Veteran Roadster ID help!

[Gromit68]

Hi folks,
I know this isn't a Land Rover...but what is it?
It would have been taken circa 1914-1918 in Jervis Bay, NSW.

What make of car is it? Is it a Dodge?
Has anyone seen this car? (note non standard hood ornament!)
Who might know / any useful websites I could direct my question to?

-Alastair

[Phoenix]

Kinda looks like an alvis badge, but cars of that age are defenitely not my forte !

[Quiggers]

You might find the story is not so much the car,
I wonder who the 'Captain' and his first mate are?

A red hot race car of the day, judging by the slick tyres!
Wouldn't stop in a hurry, tho'.....

Cheers, GQ

[Gromit68]

Ah, I know a bit of the story...

The naval officer is Commander Duncan Grant, RN. He was the 2IC of the newly established Royal Australian Naval College in Jervis Bay. He was quite deaf, so was sent out to the 'colonies' to command the college. He quickly became Captain of the college by 1919.

The dog is named Bill. Bill lead the graduating classes onto parade (a specially selected midshipman's duty was to pick Bill up, after the march pass). There are a few surviving photographs of Bill proudly leading the march. Some of Australia's most famous naval officers would have marched behind Bill and known Commander Grant (and his car); including Vice Admiral Collins and Rear Admiral Farncombe.

Obviously, he had one of the first cars in the area...the college also bought an 8 seater Cadillac to ferry cadets in from Nowra.

I have this original photo on my wall at home - it's the only copy. The original still hangs in the Wardroom of HMAS CRESWELL. Since the car is rather unique, there's a tiny chance it's either been restored or it's in a shed somewhere. Of course, the likely scenario is he either:
(a) crashed it, on those slicks!
(b) took it back to England with him
(c) it's already rusted away...

[Quiggers]

No wonder he had such a big horn!

If you look very closely at the pic, there's the big rubber thing you squeeze to make a horn work, (bellows?) and unless my eyes are less than perfect, the horn tube runs all the way to the front end of the right side front guard...where I see the head of a serpent, might be a clue to the vehicles origin.... or its an early LR given all the rivets:D:D:D

I'm going English and maybe a Morris, but I'm no expert, whatever it is, is pretty flash for the time, lots of lights, a 2 seater with a roof, plenty of suspension, I'd go maybe early 1920s max as it only appears to have rear brakes...

given the ranking of the driver, he wouldn't be seen in anything less than his ranking, then there's his 'co-pilot'....

GQ

[JDNSW]

The general appearance of the car, particularly the acetylene lamps and the door handles point to it being Edwardian. The wooden spoked wheels, while not definitive, were much more common in the US than elsewhere. The bodywork is not indicative of the type of car as almost all cars in that period had bodywork made by a car body specialist - and the style reflects the body builder more than the chassis manufacturer. The radiator cap mascot is likely to be an aftermarket additon and not indicative of the type of car.

The nearest match I can find for the radiator shape and the shape of the badge is the Stutz, but there are certainly others I have missed, including quite a few that I have never even heard of - there were a lot of short lived manufacturers in that period.

John

[Quiggers]

It's a bit too tall for a Stutz, JD. (as in a 'runabout'). But you're right on about the thousands of coachbuilders who plonked on their custom bodies on available chassis.

Remember their famous (Stutz) Bearcat? Long(ish) and low...like the Mercer Raceabout.

Those woody wheels (spokes) and the hub design made me think of Chev, early 20s, (no front brakes) but the body is more English, or even a bit French..... Louis Chevrolet was a froggie... The small radiator and the frontal design leads us back to what phoenix mentioned earlier.... so a small radiator would mean a small engine, and the production line yanks were already into bigger mills... still thinking pommie...

I'll send the pic to dad, he's good at this stuff.

GQ

[Debacle]

Kinda looks like an alvis badge, but cars of that age are defenitely not my forte !

Wouldnt be an Alvis, I think they only started in the 20s. My dad had a 1926 12/50 he restored plus a TA21. I think they had an eagle as an emblem but not sure.

[JDNSW]

It's a bit too tall for a Stutz, JD. But you're right on about the thousands of coachbuilders who plonked on their custom bodies on available chassis.

