This past Wednesday I opened my mailbox to find a package from my best friend & fellow car enthusiast Jonathan Duffy. This made my day before I even opened the package because Duffy never dissapoints in the gifts department.


Last time I got a package from Duffy it was a Haynes Repair Manual for my 1984 Datsun Maxima. He managed to track down a copy in some bookstore in the middle of Arizona. Just south of Cactusville and west of Sand Hill. :P


Well this time for a Christmas present he managed to find me a near-mint copy of the classic magazine Motor Age from December 17th 1914. So that makes it exactly 91 years old as of today. The print quality & photos are in exceptional condition and I'm quite shocked to see how little damage/fading/yellowing this bundle of papers has sustained.

I wanted to share some of this amazing find with you guys. Here's a few pages, more to follow in a few days. In the mean time check out this trivia that I've set up:

http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums/index...?showtopic=4082

Edited December 17, 200519 yr by Sixty8panther

Those "speaking tubes" are outrageously cool.

Jeez, they even used model-year designations in the beginning... That Willys-Knight is also gloriously expensive for its time. And the magazine subscription rate is the same as it would cost to buy a copy of Car & Driver straight off the rack. And yes, those wacky speaking tubes are pretty cool, but what's the deal with two passengers in a race car?

Jeez, they even used model-year designations in the beginning...

That Willys-Knight is also gloriously expensive for its time.

And the magazine subscription rate is the same as it would cost to buy a copy of Car & Driver straight off the rack.

And yes, those wacky speaking tubes are pretty cool, but what's the deal with two passengers in a race car?

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A driver and a guide, kinda like rally!

Those "speaking tubes" are outrageously cool.

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Yes, I've already sent off my 49 cents to Paris France for a set of detialed instructions as to how to make a set of my own using nothing more than "things that can be found arond the house" plus a roll of duct tape and four shower heads. :P

Those "speaking tubes" are outrageously cool.

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yeah, bring tic-tacs.

but what's the deal with two passengers in a race car?

one is a mechanic.

Sixty8- does the radial motor diagram refer to a car by any chance??

Edited December 18, 200519 yr by balthazar

Sixty8- does the radial motor diagram refer to a car by any chance??

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Isn't that a Gnome engine, commonly used in airplanes?

http://www.keveney.com/gnome.html

Damn... that's alot older than my 1954 copy of Popular Mechanics... :P Cool. B)

Balthazar: I'm Happy to report that the diagram of a Gnome Rotary Motor wiht a stationary crankshaft was included in the magazine only to demostrate the differance between a radial motor with revolving cylinders and a motor with rotary VALVES. What a fascinating era to live in... so many promissing technologies in the works. I had not even HEARD of the existance of Rotory valves untill Mr. George Kent asked this question in his letter to the editor sometime in the fall of 1914. :P As far as rotating cylinders... it's pure genius when they're air-cooled with lightweight cooling fins. So I'm still going to build a hot rod someday wiht a radial engine out of some ancient Biplane. It's an idea I've had in my head since before I was old enough to realize it COULD be done in all practicality.

Damn... that's alot older than my 1954 copy of Popular Mechanics... :P Cool. B)

Yes...but I have a copy (reprinted in 1985) of the first issue of Horseless Age from 1895. I worked for the company that published the current iterations of Horseless Age (Automotive Industries) and Motor Age, both of which are still published today.

Wow... cool. What year did Motor Age cease to exist under that title?

Edited December 19, 200519 yr by Sixty8panther

Wow... cool. What year did Motor Age cease to exist under that title?

Motor Age still exists today under that title.

Here's several more pages of exciting news from the cuttign edge of Automotive technology circa 1914. ^_^




















BTW: more good stuff can be found here... all your que



http://www.cheersandgears.com/forums/index...st=0#entry61182

Edited December 20, 200519 yr by Sixty8panther

did they have nay pro toyota and GM bashing articles? LOL

did they have nay pro toyota and GM bashing articles?  LOL

It was actually an article called, "Comparo: 1915 Quarter Horse vs Chevrolet 390" subtitled "You'll never guess who wins!"

LOL Now that's funny! :lol: "The 1914 Gramm-Bernstein 6-ton truck. It does the work of 71 donkeys" J/K

What is Car-Nation is this all about!

Yup... the "Car-Nation car - 20HP" was a pretty funny ad at first glance. And all us children of the 70s and 80s thought AMC was an unoriginal name. :P

Yup... the "Car-Nation car - 20HP" was a pretty funny ad at first glance. And all us children of the 70s and 80s thought AMC was an unoriginal name. :P

AMC wasn't even the first "American Motors." But my favorite car brand of all time was the "A Car with No Name": a simple idea of building a car and allowing local merchants to place their own brand on it...the 1920 equivalent of "Walmart" or "Acme" brand (not that there wasn't also an Acme brand).

I once read somewhere that in the first two decades of the 20th century there existed something like 1600 car manufacturers just in the USA. I'm sure many shared generic engines and such but still that's amazing. What an amazing time to be alive.