1903 Fiat
Clearly inspired by contemporary Mércèdes practice, the 1903 16/2 4hp FIAT had a four-cylinder engine cast in two pairs and low-tension magneto ignition; it was the work of FIAT’s new designer, Ing Enrico. The main difference between this car and the Mércèdes was that the FIAT used a wooden chassis strengthened with steel flitch plates, while Mercedes frames were always of pressed steel.
1904 Peerless
The Peerless company, of Cleveland, Ohio, still exists today as the brewer of Carlings Ale, but in the years from 1900 to 1931, Peerless built some of America’s finest luxury cars. This model is a 1904 24 hp tourer, which cost $4250 complete with canopy and glass windscreen, then regarded very much as extras. Its designer was Louis P. Mooers, one of the first to incorporate lessons learned on the race track into production vehicles.
1904 Brushmobile
This little blue car is a curious survivor, being the sole known example of the 6hp Brushmobile of 1904. Its engine and chassis (which had coil springing all round) were built by Vauxhall for Brush, an electrical engineering company which produced cars between 1902 and 1904. The bodywork was apparently ‘modernised’ around 1912, as light cars did not have side doors in 1904.
1904 Franklin
Aura vincit-‘Air Conquers’ -was the the motto of the Franklin company of Syracuse, New York, who, from their birth in 1901 to the end of production in 1934, built nothing but air-cooled cars. This 1904 model has a 12hp transversefour engine, and is identical to the car in which L.L. Whitman halved the trans-America record to 33 days in 1904, averaging 155 miles a day, even over deserts. Although travelstained … the car gave little evidence of the ordeal’, stated a contemporary report of the event.
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