Remember their famous Bearcat? Long(ish) and low...like the Mercer Raceabout.

Those woody wheels and the hubs immediately made me think of Chev, early 20s, (no front brakes) but the body is more English, or even a bit French.....

GQ

The Bearcat was not all that low actually - it just had no bodywork up high!

It definitely is prewar - nobody fitted acetylene lamps after 1918. You will also note that the wheels, which of course are not detachable, do not have detachable rims. This setup (you had to change the tyre on the wheel, on the vehicle - no spare wheel!) was not fitted to cars after about 1914. The radiator shape it typical of the period 1905 - 1912, although many manufacturers had other shapes in this period, it was hardly used outside this period.

Chevrolet, like other American manufacturers, retained wooden wheels long after they stopped using them in Europe, where they were replaced usually with either steel spoked wheels or wire wheels, probably reflecting the lower cost of good quality timber in the US compared to Europe.

John

[Quiggers]

Sorry John, I was looking those timber wheels and not paying attention to the lamps.

Is it a Napier?

This one looks similar: http://www.carandclassic.com/car/C16682

GQ

[Merv]

It looks very similar to a pre war DeDion Bouton. Allthough they usually had pressed vents on the sides of the bonnet.

Pity you dont have a front on shot of the radiator

[loanrangie]

It looks very similar to a pre war DeDion Bouton. Allthough they usually had pressed vents on the sides of the bonnet.

Pity you dont have a front on shot of the radiator

Could be right ,i was trying to remember the shape of the rad surround, could also be veteran caddie/ oldsmobile/buick ? I know my old man will know as he has 4 vintage cars.

[langy]

I was curious, so I did some googling... my bet is a Humber. You can just see somthing on the radiator, and when compared to the 1910 Humbers, it seems to match.

http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.svvs.org/links5/1912%2520Humber.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.svvs.org/help3.shtml&h=770&w=560&sz=42&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=U8atrbVgVgseAM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3D1916%2Bhumber%2Btourer%26svnum%3D10%2 6um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

[JDNSW]

Langy - Humber in that period had the name spelled out in block letters - not a more or less circular badge, and by that period all the Humbers I was able to find pictures of had steel wheels. As I said above, the radiator shape is not diagnostic - it was popular in this period!

Quiggers _ I have been unable to find a picture of a Napier that did not have wire wheels, so that sounds unlikely. Also all the pictures I have been able to find have an indistinguishable radiator badge, whereas this one has a prominent , if blurred, more or less circular one.

Loanrangie - both Buick and Cadillac tended to have the name in bold script across the radiator core, although I'm not sure all did.

John

[longreach]

:wasntme:hi,looking at the badge and embalm on the front of the car,it looks like it could be a whippet,there was a coach builder in Sydney,that built cars and buses called the whippet(thats how greyhound aust got its name )after the make of bus...they had a coach works in glebe,we forget some time that australia, built cars way back in 1890,s..the shearer steamer for one,not all old cars came from over sea,s,........although a lot of chassic were imported,from oversea,s like cadillac,buick, ford,and local coach builders built there own bodys to suit....the first ute,was built on a t modal ford chassic,here in australia ,some names of companys that built cars in australia are the Tarrant,Pioneer,Wege,Summit,Egan,Southern cross,Hartnett,Holden 1917 in S A (Holden and Frost) the first truck I drove back in 1960,was called a federal,it had a gardener motor 120 horse power,that was built in charleville,here in queensland,the truck had a wooden cab,was built in 1938,steel must of to expensive.regards keith:angel:

[JDNSW]

:wasntme:hi,looking at the badge and embalm on the front of the car,it looks like it could be a whippet,there was a coach builder in Sydney,that built cars and buses called the whippet(thats how greyhound aust got its name )after the make of bus...they had a coach works in glebe,we forget some time that australia, built cars way back in 1890,s..the shearer steamer for one,not all old cars came from over sea,s,........although a lot of chassic were imported,from oversea,s like cadillac,buick, ford,and local coach builders built there own bodys to suit....the first ute,was built on a t modal ford chassic,here in australia ,some names of companys that built cars in australia are the Tarrant,Pioneer,Wege,Summit,Egan,Southern cross,Hartnett,Holden 1917 in S A (Holden and Frost) the first truck I drove back in 1960,was called a federal,it had a gardener motor 120 horse power,that was built in charleville,here in queensland,the truck had a wooden cab,was built in 1938,steel must of to expensive.regards keith:angel:

The Whippet car was not related to the body maker - it was a Willys-Overland brand introduced in 1926.

