Strut & Axle • Winter 2018

t u r StAXLE &

Ignite Your Imagination | WINTER 2018

A MEMBERSHIP PUBLICATION OF THE OWLS HEAD TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM

Unwind your mind as the Museum debuts five fabulous movie nights that celebrate the twists and turns of transportation on the big screen!

AND

s l e e h W s l e Re ES I R E S ION T A C U R ED E T N I W M Up to Speed T H O 9 Saturday, March 16, 6pm 1 20 Speed up to investigate Hollywood’s many SCHEDULE Stored but not Forgotten Saturday, January 19, 6pm OHTM’s winter film series kicks off with a night all about bi-wheeled beauties that take the phrase “open road” to a whole new level - motorcycles!

Date Night Double Feature Saturday, February 16, 3pm & 6pm This year for Valentine’s Day, tune up the romance when you treat your sweetheart to a double dose of aviation screen gems that will truly make your heart soar!

claims about the automotive racing industry, guided by the local and national drivers who know!

Family Fun Feature Saturday, April 20, 3pm Celebrate the warm months ahead with a carefree evening spent eating buttery popcorn and revisiting a classic family film that always goes over with a bang!

Doomed From the Starter Saturday, May 18, 6pm The series wraps up with a tribute to a pioneer whose masterpiece did not stand the test of time, but shed light on the competitive industry he fought to serve.

General Admission: $5 • Members: FREE Join us each month for a new cinematic adventure, concessions, and insight from local industry experts!

S&trAut XLE FOuNdERS THOMAS J. WATSON JR., (1914-1993) JAMES S. ROCKEFELLER JR. STEVEN LANG BOARd OF TRuSTEES Thomas H. Rudder, Chairman Gary C. Dunton, Co-Treasurer John D. Karp, Co-Treasurer John Harris, Secretary Duncan W. Brown Rodney D. Gray Robert T. Jacobs John D. Karp Steven Lang Steven Levesque

Matthew Orne James S. Rockefeller, Jr. Molly Shanklin Norman Shanklin John Ware, Sr. Lawrence Woodworth

Executive Director Kevin Bedford Emeritus Charles Chiarchiaro, Director Emeritus Kenneth Cianchette, Lester W. Noyes, Francis J. O’Hara, George Phocas

Contents STRUT & AXLE | WINTER 2018

4

From the Cockpit Old Number 2018

By Kevin Bedford

6

The Three Ps Early American Automotive Royalty

By Sarah E. Dunne

12 The History of the Trailer

By Rob Verbsky

18 driving the T What do you mean, there’s no gas pedal?

By Marianne Stevens

Strut & Axle Staff Editor & Digital Storyteller Thomas Goodwin Creative Director Kat Stuart Contributors Kevin Bedford, Sarah E. Dunne, Rob Verbsky, Marianne Stevens, Sophie Gabrion Copy Editors Sarah E. Dunne, Sophie Gabrion MISSION The Owls Head Transportation Museum is a nonprofit educational organization. Its mission is to collect, preserve, exhibit and operate pre-1940 aircraft, ground vehicles, engines and related technologies significant to the evolution of transportation for the purpose of education.

Strut & Axle is the quarterly publication of the Owls Head Transportation Museum’s Lang Education Center.

P.O. Box 277, Owls Head, ME 04854 Tel: (207)594-4418 • Email: info@ohtm.org Web: owlshead.org

24 Is Bigger Really Better?

By Sophie Gabrion

30 Rearview Mirror

By Sarah E. Dunne ON THE COVER: OHTM volunteers give Model T rides to visitors seasonally on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at special events.

3

FROM THE COCKPIT

Old Number

2018

by Kevin Bedford, Executive Director

I

FIND THIS ONE of the most delightful times of the year. The rigors of another event season are but memories. Thanksgiving has just passed and with the many celebrations yet to come two of life’s greatest joys lie close at hand: one, there will be feasting and; two, there will be leftovers, delicious leftovers, and those inevitably lead us back to, you guessed it, more feasting!

It’s a truly lovely cycle that results in resting, digesting and contemplative repose. Now comfortably stretched in our metaphorical languor we may turn our gaze to a disheveled dinner table randomly filled with future targets of our gustatory delight.

So too it is with this issue of Strut – the rigid focus of thematic planning having given way to relaxed foraging on interesting tidbits passed by in the vortex of the feast. Let the picking begin as we turn our attention to the long-gone opulence of The Three Ps. 4

In the quietude of olden times we may once again delight in the distinct heritage flavors of price, pedigree and prestige of the now long-lost but once noble marques – Pierce, Peerless and Packard.

Our next subject calls for a footloose attitude toward life, and as we’ve become devoted foragers it seems like a fine time to embrace the vagabond lifestyle and imagine life on the road.

