Elcar and Pratt Automobiles

Elcar and Pratt Automobiles
Author: William S. Locke
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 9780786409563

A surprisingly little-known marque today, Elcar once ranked among the finest vehicles on American roads. Built to exacting standards in Elkhart, Indiana, an Elcar could compete head-to-head on the basis of performance, quality, or price with the products of much larger manufacturers. Ultimately done in by weak distribution and the ravages of the Depression, Elcar today stands as an example of an ambitious company that transformed itself, successfully if temporarily, from a maker of buggies and harnesses into a respected car manufacturer in the early days of the automotive age. This remarkably exhaustive history, researched over several decades from all available sources, including interviews with former Elcar employees, details every Elcar model and the Pratt vehicles that preceded them, as well as the personalities behind the cars. Extensive appendices provide a complete model history, with specifications; a full corporate chronology; an illustrated accounting of all Elcars and Pratts known to survive whole or in part today; a roster of company employees; a descriptive list of all ads and brochures ever produced by the company; and a wealth of other data that can be found nowhere else. Lavishly illustrated and surpassingly thorough, this book is a well of information on a significant but forgotten line of automobiles.

Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines

Colonel Albert Pope and His American Dream Machines
Author: Stephen B. Goddard
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 264
Release: 2015-11-06
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 1476613346

In the 1890s Colonel Albert A. Pope was hailed as a leading American automaker. That his name is not a household word today is the very essence of his story. Pope's production methods as the world's largest manufacturer of bicycles led to the building of automobiles with lightweight metals, rubber tires, precision machining, interchangeable parts, and vertical integration. The founder of the Good Roads Movement, Pope entered automobile manufacturing while steam, electricity, and gasoline power were still vying for supremacy. The story of his failed dream of dominating U.S. automobile production is an engrossing view into America's industrial history.

Haynes-Apperson and America's First Practical Automobile

Haynes-Apperson and America's First Practical Automobile
Author: W. C. Madden
Publisher: McFarland
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2003
Genre: Transportation
ISBN: 9780786413973

While Elwood Haynes and the Apperson brothers are not as well known as Henry Ford, Ransom Olds and other famous automobile manufacturers, their contributions to the automotive industry are just as significant. They were responsible for one of the first functioning automobiles, if not the first, in the United States. After building their automobile in 1894, the three men formed the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company in Kokomo, Indiana, one of the first car manufacturing companies in the country. Three years after incorporation, a dispute over money caused the partnership to split up and Edgar and Elmer Apperson formed their own company. Both companies lasted until the mid-1920s. This book is a history of these automotive pioneers and their companies: the Haynes-Apperson Automobile Company, the Haynes Automobile Company, and the Apperson Brothers Automobile Company. It is richly illustrated with photographs of the factories, automobiles, personalities and advertisements.

Art Deco and British Car Design

Art Deco and British Car Design
Author: Barrie Down
Publisher: David and Charles
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2019-09-19
Genre:
ISBN: 1845844858

The Art Deco movement influenced design and marketing in many different industries in the 1930s, and the British motor industry was no exception. This fascinating book is divided into two parts; the first explains and illustrates the Art Deco styling elements that link these streamlined car designs, describing their development, their commonality, and their unique aeronautical names, and is liberally illustrated with contemporary images. The book then goes on to portray British streamlined production cars made between 1933 and 1936, illustrated with colour photographs of surviving cars. This is a unique account of a radical era in automotive design.