60 Years Behind the Wheel. Bill Sherk
CAR IS SO OLD it doesn’t even have a steering wheel. Steering is by tiller. Its a Curved Dash Oldsmobile, a popular model in production from 1901 through 1906, and powered by a horizontally mounted one-cylinder engine. Over twenty thousand of these sporty little runabouts were sold. The first one into Canada was reportedly purchased by a minister in Oil Springs, Ontario. The one seen here is participating in a parade of jalopies along Lakeshore Boulevard in Toronto in 1930.
In October 1901, Roy Chapin left the Detroit factory in a Curved Dash Olds, crossed the Detroit River into Windsor, Canada, on a car ferry, and drove across southern Ontario, heading for the second annual auto show in Madison Square Garden in New York. The trip took over seven days, but he made it. When he arrived at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, he was so dusty and dirty from driving hundreds of miles on primitive roads that the doorman refused to let him in. He entered through the back door. The publicity generated by this trip was the best advertisement a car company could have, and these little Oldsmobiles began selling as fast as the factory could crank them out. Chapin’s route to New York took him across southern Ontario because that was the shortest route. The Canadians who saw him whizzing by at his top speed of 25 miles per hour, or mired in the mud, were probably getting their very first look at this new invention.
Back then, and even today at antique car events, these little Oldsmobiles were easily recognized by their dashboard, which was curved for better visibility. And how did the word “dashboard” come to be applied to the part of a car in front of the driver? The answer can be found in 500 Years of New Words:
That part of an automobile we still call the dashboard can be traced back to the days of horses and buggies. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines dashboard as “a board or leather apron in the front of a vehicle, to prevent mud from being splashed by the heels of the horses upon the interior of the vehicle.” The first writer who used the word (according to the OED) was John Lang in “Wanderings in India,” published in 1859: “He fell asleep, his feet over the dashboard, and his head resting on my shoulder.”1
Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary dates the word even farther back — to 1846.
Modern-day auto buffs who pride themselves on precision in language prefer to call the dashboard the instrument panel because its no longer there to protect you from chunks of mud flying from horses’ hooves.
Winton Runabout, Toronto, circa 1904
THIS AMERICAN-BUILT, RIGHT-HAND-drive Winton attracted a crowd of mostly men and boys in front of the King Edward Hotel in downtown Toronto in the early days of motoring. The hotel was named in honour of Edward VII, the reigning monarch (1901–1910) and an early enthusiast of motor cars.
The “King Eddy” first opened its doors in 1903, and on July 27 of that year, it provided the venue for the first general meeting of the Toronto Automobile Club, which had already set up a permanent office in the hotel. Through amalgamation with similar clubs in Hamilton, Ottawa, and Kingston, the Ontario Motor League was born in 1907.
The Winton was named for Alexander Winton, who began building automobiles in Ohio in 1897. One of his first customers was John Moodie of Hamilton, who imported a Winton into Canada in 1898. The one shown here is typical of cars of that era — no windshield, no doors, and no top. Motorists often bathed or showered after every drive on the mostly unpaved, dusty roads. Note the heavily clothed female passenger and the goggles on the driver’s cap.
The headlights shown here are covered, perhaps to protect them from stones flying up from horses’ hooves. Even if you intended to drive your car only during daylight hours, you were well advised to equip your car with a pair of headlights. The roads were littered with horseshoe nails, and changing a flat tire could delay your return home until after dark.
Not everyone who owned a Winton was happy with it. One of Mr. Winton’s first customers didn’t like the car and told him so. To which Winton allegedly replied, “If you’re so smart, maybe you should build your own car, Mr. Packard.”
James Ward Packard did exactly that, and test-drove his first car in November 1899. Winton automobiles remained in production until 1924. The Packard nameplate survived until 1958.
Cadillac Truck, Toronto, circa 1906
IF YOU WANTED SOME FRESH fruit or game delivered to your house in Toronto around 1906, you picked up your phone (if you had one) and asked the operator for Main 7497 or 7498. The driver at Gallagher & Co. Ltd. crank-started the Cadillac delivery truck from the side and drove off to your address, powered by the ten-horsepower, single-cylinder engine mounted under the front seat. This particular vehicle was perhaps a car converted into a truck, a common practice back then.
Note the folded top behind the driver. This truck no doubt made deliveries in all kinds of weather, and a top would be deemed a necessity. The Cadillac nameplate is visible below the phone numbers, and the hole for the crank is below that. When these noisy engines fired up, nearby horses often reared up in fright.
The Cadillac was named after the French explorer who founded Detroit in 1701, and the car quickly earned a reputation for precision engineering, beginning with its very first model completed in October of 1902. Six years later, eight single-cylinder Cadillacs were shipped to England. Three were selected at random, driven twenty-three miles to the new Brooklands Motordrome, and then completely disassembled. The 721 parts of each were scrambled with the others, and 89 parts were replaced with off-the-shelf substitutes. Cadillac mechanics reassembled the three cars from the 2,163 parts, then drove them at top speed for 500 miles, earning for Cadillac the highly coveted Dewar Trophy for excellence in standardized interchangeable parts.
Breakdown Near Sarnia, circa 1908
SCENES LIKE THIS INSPIRED THE lyrics of a song: “Get Out and Get Under.” The car is a Rambler Type One Surrey with a two-cylinder, eighteen-horsepower engine, a model in production from 1904 to 1908. The secondary “steering wheel” operated the throttle. Note the absence of a top or a windshield (usually available at extra cost).
The license number (2994) is clearly visible but with no year of issue. Ontario introduced license plates in 1903 as a convenient new source of revenue, but did not issue annual plates with the year displayed until 1911.
The Rambler was renamed the Jeffery in 1914, after the founder of the company, Thomas B. Jeffery. The Jeffery was renamed the Nash in 1917 when Charlie Nash took over. The Rambler name was revived in 1950 with the introduction of America’s first commercially successful post-war compact car, the Nash Rambler.
Engineless Car, Leamington, circa 1908
BILLY COLEMAN, OTIS DELAURIER, AND Richard Malott were photographed sitting in this car of unknown make and year with the engine out. Perhaps its parked outside a shop that rebuilds engines while you wait. The tires are white because that’s the natural colour of rubber. Black tires appeared around 1916, when carbon was added to the tires for greater strength.
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