The Amazing 1901 Columbia Gasoline Runabout

The lone surviving Columbia Mark VIII gasoline runabout (from the collection of the author)

The car pictured here is the only known surviving Columbia Mark VIII gasoline runabout (circa 1901). This car represents the very first automobile to use a front-mounted, gasoline engine driven through a multi-speed transmission with left-hand "wheeled" steering. In other words, this is the car that set the standard still seen today in most automobiles here in the United States.

This story starts with Hiram Percy Maxim (1869-1936) who was one of those brilliant and curious minds that came along in a time of great industrial expansion here in America. H.P. Maxim was the son of the inventor of the Maxim machine gun (Hiram Steven Maxim) and the nephew of Hudson Maxim, inventor of explosives and ballistic propellents. 

H.P. graduated from MIT and went to work close by in Lynn, MA for the American Projectile Company. It was here, while experimenting with things that exploded, that he is said to have developed his first internal combustion engine (it is written that Maxim was unaware of the work done by Damlier and Benz at the time). In 1894, he would place one of his engines in a three wheeled bicycle and it is this device that would spark the fascination of Col. Albert Pope - one of the nations largest bicycle manufactures. The story goes that Pope hired Maxim on the spot and created a "motor carriage" department at his factory in Hartford, CT, putting Maxim in charge. Maxim would design his first prototype vehicle for Pope's Columbia brand in 1896 - an electric phaeton. They missed the the Chicago Tribune race (1896), but would release their first products to the market in 1897 (the Mark III electric phaeton) and prove the merits of their automobiles by winning the first close-track race in New Haven, CT in 1899. 

The Columbia brand of electric vehicles would become one of the largest manufacturers of automobiles in America prior to 1900. Maxim would continue to improve upon his creations introducing no less than 7 different models in a three year window. Maxim developed his first gasoline prototype for Columbia in 1898 with a electromechanical transmission designed by J.B. Entz (later used in the Owen Magnetic). 1899 saw the release of the Mark VIII gasoline runabout. Columbia's Motor Carriage Company would merge with New York's Electric Vehicle Company in 1900 (Pope would sell out to EVC soon after). Maxim stayed on with EVC and continued to design new models. 

The Columbia Mark VIII gasoline runabout would be shown at the very first Philadelphia Automobile Show in February of 1901. Later the same year, 3 Columbia Mark VIII's were entered in the New York City to Buffalo endurance run (one car being entered by Jacob Astor). The early history of the car seen here is unknown to me, however it ended up spending many years in Henry Austin Clark's Long Island Auto Museum. The car now resides in a fantastic private collection in New England. 

As for Hiram Percy Maxim, he would go on to invent the first "silencer" for firearms after experiments on "silencing" internal combustion engines (we now call these mufflers). He also founded an amateur radio league (ARRL) and the Amateur Cinema League in New York.

The Automobile Review, April 1901

The Columbia Mark VIII when in the collection of the Long Island Auto Museum

Scientific American, March 9,1901

The Martin Wasp

The Halls in the Bill Gregg built Martin Wasp (from the collection of the author)

The photo seen here was taken by Dad in 1953 climbing the hill to the Princeton (MA) meet. The story of Karl H. Martin - the car's namesake - is wonderfully told here: http://www.coachbuilt.com/des/m/martin/martin.htm.

Although two restorations (or recreations, depending on your view) of the Martin Wasp cars were created, the car pictured here is believed to be the car built from original parts purchased from Karl Martin in 1947 by Bill Gregg.  Gregg would sell the finished car to Mrs. Glade Hall of Florence, MA in 1949. I believe it is the Hall family seen in this picture, diving the car.

The story, as recounted here from Coachbuilt.com, starts with Karl's father Dr. Truman Martin of Buffalo, NY. Dr. Martin is said to be one of the earliest purchasers of an automobile in Buffalo (a Columbia Electric) and the first person in the United State to have purchased automobile insurance (from a Travelers Insurance Company agent in Hartford, CT). Dr. Martin invested in many automobile related enterprises and encouraged his son Karl to join the industry. After passing on Yale and investing in the booming oil business, Karl moved to New York City and became an independent automobile designer (designing bodies for wealthy New York clients and automobile showrooms). Most of his work ended up on European chassis, though no known examples of his Manhattan coachwork are though to survive. 

Karl would relocate to Chicago, serve in WWI, and end up designing the Roamer line between 1916 and 1918. Karl eventually got the idea of starting his own automobile company and moved to Bennington, VT where he brought in two local investors to fund the enterprise. The prototype Wasp was ready in time for the 1920 New York Automobile Show and an estimated 11 four-cylinder cars and 3 six-cylinder cars are thought to have been built between 1919 and 1925. The Martin-Wasp Corporation was dissolved in 1932 and reorganized as the Martin Shops which manufacturing cast metal and wood products into the 1940s. Karl H. Martin kept all of the leftover parts used in the manufacture of the Wasp and it was from this stock that Bill Gregg built the car seen here.

The Zedel Motor Company

Zedel (in the collection of the author)

This image was taken by Dad in the mid-1950s at an un-named event in New England. The car is a rarely seen Zedel (a phonetic pronunciation of the founders initials, "Z" and "L" - for Ernest Zurcher and Herman Luthi). Established in 1901 in Pontarlier (Doubs), France - near the Swiss boarder - the company initially focused on manufacturing motorcycle engines. In 1906 they entered the automobile business and by 1910 were importing their cars to the United States. The Club Journal (published by The Automobile Club of America) of December 24, 1910 (reporting on the Importer's Salon at the Astor Hotel in New York City on January 2nd- 7th) states "Em. Voigt announces that he will exhibit five C.G.V.'s and one Zedel. The latter car, which is well know in Europe, has just been introduced in the the United States." He would show a 12hp collapsible landaulet priced at $3000. Em. Voigt appears to have been an importer of french cars located at 2120 Broadway in New York City.

The car shown here is either the 12hp or 15hp model, circa 1909 or 1910. In 1918, the company was taken over by Donnet and the cars became known as Donnet-Zedel. These later cars are more commonly seen in Europe. The earlier cars are quite rare as the company probably only made roughly 400 cars prior to WWI. 

Dad saw this car back in the day and remembered people saying it was quite rare. Notice the horribly out-of-proportion 1950's fenders fitted to the car. I have no idea what became of this car, but I image it's still out there somewhere.

UPDATE: Blog reader Ariejan Bos has found the Zedel! Our good friend, Joris Bergsma at PreWarCar.com wrote a post about this car: http://www.prewarcar.com/magazine/previous-features/while-we-re-at-it-why-don-t-we-014998.html. The post states, "The known history of this car starts in 1939 when John Leathers (a founder of the VMCCA) found it in a Massachusetts field. In 1941 he sold it to Fred Roe who took photos of it before any work was started. These reveal that it retains the original body, fenders and wheels that were not likely changed before that date. Roe sold it to Nelson Fontneau in 1950 and within two years, Fontneau had accomplished complete restoration of the car, although still without a top. Changing hands several times, it ended up in Southern California by 1970. Gordon Howard owned it from 1973 until selling it to Noel Petter in 1980."

The Club Journal, December 24, 1910