With the notable exceptions of the Gypsy Caravan and the Conestoga Wagon, the world of the travel trailer is not one that our Museum has devoted all that much attention to. So it is with great interest that we join Rob Verbsky on a trip through the golden age of the American travel trailer.

Now it’s time for volunteer Marianne Stevens to serve us up a meal we take so much for granted, experienced through a different lens. Few things are more ubiquitous at OHTM than the Ford Model T – our bread and butter so to speak. How wonderful to be privy Strut & Axle

F R O M

T H E

to this first-taste experience of the novice traveller, the long-lost connection to a memory resurrected. These simple yet powerful accounts form the meaning of our effort.

Finally, as in any good meal (even leftovers!) there is dessert, my personal favorite. It’s fitting that at this moment when, after your second meal, having long ago discarded your belt, dessert arrives and it is enormous. It is in fact the largest aircraft ever built. OMG, yes!

Satiated and content, it is normal to give the mind freedom to wander through time, experiences and personalities. Recently, at a book signing for Museum Founder James Rockefeller’s memoir, “Wayfarer,” we were reminded of a time before the Owls Head Transportation Museum existed. Also in at-

C O C K P I T

tendance that evening were Founder Steven Lang and Founding Director Charles Chiarchiaro who along with Founder Thomas Watson, Jr., now passed, caused this wonderful institution to come into existence. We owe them so much.

I send my deepest thanks for all you have given in making this institution the incredible place it is.

To each of you reading this issue— members, volunteers, trustees, staff and friends—I send my deepest thanks for all you have given in making this institution the incredible place it is and for your support past, present and future.

Founders James Rockefeller, Jr. and Thomas Watson, Jr. WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

5

The Three Ps

Early American Automotive Royalty

by Sarah E. Dunne, MLIS, Librarian & Archivist

A

T THE OUTSET of the automobile industry, the United States had hundreds of manufacturers. However, many were shortlived and did not survive to capitalize on the Roaring Twenties, let alone long enough to succumb to the Great Depression.

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In those early years of true luxury automobiles, Packard, Peerless and Pierce-Arrow gained such stellar reputations that they were commonly referred to simply as “The Three Ps.� It was assumed that everyone who could afford such magnificent cars, and many who could only hope to, knew what the Strut & Axle

The Three Ps in OHTM’s Main Display Left to right: 1929 Peerles Roaster (on loan from Robert Williams), 1926 Pierce-Arrow Series 80, 1939 Packard Town Car

nickname meant. But how did those three in particular achieve ascendancy amidst so much competition?

All of the Three Ps started their automotive ventures on a small scale, represented in the OHTM collection by the De Dion-Bouton engine and roadster. Initially, both Peerless and PierceArrow built small cars powered by De Dion-Bouton engines made under license. James Ward Packard owned a U.S.-made motor tricycle, and his brother, William, had a De Dion-Bouton trike years before the two started making their own cars. The engine on OHTM’s single-cylinder 1909 De Dion-Bouton roadster is very similar WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

OHTM’s 1895 De Dion-Bouton engine 7

to those earlier models, but by that time all three Ps had long since moved on to manufacturing bigger, more powerful cars. Eventually they would all progress to building 12-cylinder engines to power their luxurious vehicles, as did other high-end marques, but Packard was the first to do so.

“Your First Packard” advertisement

Peerless (1900-1931) OHTM’s 1909 De Dion-Bouton Voiture

The Pedigrees Packard (1899-1958) The legend goes that mechanical engineer James Ward Packard was irritated by the shortcomings of the Winton automobiles that he and his friend George Weiss had purchased; when Packard complained to Alexander Winton directly, he received a snarky response to the effect that if he could make a better car, he should. Packard did. He and his brother poached Weiss and a couple of other men from Winton’s team, and in 1899 expanded their electrical-equipment manufacturing plants to produce automobiles.

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Already an established firm, Peerless sold products internationally when it entered the automobile market. It made what at first glance seems like an unlikely jump from manufacturing clothes wringers to building those new-fangled bicycles in 1891, then moving forward again to cars. A bold move at a time when the decline of horse-drawn vehicles was far from certain, even if some visionaries had seen the signs. It soon became known for its racing machines, including the “Green Dragon,” piloted by all-time racing great Barney Oldfield.

Pierce-Arrow (1901-1938) Prior to automobiles, Pierce manufactured mundane yet mechanically complex luxury items, including ice boxes Strut & Axle

THE THREE Ps

and birdcages. The firm decided to get into the high-end bicycle market (shaft-drive bicycles with full suspension before 1910), then began developing and testing out car designs at the turn of the century. These moves made sense; if you had factories set up for fine machining work, and had forward-thinking, affluent clientele, why not experiment with potentially lucrative new markets? If they turned out to be only flashes in the pan, you could return to your bread-and-butter production work. As it turned out, Pierce cars remained superb until the end, becoming the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company in 1908.

