22-72 MODEL TOURING—SIX-PASSENGER.
Valley today: wealthy capitalists, manufacturing technology and a highly skilled workforce. Metal, rubber and pottery companies also required skilled workers, and when Mercer started, it represented a chance for young machinists with skills to move up. Companies retooled themselves to supply the auto industry, and Trenton became the top tire manufacturer until Akron, Ohio took that honor. When the car was first assembled, temporary seats and a body over the engine were installed so adjustments could be made during test drives. U.S.1 was a two-lane road without traffic lights and test drivers could bring the vehicle up to speed between villages. Gary Mount, who owns Terhune Orchards with his wife, Pam Mount, grew up on his family’s orchard on U.S.1, and recalls an uncle going out to watch the Mercers go by. Washington Roebling wrote about one of his brothers taking a ride out to Hopewell along Trenton-Pennington Road, before it was paved. The Kuser family controlled the State Fairgrounds, where Grounds For Sculpture is now located, and the horse track was turned into a track for racing cars. “Young men were excited by the new technology and speed,” says Zink. “Cars were expensive, and only the wealthy could afford them. Washington Roebling, then in his 20s, was one of these wealthy young men.” By racing the cars, it helped to “improve the breed,” says Zink, because any deficiencies that wouldn’t show up under a year of normal use would become apparent in a day at the track. “The public was enamored of racing a machine that never existed before; it was totally new technology that went at speeds no one had ever gone before. People thronged to races and newspapers gave publicity to the winners, proving that your car was durable and fast. They handled well, going around a turn on
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bumpy roads at 70 mph, or over 100 on a racetrack. People had never gone that fast before.” Zink had the opportunity to ride in a Mercer Raceabout owned by George Ott. “It’s completely open,” he recounts. “There’s no cover, no seatbelts, no heat or air conditioning—it’s a pure machine. The wind is blowing in your face, it’s noisy and you’re exposed to the elements, and you’re bouncing in the open-air seat. I don’t want to call it primitive, but there are no amenities, no protection. It’s a visceral experience, and gets you closer to what it was like to experience the auto when it was an entirely new technology.” In contemporary cars, he adds, “the experience of driving is filtered, diminishing the raw aspect of driving.” DRIVING COLLECTORS Perhaps the best-known collector is Jay Leno. Zink, along with his wife, curator Emily Croll, and their 21-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter, flew to L.A. to visit Leno’s Big Dog Garage. Leno’s collection, estimated to include about 150 vehicles, is the subject of an NBC TV series. “He met with us and was very gracious with his time, giving us a tour of the state-of-the-art equipment,” recounts Zink. “His routine involves taking out four cars a day to keep them running. I saw a photo of him with the Mercer Raceabout at the Burbank Diner, where he stopped for a burger.” Among the Mercer auto collectors in Princeton is Brandon Hull, a healthcare venture capitalist. As a child, he read automotive historians Ralph Stein and Ken Purdy, who raved about the Mercer’s capabilities and its place in automotive history. Hull dreamed of owning a Mercer since he was a teen. In 2011 Hull bought a Raceabout from Joe Vannozzi of Hamilton. “His father, Santo, bought
the car in 1932 from Vince Galloni, a former Mercer Automobile employee who kept a shop in Trenton dedicated to Mercers,” says Hull, who loves the car as an artifact of historic engineering. “The Mercer Raceabout was the supercar of its day, and cost the same as a good-sized house...It is endlessly satisfying to study the solutions its engineers devised to solve what were at the time brand new problems like brakes, as in: ‘how do we stop this complex, 3,000-pound object?’ Engineers were confronting modern design challenges with little precedent to guide them, and it is fascinating to study the solutions they evolved.” Driving the Mercer is an event, says Hull. “It takes a few minutes just to go through the starting sequence, and once underway requires a few moments to adjust to its peculiarities. For me, the Mercer is a kind of time-machine, transporting you back to the sights, sounds, smells and feel that a motorist, likely born in the horse and buggy 19th century, would have experienced.” Ah, no wonder Zink was drawn to telling the story of this car! “Some of the most interesting people are those who start businesses and create new technology and employment, like Steve Jobs or Tesla Motors product architect Elon Musk,” continues Zink. “It parallels what was happening a century ago. The iPhone excites us now, but 100 years ago cars gave us personal transportation and freed people from being dependent on horses. It gave them the ability to go greater distances faster and with style.” Clifford Zink will give a talk about his book Mercer Magic: Roeblings, Kusers, the Mercer Automobile Company and America’s First Sports Car at the Princeton Public Library April 17. There will be a Mercer Auto Reunion at the Roebling Museum, Roebling, N.J., July 23.
PRINCETON MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2016
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