As you say, cars were built in Australia from a very early date (pre-1900), and local bodies were already being fitted to imported chassis before the import of fully built cars was totally banned in 1914 as a war emergency measure.

A list I have located is :-
Shearer 1894
Pioneer 1897
Thompson 1898
Ziegler 1898
Sutton Autocar 1900
Tarrant 1901-03
Australis 1901,1905
Swinnerton 1907
Calwell-Vale 1911
Australian Six 1919 -26
Chic 1925
Southern Cross 1932
Summit 1934

Of these the only ones to be made in significant numbers were Tarrant and Australian Six. Most of the others made less than half a dozen, often only one or two prototypes.

As for wooden cabs on trucks - until WW2 few trucks had pressed steel cabs (for that matter they only started to come in for cars in the thirties), and then only a relatively few light trucks. The cabs on most trucks were built by the same body builders that built the trays and other bodies, and they used the same materials - wood mostly, occasionally with sheet steel for flat surfaces, and rarely aluminium sheet, all on a wooden frame.

The reason steel was rarely used was partly cost compared to wood, but also a matter of tools and skills - most bodybuilders had been or at least trained as coachbuilders before motor vehicles arrived, and had neither the skills nor the tools to work with sheet steel, but they were skilled in woodworking, and also in the blacksmithing of brackets, fittings etc.

John

[Bigbjorn]

They were called c-cabs from the c-shaped opening where the doors and windows are today. Trucks were built and/or imported as chassis/cowl or chassis/scuttle with the local bodybuilder doing the rest. Most towns of a reasonable size had a body builder or two. This style persisted into the sixties. Earlier efforts sometimes had four across seating with a passenger outboard of the driver. I think this disappeared in the thirties, probably as a result of legislation. The outboad passengers in these vehicles usually were bereft of wind and weather protection. A normal c-cab had two or three (squeeze) capacity and clip-on curtains in lieu of doors for use in inclement weather. These curtains commonly got lost or left at the depots the body builders rarely provided a storage compartment.

[JDNSW]

They were called c-cabs from the c-shaped opening where the doors and windows are today. Trucks were built and/or imported as chassis/cowl or chassis/scuttle with the local bodybuilder doing the rest. Most towns of a reasonable size had a body builder or two. This style persisted into the sixties. Earlier efforts sometimes had four across seating with a passenger outboard of the driver. I think this disappeared in the thirties, probably as a result of legislation. The outboad passengers in these vehicles usually were bereft of wind and weather protection. A normal c-cab had two or three (squeeze) capacity and clip-on curtains in lieu of doors for use in inclement weather. These curtains commonly got lost or left at the depots the body builders rarely provided a storage compartment.

In the late forties my father built a new cab on his 1921 Reo truck - it featured four across, but had (second hand) doors. It was wood framed covered with second hand sheet metal, rivetted - very noisy and hot. No problems getting it registered.

See attached picture - that's me on the left.

John

[p38arover]

Look you blokes. The only fellow here old enough to have seen one of those in his youth is Brian Hjelm! :D

So we had better believe whatever he says.

Ron

[Bigbjorn]

Well, I may have got my first driver's licence as an attachment to a Spare Master's Ticket (Foreign Going) in Sail but I am not that old. It is not a Napier. They had bigger, flatter as in wider, radiators and I never saw a Napier with other than wire wheels. Napier stopped making cars in WW1, made trucks up to about 1923, and engines thereafter. The picture is definitely of a pre 1918 car. The wheel size and acetylene lights tell you this. Pity about the damaged photo. The damage is right where the best identifier of old cars is, the radiator badge. The wheels and hub caps look American, possibly v. early Dodge Bros. but the radiator badge, blurred as it is, does not look like the DB Star of David. A pommy remittance man with brass hat rank in the grey funnel line would most likely have brought a pom-mobile with him. Any historical publications of the Midshipmen's College mention him and/or it? Anyhow, P38aRover, didn't the Colonial Posts and Telegraph Office train you in semaphore & heliograph before you got on the old bludger's rest & retirement home, the NSW Railways?