The Decline of the Greats World War I was in many ways a boon for all three Ps, each of which retooled their operations to make military engines and vehicles.

But the aftermath hit hard. Initially, it looked as if recovery from the losses of the war might not be toodaunting. The Roaring Twenties kicked in, and were at first good to automakers, but it was not to last.

Pierce-Arrow was bought out in 1928 by Studebaker—the latter hoping to expand and enhance its brand—but when the Depression hit, Studebaker

Peerless Motor Car Co. Factory in Cleveland, Ohio, 1909 (Courtesy of the Smithsonian Institute) WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

9

THE THREE Ps

was unable to maintain both marques.

In 1933 Studebaker sold Pierce-Arrow at a loss to investors who intended to not just salvage but revive it. PierceArrow kept building beautiful cars. But it could not fight the inevitable and 1938 was the year that Pierce-Arrow built its last few production cars.

In the early Thirties, also hit hard by the struggling economy, Peerless made the difficult decision to leave the automobile market and go into a very different industry. Prohibition was increasingly unpopular, and Peerless took a gamble, converting their manufacturing facility to a brewery. When Prohibition ended, luxury cars were still out of reach for most Americans,

Peerless took a gamble, converting their manufacturing facility to a brewery. but beer was not. The company quickly expanded its line of brews and was profitable for many more decades. Beer still came in steel cans in those days, but the final Peerless car was a stunning aluminum-bodied 1932 prototype with a massive V-16 engine.

Packard had managed to survive the Depression by introducing less expensive models – “Junior Packards”. While still of high quality, these smaller cars worked against the brand’s exclusive appeal. Converting early to military production for World War II helped Packard survive, but the end of the war brought the end of the big government 10

contracts. Packard was no longer the coveted brand of its glory days, and by the mid Fifties, it too had been bought out: Studebaker had again stepped in.

The new firm was now the fourthlargest automaker in the U.S., but could not sustain both lines. The last true Packard was produced in 1956 and, although the name lasted two more years, the cars were viewed as just Studebakers dressed up as Packards – “Packard-bakers,” as they were none-too-respectfully nicknamed.

In 1904, the American Automobile Association held the first Glidden Tour, a grueling automotive reliability and endurance road rally in those days before service stations or adequate roads.

Pierce entered a car; not only did it take first place, but the firm proceeded to repeat the feat for five straight years.

Packard and Peerless also fielded vehicles in the tours. The original Glidden Tour series ended in 1913, an ironic victim of the automobile’s success. It was delightfully revived after World War II, and is still held to this day by the Vintage Motor Car Club of America (VMCCA). Remarkably, it continues to feature many of the same original makes and models - including all Three Ps - that took part in the original, pre-paved-road Brass Era events.

In past years, some stunning examples of these cars have crossed the block at the New England Auto Auction™. The continuing appeal and lasting elegance of these cars makes it clear that their luxurious legacy will be preserved for years to come.

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The GreatWar EXHIBITION NOW OPEN

Through innovative interpretations, obscure objects, and memorialized machines, OHTM’s Great War exhibition will transport visitors on a dynamic journey to understand the mechanization of warfare from 1914-1918 and find an accessible glimpse into one of the events that defined the 20th century and shaped our lives today.

VISIT TODAY! Tours available every Tuesday at 11:00am

History of the

Trailer

by Rob Verbsky, PhD, Curator

12

1929

was a terrible year to start a new business of any sort. Yet bacteriologist Arthur G. Sherman did just that. With $10,000 he founded the Covered Wagon Company after a frustrating family camping trip with a tent trailer. Sherman debuted the first Covered Wagon trailer at the Detroit Auto Show in January 1930 and sales grew continuously during the 1930s. By 1936, CovStrut & Axle

< Interior of trailer in Dennis Port, Massachusetts (Photo by Carl Mydans, 1936)

ered Wagon was a company with $3,000,000 in revenue and ended unemployment in Mt. Clemens, Michigan with a new factory turning out 1,000 trailers a month.

1936 was the maturation of not just the Covered Wagon, but the entire trailer industry and community. August saw the debut of The Trailer Caravan, a monthly magazine touting the trailer experience. Through a variety of WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

publications, trailer owners and manufacturers promoted trailer travel in the late 1930s to the American public in order to protect the burgeoning industry from government officials and American communities who feared trailer owners were nothing more than unemployed, unclean migrants.

Until the creation of a trailer industry, many of the early auto trailers were really no different from the wagons of the 1800s. Most owners built their trailers in their garages and backyards. Books like Thomas A. Blanchard’s “How to Build Trailers,” outlined how to build nine different trailers ranging from a one-person trailer to the “Aloha,” which included a shower, ice box, stove and sleeping space for five. Even the venerable magazine Popular Mechanics printed a special Auto Tourist’s Handbook No.1 in 1924 with “133 practical plans for making automobile touring easier.”

