, my grandmother decided she was going too try and collect on that debt and fired off a letter to Audie in Hollywood.....it was returned with no acknowledgment.
I have seen the letter its actually pretty funny.
Anyways sorry too ramble.
I m looking forward to what this thread is going to produce.
Thanks
Terry (aka Rudestude)

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We deeply appreciate all the comments and "likes". Hopefully tomorrow will bring more info with calls to Alcoa and the Ford Museum. Anything learned will be p***ed on to a great group of people!

 

Getting OT, But early 9N Ford tractors had a cast aluminum hood and several other aluminum piece's.

 

Evening Gents. Made phone calls yesterday to Alcoa, (Howmet and Arcronic -Sub-Divisions). No one in ( Holidays??) so I left messages. Hopefully we'll hear from them soon.

 

Any news yet ????

 

In fact aluminium panels over timber framing (ash was the timber of choice) was standard practice in bespoke coachbuilding for a very long time. Presumably the innovation in the Alcoa cars was the use of (pressed?) aluminium instead of timber framing?

Of course Alcoa was, like the Budd Company, already very much part of the machine which would end up diverting automotive technological development to those techniques which offered the greatest scope for ever-greater investment of profits in recapitalization, to the exclusion of alternatives. Under the cir***stances their use of "futurist" language for a few tweaks to an essentially artis**** technique is unsurprising. This is a fascinating bit of history, in how it begins to prefigure the New Deal about a decade later. Someone should write a book picking that bit of politicking apart.

 

Hey guys! Been down with the crud for over a week. Sorry to say that I've not received even one response to the calls I originally made. I called again today with the same results...straight to answering machines. ****s!!

 

Maybe you could try the author of this article, its pretty recent and he might be able to tell you who to speak with:
https://jimhinckleysamerica.com/2020/07/06/a-man-who-wrote-the-history-of-the-future/

 

Thanks for the info Ray. Will give it a shot!

 

1925 ALCOA/Pierce-Arrow Experimental Aluminium (trombinoscar.com)

Brand


ALCOA

PIERCE ARROW

Model

EXPERIMENTAL

Finishes

Aluminium Sedan

Year

1 9 2 5

quan***y/price

unique copy

Body

all-aluminum sedan


EXPOSITION OF THE HENRY FORD MUSEUM and GV FROM DEARBORN (Michigan-USA) 2002

• Host: The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Villageis theworld's largest museum, not to mention the surface. He goes around all American life, including the automobile, in a non-sectarian way. Indeed, virtually all brands are represented
• American cars: There are not only Fords in the museum, and I believe they are even in the minority. On the other hand there are only American cars (in addition to planes, trains, household equipment, agricultural, machine tools, an experimental house and so on....)
• web page
• photos: they are from your webmetre in April 2002

WHAT THE MUSEUM SAYS

• ALCOA - the ALuminium Company Of America was founded in 1920 in Cleveland, Ohio by Lawrence H Pomeroy and John S Burdik
• About 85% of this car was made of aluminum, the lightest material that could be used at the time. It has a 246.9cid in-line aluminum engine developing 55hp. It was manufactured at the Pierce-Arrow workshops in Buffalo, New York
• The project was not successful for reasons of cost of production and even by the modest production of aluminum at that time

PHOTOS OF THE ALCOA_PIERCE-ARROW EXPERIMENTAL 1925








Yes

 

First billet 20 inch wheels! Lol

 

History - We ALL Love a DARE! PIX of TRULY Extinct Makes? | Page 44 | The H.A.

1. This is an experimental 1925 Pierce Arrow with an aluminum Alcoa body
   
   
   
   
   When you can reduce the weight of your production vehicle by nearly 20 percent and suffer no ill effects, what do you get? Today, you’d get a raise, promotion, commendation from the governor and a ticker-tape parade. In the 1920s, you’d get little more than a “good show, Johnson.”
   
   Such was the case with the 16 or 18 experimental aluminum-bodied cars that Alcoa and Pierce-Arrow jointly built between 1920 and 1926. They effectively reduced the weight of Pierce-Arrow’s behemoths from more than 3,700 pounds to slightly more than 3,000, but economic forces kept the experiment just that.
   
   
   
   
   Last edited: Dec 21, 2009
   SUNROOFCORD, DEC 21, 2009
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