Beschreibung:

The most important marques in the history of New England’s automobile industry were Stanley and Locomobile. Although they are known for being adherents of vastly different means of propulsion – Stanley for its steam cars and Locomobile of large, luxurious gasoline automobiles – their histories are intimately and inextricably intertwined. That they ended up so different in such a short span of years is a surefire indicator of the rapid evolution of automobile design in the first decade of the 20th century and of the vicissitudes of business in those fast-moving years. Locomobile was started when the energetic publisher of Cosmopolitan magazine, John Brisben Walker, decided he should be in the automobile business. After being rebuffed by the Stanley brothers when he offered to acquire a half interest in their company in mid-1899 he talked them, instead, into naming their own price for their fledgling company and its designs. Thinking they’d get rid of Walker then and there, the Stanleys put a $250,000 asking price on the table. Walker, to their astonishment, picked it up and left a $10,000 non-refundable deposit (half the Stanleys’ investment in the company to that time) while he went off to find someone else to put up the money. He found Amzi Lorenzo Barber, the asphalt king, who bought half of Walker’s nascent business for a quarter million dollars, leaving Walker whole and in control of the best steam car in America. Unfortunately, as happened frequently in those days, the thrill of partnership wore off early and Barber and Walker parted ways. In the breakup Barber got the original Stanley plant in Watertown, Massachusetts which he moved a year later to a new location on the water in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He called the new enterprise Locomobile and turned out over a thousand lightweight steam runabouts by 1902 when Barber appointed his son-in-law, Samuel Davis President and returned his attentions to his asphalt business, an endeavor which the automobiles he had helped get established would soon make a massive enterprise. Under Davis’s guidance Locomobile continued with steam, acquiring the Victor steam car in 1902, but Davis recognized that its limitations, at least with the resources at Locomobile’s command, were fast being reached. He hired Andrew Riker as chief engineer and sent him to the Victory works to go to work in secrecy on a new model. It wasn’t steam, it was gasoline and it was introduced in 1903. The first year’s offering included both 2- and 4-cylinder engines but Locomobile went to all 4-cylinder cars in 1904. After initially offering four different models from 20 to 45 horsepower, in 1906 Locomobile concentrated on only two, the 15/20hp Model E and the 30/35hp Model H. The company established a refined position for itself, using high quality materials, the most advanced production and manufacturing methods and intense, thorough finishing, fitting and assembly to ensure that each Locomobile was the finest possible quality. Just two years later, in 1908, Locomobile accomplished one of the greatest victories in racing when Gene Robertson drove the 90hp, 1,032 cubic inch Locomobile special “No. 16” to victory in the wildly popular and internationally publicized Vanderbilt Cup race on Long Island. All of Pierce-Arrow’s Glidden Trophies paled in comparison with Locomobile’s success, beating in an all out competition of speed and handling over the highways, roads, streets and lanes of rural Long Island the best automobiles and drivers in the world. In 1907 Victor Lougheed wrote of Locomobile in Cycle and Automobile Trade Journal, “The three secrets of Locomobile’s success are the use of the best materials, accurate fitting of all parts, and a rigid policy of giving some sort of finish to every surface. Add to this a consistent practice of conservatively utilizing every meritorious feature of the most advanced work in the field of automobile engineering and the high prestige the Locomobile enjoys is not difficult