Among these plans were instructions, material lists, and cost estimates for constructing a camp car out of most any used touring car. Including a used car, lumber, and other materials, the authors estimated the entire project would cost only $605.

While most of the early rolling homes were privately built, the first manufactured home trailer is attributed to aviation pioneer Glenn Curtiss, better known for the Curtiss “Jenny” airplane.

He first produced his Aerocar in 1919, 13

THE HISTORY OF THE TRAILER

which featured Pullman-type berths, running water, a telephone between trailer and tow car and even optional air conditioning. As noted by Allan D. Wallis in “Wheel Estate: The Rise and Decline of Mobile Homes,” the Aerocar was not a commercial success, although it “embodied a new synthesis between the ideal of camping as rustic… and the romantic vision of technology winging mankind into a comfortable but adventuresome future.”

It took another decade for trailer production to really grow. Between 1929 and 1934, the number of registered trailers increased from 193,044 to 615,315. However, upwards of eighty Between 1929 and 1934, the number of registered trailers increased from 193,044 to 615,315. percent of all trailers were still built by the owner in his backyard or garage.

But change was coming as there were some 350 to 400 trailer manufacturers across the country by 1935.

In addition to a burgeoning industry, the 1930s also saw the publication of two trailer magazines, dozens of books, and countless articles in newspapers and national magazines like Fortune, Collier’s, and the Saturday Evening Post. Much of this literature was produced by trailer owners who sought to improve the public’s view of trailer travel.

Many critics linked trailer travelers 14

to autocampers of the 1920s and the dramatic growth of a seemingly nomadic, potentially unemployed, and unclean subculture. Between 1923 and 1926, communities across America passed anti-autocamping ordinances because campers were seen as poor people who either would not work or were unable to maintain consistent employment. Many Americans believed these nomads were taking advantage of municipal autocamps by maintaining a semi-permanent residence in the camps without contributing their share of the cost of municipal services like electricity and waste removal.

In response to critics, trailer enthusiasts sought to connect their nontraditional lifestyle to widely accepted ideas of what it meant to be an American. Some attempted to sway public opinion by writing travelogues detailing the variety of people and experiences found while trailering. Jay Darling, the founder of the National Wildlife Federation, wrote “The Cruise of the Bouncing Betsy” to explain that he and his wife got a trailer to escape cold Northern winters while also avoiding unhealthy roadside hotels and saving money on the entire trip.

Of course, not everything in the Darlings’ experience was positive. Early in their trip, the couple was driving on a road that changed from a Federal concrete highway into a state blacktop road that looked acceptable but was really quite wavy. The road change caused a catastrophe in the trailer as Strut & Axle

every unsecured item became a whirlwind of furniture, packages, pots, and pans. He used the incident to call for better federally funded roads throughout the country.

Jay Darling described many other problems trailerites needed to solve. An ongoing issue was finding suitable parking locations at night, which occasionally forced the couple to stay in a hotel instead of the trailer. Darling believed it was because some communities had not yet realized trailer users were more responsible than autocampers. Ultimately, he concluded trailers were “going to change the whole pattern of civilization. The roads and towns will all have to be redesigned and rebuilt.”

Others, like Winfield Kimball and W. Livingston Larned in “The Trailer for Pleasure and Business,” presented the trailer as a solution to urban social and economic problems during the Great Depression. They began by reminding readers that trailers were the natural development of tent camping; that women loved having the comforts of home on the road with a trailer; and that a trailer allowed people to economically see America. They also wrote that trailer owners were not “merely shoddy gypsies; they are representative Americans with wallets, imagination, and culture.”

Kimball and Larned focused on how industrious Americans used trailers to support themselves economically. In many cases, their examples WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

Grand opening ribbon ceremony for Continental Mobile Homes of America (Photo by Roy Erickson, 1970)

came to live in trailers because of unavoidable physical or economic hardship. By mentioning these extenuating circumstances as their reasons for living permanently in trailers, the authors argued these Americans would prefer to maintain a traditional home and community, but used the trailer as a form of American industriousness.

Unfortunately for trailer enthusiasts, critics did not distinguish between respectable trailer owners who purchased their trailers and the backwoods yokel who slapped together a trailer from any available material. Numerous critics saw the expanding industry as a threat to people “already congenitally foot-loose, with an alarming case of vagabondia.” Journalists at Fortune magazine were concerned that once a family had experienced life on the road, it was too easy to “ceaselessly 15

THE HISTORY OF THE TRAILER

wander to the end of the earth.”

The writers at Fortune appeared to be vehemently against the expansion of trailering. In 1937, they gave credence to statistician Roger Babson’s prediction that fifty percent of Americans would live in trailers by 1956 because Babson predicted the 1929 stock market crash six years before it occurred.

