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N0KFQ > TODAY 28.09.14 15:19l 55 Lines 2600 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 36893_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Sep 28
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 140928/1315Z 36893@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQK1.4.60
Sep 28, 1938:
Auto inventor Charles Duryea dies
On September 28, 1938, inventor Charles Duryea dies in
Philadelphia at the age of 76. Duryea and his brother Frank
designed and built one of the first functioning "gasoline
buggies," or gas-powered automobiles, in the United States. For
most of his life, however, Charles insisted on taking full credit
for the brothers' innovation. On the patent applications he filed
for the Duryea Motor Wagon, for instance, Charles averred that he
was the car's sole inventor; he also loftily proclaimed that his
brother was "simply a mechanic" hired to execute Charles' plans.
Charles Duryea was not the inventor of the first gasoline engine,
nor was he the first person to build a gas-powered car. Instead,
as his obituary in the New York Times put it, he "had the rare
mechanical wit to see how the contributions of his predecessors
could be combined into a sound invention." In 1886, Charles was
working as a bicycle mechanic in Peoria when he received a jolt
of inspiration from a gasoline engine he saw at a state fair.
There was no reason, he thought, why such a motor could not be
used to power a lightweight quadricycle. He spent seven years
designing and redesigning his machine, a one-cylinder,
four-horsepower, tiller-steered car with a water-cooled gas
engine, a buggy body, and narrow metal oak-spoked wheels turned
by bicycle chains. The car also had an electric ignition and a
spray carburetor, both designed by Frank.
In September 1893, Frank Duryea took the finally-completed Motor
Wagon out for its first official spin. He only managed to
splutter about 600 feet down his block before the car's
friction-belt transmission failed, but even so, it was clear that
the Duryea auto was a promising machine. It's worth noting that
Charles missed all this excitement: Frank and the car were in
Springfield, Massachusetts, while the elder Duryea was fixing
bikes in Peoria.
Two years later, on Thanksgiving Day, an improved Duryea Motor
Wagon with pneumatic rubber tires won the first auto race in the
United States. In 1896, the brothers built and sold 13 identical
Duryeas, making theirs the first American company to manufacture
more than one automobile at a time. After that, the brothers
parted ways: Frank went on to build and sell the Stevens-Duryea
Limousine, while Charles ("unable," his Times obituary said, "to
adapt himself to the public taste") worked on designing less
practical vehicles like tiller-steered mechanical tricycles.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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