[p38arover]

Well, I may have got my first driver's licence as an attachment to a , P38aRover, didn't the PMG dept. train you in semaphore & heliograph before you got on the old bludger's rest & retirement home, the NSW Railways?

Oi! :mad:

I wasn't trained by those bludgers in the APO. I was trained by the Dept of Civil Aviation (I was with OTC(A) and they used DCA as their trainers).

We were supposed to be able to send and receive Morse Code at 15 wpm to qualify as techs. I could never tell the difference between a dot and a dash. The Telegraph Training School instructors gave up on me.

Speaking of heliographs, in the early days (by today's standards) we used (in OTC) mirror galvanometers for accurate current measurements on submarine cable systems.

The galvanometer swung a mirror, not a pointer needle. A light was shone onto the mirror and then reflected onto a scale. It was much more sensitive and accurate.

It's funny how things change. I worked on the first satellite communications stations back in the late Sixties/early Seventies when they were the latest high tech thing - we thought we were sh*t hot being in the forefront of the latest technology. Now most international comms are via submarine cables once again. (I was back in that when I left Telstra).

Time to get back on topic.

Ron

[Gromit68]

Sadly, no reference to the Commander's car exists down at the Naval College. I think the best they have down there is the receipt expenditure logging the purchase of the 8 seater Cadillac.
There's not even much written about Commander Grant. He was a very popular officer there though.

I've got the photo circulating with a few veteran car clubs at the moment - I'll put up the answer if and when I ever find out what sort of car it was!

Alastair

[Quiggers]

:the first truck I drove back in 1960,was called a federal,it had a gardener motor 120 horse power,that was built in charleville,here in queensland,the truck had a wooden cab,was built in 1938,steel must of to expensive.regards keith:angel:

Just out of interest, Keith, there's a Federal truck running around here, built maybe prewar - with the c-cab....unrestored and rough as guts, but still goes (sometimes 100k or more trips) and pops up at various local vintage type car displays.

Cheers, GQ

[Bigbjorn]

Oi! :mad:

I was trained by the Dept of Civil Aviation (I was with OTC(A) and they used DCA as their trainers).



Ron

Ah! Civil Aviation. They were the days back then when you trained, wood and wire, fabric and dope, castor oil fumes and the bark of a rotary engine. Were the aircraft still called box kites then?

[Bigbjorn]

: the first truck I drove back in 1960,was called a federal,it had a gardener motor 120 horse power,that was built in charleville,here in queensland,the truck had a wooden cab,was built in 1938,steel must of to expensive.regards keith:angel:

Long time since I saw a Federal on the road. Ampol had quite a few. The Australian distributor was H.W.Crouch of Sydney who moved to Diamond T and Diamond Reo after Federal's demise and then to White and Leader. Did some interent research. Federals were founded in Detroit in 1910 by a local syndicate whose ownership continued to 1952. They were built in Federal Ave. Detroit. Very conservative design and always a well finished pretty truck. The history says about 160,000 were built in total, and in their peak years, the 1940's, Australia took 200-250 per year. The company was sold to the Hawick Clutch Co. of Cleveland Ohio, in 1954 and again that year to Napco Industries of Minneapolis, who eventually moved production there. Production declined to a few hundred in 1959 when production ceased.

[kaa45]

I used to have a 1938 Morris 25hp which was coach built as most cars of the era. Not so much the cost of steel as the cost of production (tooling and presses). Much smaller volumes than now, so costs for new models had to be kept to a minimum.

[kaa45]

I reckon it's Chitty Chitty Bang Bang !!!!!!!!! :wasntme:

[Gromit68]

The closest ID i've got so far is:

1910-1913 Studebaker Flanders Roadster

-cheers
Alastair