But they also likened the entire trailer community to a “plague of locusts” and echoed the critic Gilbert Seldes’ fear that trailering would trigger a mass migration worse than the Crusades.

This fear of social disruption was supported by surveys showing 50% of Americans were interested in acquiring a trailer. More than half of them were interested in purchasing a mid-range ($200-600) trailer while less than 10% were interested in buying the cheapest trailers (under $200).

Most trailer critics focused their concerns on how this seemingly nomadic lifestyle violated the middle class mythos of the nation. Many Americans in the 1930s saw those living in trailers as modern gypsies who abused the goodwill and values of more rooted citizens. These conflicts over the use of trailers in American society occurred primarily between trailer residents and municipal officials in the courts. Ultimately, most disputes could be reduced to a question of whether owners used trailers as a vehicle or a building. From this basic argument evolved numerous debates over taxation, safety, and occu16

pancy of trailers.

Clarence Carson, the police chief of Orchard Lake, Michigan, testified in court that trailer residents “roll in in their trailers and proceed to enjoy all the privileges of the lake without paying taxes… and they aren’t discreet in getting into bathing suits either.” Carson said this during the November 1936 trial of Hildred Gumarsol over an illegal building. He was told a house trailer constituted a building, which local ordinances required it to have at least 400 square feet of living space.

While it may seem peculiar that a complaint about taxes and morality turned into a court case on building regulations, this case illustrates how critics, like Carson, sought unconventional ways to punish what they considered an un-American lifestyle.

One of the most contentious debates about the place of the trailer in American society occurred in the home of the American automobile industry, Detroit, Michigan. In December 1936, inspectors from three different municipal agencies descended on trailer lots throughout the city. On December 4, Health Department officials ordered 144 families to stop living in trailers because the facilities were “unhealthful and unsanitary.” The residents countered that while their trailers were not ideal for everyday living, they were the same size as one-room apartments and in better condition than many of the homes, apartments, and rooming houses in the city’s slums.

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THE HISTORY OF THE TRAILER

Residents attempted to further bolster their defense by announcing no trailer family in the city had ever filed for aid at the Detroit Welfare Department.

However, many trailer owners admitted to maintaining apartment or house addresses, so it is possible they simply applied for aid at a different location.

The following year, the Second Regional Highway Safety Conference convened an Advisory Committee on trailer legislation. Among the Committee’s objectives was to suggest regulations only where actually necessary and not to “attack imaginary menace.”

More importantly, the committee members recognized trailer regulations could not wildly vary from state to state because of the highly mobile nature of trailer travel. Implicit throughout the report was that trailering was a permanent fixture on the national landscape. More explicit though was that these state officials preferred to see

the trailer as an automobile, and focused more effort on ensuring trailers were safe while in motion rather than on how long officials should let them sit in a camp. This could mean committee members expected municipal officials to impose limits on trailer stays thus requiring trailers to be as roadworthy as possible.

The debate over the propriety of trailer living was interrupted by World War II. Housing shortages led many communities, industries, and colleges to use trailers to house workers and students. After the war, the debates changed because the market split.

Short-term vacationers and long-term residents began using different trailers.

The recreational vehicle debuted with true portable convenience for the road trippers while the mobile/manufactured home became the popular, economical residential choice for many Americans who preferred to stay put.

IN MEMORY OF DEPARTED FRIENDS Adrien E. Bowden John G. Curtis Peter Timoney Richard H. Cobb Albert F. Carlson John Hare Alden Sherman Pamela Rehm

WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

Sarah Shanklin Andrew B. Stinson Vance C. Brown Edward W. Coffin William B. Ruger, Jr. Lionel Heal Manley H. Bailey, Jr. James Westervelt

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Marianne driving the T around the OHTM grounds.

18

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Driving the T What do you mean, there’s no gas pedal?

by Marianne Stevens, OHTM Volunteer

T

HAT’S PROBABLY the most common reaction I get from guests riding in one of OHTM’s antique Model T Fords.

The opportunity to drive cars from 1914 and 1915 was never something I thought would come my way (volunteering at the Museum opens many doors, but not the driver’s side door on a T because Henry Ford never put one there).

I have been driving manual shift cars since 1973 when I bought a Hillman Avenger, as it’s what we had rented during a vacation in Ireland, but I did not have a clue how to work the clutch and shifter. It wasn’t bad until I was inadvertently forced up a steep hill with a stop sign at the top. Quite frankly, I had been driving out of my way to avoid stopping on a hill WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

since I bought the car but this time I was stuck. A little rolling back, a few stalls, but I made it through the intersection and I’ve been driving stick shifts since then with no problems.

