VETERAN CAR GUIDE
1896 Salvesen steam car .
Renault Louis Renault built a very small car in Billancourt , France . Its wheelbase was only 43 inches , and it featured a tubular frame and a little De Dion engine . It was an advanced design with front-mounted engine , wheel steering , and his very special final drive by shaft to a bevel gear on the back axle ( no chain or belt drive ). The three-speed gearbox had direct drive on top . Helped by his brothers , he set up the company and production commenced using De Dion or Aster engines . Improvements were continuous , and in 1902 he started to use engines of Renault design . Racing and building racing cars were an integral part of the company . Marcel Renault won the 1902 Paris to Vienna in the four-cylinder car . Six cars were prepared for the 1903 Paris to Madrid . Marcel was killed and the race stopped at Bordeaux , and Louis did not race again .
Rexette Rex-brand bicycles were made in Birmingham , England up to 1902 , when it moved to Coventry and merged with the Allard Company , bringing out a range of cars . In 1903 a tri-car was made , which grew more car-like in 1904 and was called a Rexette .
Rochet Rochet was a French cycle manufacturer . In 1902 , it made a small car driven by a 4.5hp single-cylinder Aster engine . In 1904 , the licence to make these was acquired by Daneels of Ghent .
Rochet-Schneider Founded in 1894 , this company manufactured high quality cars originally modelled on the Benz system , being rear-engined with single horizontal cylinder up to 1901 . After that , it changed the design to the more conventional Systeme Panhard with the engine up front , two or four vertical cylinders , and updated it again in 1903 to imitate the very latest Mercedes designs .
Salvesen ( steam ) HA Salvesen , a member of the family that owned the Christian Salvesen shipping company of Leith near Edinburgh , had built a steam vehicle with coal-fired boiler at the back powering a horizontal , two-cylinder , double-acting engine mounted on a steel chassis . It was steered from the front , with boiler-man at the rear and passengers on wooden benches in between .
Stanley ( steam ) The Stanley Brothers built a car in 1897 . It was lightweight and fast , and they entered it in the speed trials of New England ’ s first automobile show , where Francis Stanley drove it to victory . By the end of 1899 , they had made and sold about 200 cars . John Brisbane Walker bought the business and renamed the cars Locomobile . The Stanleys had a year off from motor manufacture and then , in 1902 , started the Stanley Motor Carriage Company . By 1904 , it had four different models , and by mid-1905 the boiler was moved to the front of the car .
32 The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run