VETERAN CAR GUIDE
Mercedes / Simplex The Mercedes Simplex was designed by Wilhelm Maybach in Stuttgart, Germany from 1902 until 1909. It featured powerful engines ranging from 40 to 60hp.
Milwaukee The 5hp Milwaukee steam car with a 5hp vertical two-cylinder engine, chain-drive and tiller steering was made in Wisconsin, USA. Three body styles were offered, namely a two-seater Stanhope, fourseater Surrey( which could be steered from the rear seat), and a delivery van. In 1902 a four-seater rear-entrance tonneau with wheel steering and a small front bonnet was offered, but the company was bankrupt by June 1902.
MMC Harry J. Lawson, entrepreneur and promoter of the first London to Brighton Run in 1896, created The Great Horseless Carriage Company Ltd in Coventry, in 1897. By 1898, this had become The Motor Manufacturing Company Ltd. This was based in part of The Motor Mills, which housed various manufacturers, including Daimler. The early MMC and Daimler shared many characteristics including the 4hp twin cylinder vertical engines, steering and ignition. George Iden joined the company, and in 1899 new designs were available with rear-mounted horizontal-twin engines and side gear change. By 1902, the engines were front mounted with one, two or four cylinders. The company faced restructurings and financial constraints leading to modest output.
Mors The Paris-based Mors company initially manufactured petrol-engined railway inspection cars, and then produced a motor car based on the designs of Henri Brasier, an employee at the time. It used low tension coil and dynamo ignition. A later development included V4 engines with water-cooled heads and air-cooled barrels that were rear-mounted. By 1898,
1900 MMC. production was growing rapidly, and the‘ Petit Duc’ was launched with a smaller, front-mounted 850cc flat twin cylinder engine and final drive by side chains. Full water cooling was adopted in 1902, and from 1903, vertical engines were standard. Models introduced in 1903 had four-cylinder T-head engines, Mercedes-like honeycomb radiators, chain drive and pressed steel chassis. The 1904 engine options included an 8.1 litre 40 / 25hp model.
Napier At the beginning of 1898 Selwyn Edge, manager of the Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company acquired the Panhard‘ Old Number 8’, the second placed car in the 1896 Paris-Marseilles race. He enlisted the services of Montague Napier at David Napier & Son, to undertake various modifications and improvements to the car. These were caried out to Edge’ s satisfaction and by 1900 Napier were building complete cars for competition and later for normal road use. The first Napier distinguished itself in the Thousand Mile Trial of 1900, driven by Edge. Other racing cars were built, the most famous being a 30hp, four-cylinder car that won the Gordon Bennett Race for Great Britain in 1902. In 1903, Napier built 250 cars, and needed to expand from his Lambeth premises to Acton, London. In October, the company announced the 18 / 30hp sixcylinder range that became its trademark, and by 1906 Napier had an all six-cylinder product range.
Napoleon Mr Bernard Neave of London displayed a Napoleon at the Crystal Palace Motor Show in 1903, that was manufactured by the Paris-based Lacoste et Battmann Co., using a De Dion Bouton 6hp engine.
New Orleans This was a Belgian Vivinus voiturette built under licence in Orleans Road, Middlesex, by H. G. Burford and Dutchman Johannes Van Toll. The car had a front-mounted 3.5hp single cylinder engine with belt transmission to fast and loose pulleys on a countershaft and then by spur gears to the rear axle. A 6hp two-cylinder car was available at the end of 1900, and in 1901 came a 7hp model with water cooling and three forward gears. Both tubular frames and flitch-plate chassis were used. For 1903, there was a tubular-framed 9hp twin cylinder and a flitch plate 14hp four-cylinder range. It is possible that components were still sourced in Belgium from Vivinus.
Northern Northern was founded in Detroit, Michigan USA by two ex-employees of the Olds Company – Charles Brady King and Jonathan Dixon Maxwell. Maxwell designed
54 The London to Brighton Veteran Car Run