My introduction to being a successful Model T driver was performing the pre-check. Starting at the front of the car as I was taught, I learned to check the radiator fluids and add to them; I was able to check the oil level and locate the quart bottle to top it off when required; I could take the front seat out and check the gas tank underneath. With no gas gauge for these cars, one removes the gas cap and use a dipstick (literally a stick) to determine the fuel level. As someone a bit vertically challenged, I had to get into the car to see into the gas tank. And finally, I learned to connect the battery, which is under the rear floorboards. I had done all of these things on modern street cars but never on a car more than 100 years old.

19

First run of Ford Auto Club of Portland, Maine, June 26th, 1910

Like many people, I looked at the three floor pedals in the T and figured I had this made. How wrong I was. The learning curve was pretty high and it took months to feel somewhat confident behind the wheel. If I remembered to give it throttle I would forget to change the spark. If I remembered to retard the spark, I’d forget to adjust the choke. And then there were the times I wanted to use my left foot on the clutch - which, like a driver’s side door, doesn’t exist.

The volunteer drivers provide Model T rides at all the Museum’s weekend events. It doesn’t matter if one is two or ninety-two, the overall interest and excitement is the same.

There was a ninety-eight year old man on his birthday, celebrating at the Museum with his family. He had been a World War II bomber pilot and walked with a cane. The T can be difficult to enter but one of the volunteers had built a sturdy step to make this easier and our veteran got into the back seat and sat back for his ride. He had learned to drive on a Model T and was 20

thrilled to be in one again. He didn’t think he’d ever have another chance to ride in one. He spent the entire ride telling his grandchildren how lucky they have it with modern cars.

I can attest to that. Although I can drive the Ts, I’m not the best at diagnosing and fixing problems. There was one weekend last summer when I was rescued by the summer intern and his crew. With the car full of passengers, we had reached the turnaround at the Museum’s entrance and the car just stopped. Of course it might have been driver error but I like to think it was the 103-year-old car being finicky. I couldn’t get it restarted with the electronic starter so it needed a crank, something I’m physically unable to do.

I radioed back to the auto shop and soon a golf cart with a 3-member pit crew arrived. The passengers all got out to see how the crank starting worked.

They got an added bonus on that ride.

Another interesting passenger was a 12-year-old boy with his parents. He sat up front and I didn’t need to explain anything to him. He was so exStrut & Axle

cited to be in a Model T because it was his â&#x20AC;&#x153;favorite ever car.â&#x20AC;? He knew everything about it. How the pedals worked; how the planetary gear worked; how the throttle and spark levers worked.

This boy was a walking encyclopedia of Model T knowledge. I wanted to clone him or at least remember half of what he knew about the history and operation of the cars. He rode with us a few

WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

times that day and loved every minute.

So did I. Some of my favorite passengers are local folks who are making their first trip to the Museum. So often they say that they never knew it was even there.

They seem to enjoy learning that almost everything on display at the museum is capable of being driven or flown. I look at being a Model T driver

21

DRIVING THE T

as another opportunity to educate our guests as to what we offer at the museum and to relate to them some of the anecdotes I share during docent-led tours. Many passengers are return visitors and it’s fun to remember them and welcome them back.

This past summer, a couple was riding in the back of the car and it was driving me nuts trying to remember why one of them looked so familiar.

Had he visited the museum before? All through the ride I was trying to figure it out and finally, it hit me. We hadn’t seen each other since 1995. We had worked in the same building for years and celebrated our retirement together. What a reunion! I was glad to see he had a member sticker and he told me they now had a summer home in this area. I look forward to seeing him again.

The Museum attracts a large number of guests visiting from abroad. I remember one family from Germany who loved the Model T but they were especially fascinated by the Bertha Benz exhibit. I can relate; Bertha’s ride and her help in getting Karl’s Motorwagen known in public is a fabulous story. We’re lucky at the Museum to have a working replica of the 1886 Benz.

As I like to tell my passengers, those three pedals on the floor don’t do what you think they do and not one of them is the gas pedal. And that’s when the shock hits them. “How do you drive without a gas pedal?” “There’s no clutch?” “How fast does it go?” All are common questions from visitors.

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Many people, especially children, are fascinated to realize that the Model T was an improvement on a horse and buggy for many folks back in the early twentieth century. Many comment on how fast the car goes but quickly realize that they probably rarely reached 45 mph given the condition of, and lack of, roads at the time.

Other common queries include: Q: How many miles per gallon does it get?

A: About 20.

Q: What kind of fuel does it use?

A: Regular gas.

Q: What is the horsepower?

A: Also about 20.

Q: How many gears does it have?

A: Two forward gears and reverse – the middle pedal.

Q: How many cylinders does it have?

A: Four.

Q: Is it your car?

A: I wish!

Q: Can I drive it?

A: Sorry, No. Q: Can I honk the horn?

A: Give it a go!

I learn from the passengers, too. I now know that many tractors have a throttle lever on the steering column similar to the Model T. I know a lot of people drove Model Ts in their youth, usually on Grandpa’s farm.

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Children, who have always known that seatbelts are a necessity, often look around to find the belts in the T. Many look in confusion to their parents. They seem to delight in the fact there are no seatbelts and there are no side windows.

The fresh air (what I call our natural air conditioning) is a relief on a hot summer day but it can be a bit nippy in the spring and fall. Still, the passengers love it. And many come back again and again for the joy of traveling in a vehicle that is something special.

I know that people are thrilled to be riding in a history-making vehicle.

And it’s an honor to be trusted with such a rare piece of history. If I have one regret about being a Model T driver at the Museum it’s that I basiWINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

cally “arrive and drive.” Other than the pre-check and doing the reverse when we’re done at the end of the day, I don’t know much about the inner workings of the car. I’m hoping to get some Thursday evening shop time in over the winter to understand, for instance, what the transmission bands do and to be able to turn a wrench on this fabulous piece of machinery.

If you haven’t had a ride in one of the Museum’s Model Ts, be sure to stop by at any of the event weekends. The volunteer drivers are waiting to take you for a ride and show how the cars are driven without a gas pedal. But let the driver in first. Remember that Henry Ford didn’t put a driver’s door on those early Model Ts. 23

Is Bigger Really

Better?

by Sophie Gabrion, MS, Communications Manager

T

HE WORLD that we live in is obsessed with size. From the cars that we drive to the meals that we order, developing consumers are informally trained from an early age to seek the greatest possible value, the most bang for their buck, and (perhaps most damaging of all) that bigger is better. There are countless examples 24

throughout history of this insatiable mentality creating a blind spot for quality, yet the trend has barreled forward undeterred.

In December 2011, late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen announced the public rollout of the Stratolaunch Systems Corporation, a space transportation program focused on the Strut & Axle

H-4 Hercules before it’s only successful flight.

(Long Beach, Califonia, 1947)

development of a new air launch to orbit system to meet the ever-growing demands of the private sector space industry. The system’s carrier aircraft, Stratolaunch, features a twin-fuselage design dubbed by industry leaders as everything from innovative to awkward.

According to the corporation’s website, this avant-garde aircraft “takes off and lands from a runway just like any other,” but upon reaching a 35,000foot cruising altitude, the Stratolaunch will release launch vehicles to continue into orbit before returning home to the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. By looking at their website, Stratolaunch Systems’ business plan and intent to be the big player of the “space race” becomes crystal clear. Using buzzwords like ‘flexibility’ and ‘conveWINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

nience,’ their promotional content describes access to the final frontier like Apple markets a new iPhone, coaxing readers to view space travel as a highend commercial product. Similar to Sir Richard Branson’s spaceflight corporation, Virgin Galactic, Stratolaunch Systems takes their commitment to customer service and acquisition to the next level by allowing companies to register online with a drop-down menu to select an estimated launch date.

With a mission “to empower the world’s problem solvers,” this private company has made national headlines for numerous reasons from contractual power shifts to purported data collection benefits. Perhaps the most significant of these stories has focused on the record-breaking 385-foot wingspan of the Stratolaunch. According to Wired Magazine writer Steven Levy, if the Wright brothers had begun their initial Kitty Hawk flight at the tip of one Stratolaunch wing, they could have completed the journey and done it twice more before they reached the other end. For perspective, that means the aircraft’s width exceeds the 360foot length of an NFL regulation football field and is more than twice the 185-foot height of Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa.

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Illustration of Hughes with Spruce Goose, July 1948 26

First emerging from its hangar in mid-2017 and successfully reaching speeds of 90mph in recent runway tests, the Stratolaunch appears to be on track for a 2019 first launch demonstration. It goes without saying that the maiden mission of this mammoth machine will be a tremendous transportation triumph, but it will also be bittersweet. At the moment the Stratolaunch raises off the runway, it will become the largest plane in history to have flown, dethroning a legendary behemoth that held the title for more than 70 years - the Hughes H-4 Hercules.

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I S B I G G E R R E A L LY B E T T E R ?

Stratolaunch carrier’s hangar in Mojave, California (courtesy of Statolaunch Systems)

Manufactured by the Hughes Aircraft Company, the H-4 Hercules was a one-off flying boat, originally commissioned by the U.S. government as a solution for transatlantic transport of large payloads during World War II. While designed to carry the weight of 750 troops in full gear or even two 30ton tanks, the prototype was not completed in time to support the Allied cause, leading to a series of highly publicized Senate hearings that required company founder and notorious eccentric Howard Hughes to answer for what were seen as excessive development costs.

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Much to the distaste of Hughes, the Hercules quickly acquired the nickname of “Spruce Goose,” a reference to the contractual requirement that aircraft be built from “non-strategic materials.” (In fact, it was actually constructed primarily from freakishly strong birch, not spruce, but this misguided moniker is almost excusable in the absence of a rhyming alternative using “birch.”)

Memorialized in Martin Scorsese’s 2004 biographical drama “The Aviator,” Hughes and a crew of twenty-four achieved the Hercules’ one and only flight in November 1947. At a mere 70foot elevation, it remained airborne for only 26 seconds and traveled a single mile, after which it immediately entered various forms of retirement from highly secretive storage to grandiose display.

The total cost to develop the H-4 Hercules was $23 million, or the equivalent of more than $256 million today.

Not to be deterred by the Herculean-sized lessons learned by its predecessor, the Stratolaunch was given an alarmingly modest budget of only $300 million when it was first announced in 2011. Assuming that the development of this modern marvel will come in over budget, that may still seem like a small price to pay for the purported future gains, especially living in a world where lottery jackpots routinely exceed and even double that amount; however, I will conclude our stroll down memory runway with one final figure: $1,000. According to 27

I S B I G G E R R E A L LY B E T T E R ?

Orville Wright, that was the cost to build the 1903 Wright Flyer that effectively propelled the aviation industry into the era of powered controlled flight. After adjusting for inflation, that would correlate to a present day rate of just below $7,000 for each of the four flights made by that pioneering aircraft.

While diverse in many aspects like safety and technological features, the

comparison of the Flyer and the Goose reveals several critical similarities and one unavoidable truth: both were designed by maverick visionaries who possessed unyielding dedication to aviation; both dramatically influenced the industry with a single day of flight; and, although difficult to measure the long-term impact, these two aerodynamic achievements prove that value cannot be measured by size.

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Autoshop • Complete socket sets of all varieties, standard and deepwell sockets in 3/8 and 1/2 inch drive (preference for Sears Craftsman, Snap-on or Husky) • Model T parts • Set of four new tires (30 x 3.5 clinchers) • Two professional, heavy-duty battery chargers on wheels (6V and 12V with high amp ratings and timer) • Cordless electric reversible drills (New or gently used) • Quincy 60-gal electric air compressor Maintenance • 2WD or 4WD ATV with dump body (new or gently used) • Commercial carpet shampooer • Commercial zero-turn mower Membership & development • iPad tablets with chargers • Heavy-duty hole punch (30+ sheets) 28

Video • Black gaffer’s tape • Over-the-ear, noise-cancelling headphones Operations • Laser measure (40' + range) • Whiteboards Auction • Macbook (new or refurbished) Education • Back issues of VMCCA's Bulb Horn magazine (1995-May/June 2016) • Mannequins and mannequin heads (new or gently used, adult or child) Visitor Services • Wheelchairs • Clothing racks (preference for 10' length, two hanging rails) For more information and to donate items, contact Gabriel at gm@ohtm.org or (207) 594-4418

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Members are the backbone of our museum. To celebrate their generous support, we would like to recognize our members who contribute at the $500 level and above.

Mr. Thomas P. Cote Mr. Charles C. Edgar Mr. Warren G. Herreid & Mrs. Jeannine Rivet Mr. & Mrs. Wayne Gould Mr. & Mrs. Gordon Rapp Mr. & Mrs. John Kulp Mr. & Mrs. John LaBarre Mr. & Mrs. Harry Tiffany Mr. & Mrs. David A. Lind Mr. & Mrs. David W. Murray Mr. & Mrs. Richard A. Norris Mr. & Mrs. Joe Germann Mr. Robert Calder WINTER 2018 | owlshead.org

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REARVIEW MIRROR

Lang Education Center

May 6, 1917: The United States had been at war for only one month, but journalists and newspapers had long prepared for the possibility - as had some clothing designers. The front of the New York Times Picture Section was splashed with photographs of soldiers and politicians, and the fashion ads at the back were starting to feature â&#x20AC;&#x153;preparednessâ&#x20AC;? styles for women. The trend towards "rational dress" for women, encouraged by cyclists, was moved forward by the needs of war work.

Visit our digital OHTM catalog: ohtm.pastperfectonline.com To learn more about the Lang Education Center and to schedule archives tours, contact Sarah at sd@ohtm.org.

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ND

ANNUAL NEW ENGLAND AUTO AUCTION™

Now Inviting Consignments.

AUGUST 16-17, 2019

1957 RARE DUAL-GHIA

1970 Plymouth Superbird

SOLD $187,000

SOLD $275, 000

SOLD $107,250

1958 Porsche 356A

at Owls Head Transportation Museum, Owls Head, ME

auction@ohtm.org • (207) 594-4418 • owlshead.org

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PO Box 277, Owls Head, Maine 04854