Just A Car Guy: EMF

Showing posts with label EMF. Show all posts

Saturday, October 20, 2018

Gentlemen! There's no point in going in there, turn it around and head back to the last place we went through, I bet it has a good bar!

this is the EMF 30 used for the AAA pathfinding of Detroit to Denver in 1909 https://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2018/05/they-used-emf-30-for-aaas-pathfinding.html

https://www.facebook.com/groups/197491484165115/permalink/323631654884430/

Friday, May 18, 2018

They used an EMF 30 for AAAs pathfinding duties for the Glidden Tour from Detroit to Denver in 1909

In 1909, William Metzger arranged to have the E-M-F “30” designated as the pathfinder for the Glidden Tour.

Metzger, the M in EMF, had been a star Cadillac salesman, and joined Barney Everitt, and Walter Flanders, production manager at Ford, when they partnered up to launch their own automotive brand in 1908. They later sold to Studebaker in 1912

Pathfinding was a grueling experience involving travel over the worst kinds of roads (if you can even call them roads), fording streams and braving the elements to map out a path that tour participants could follow.

The first tour was in 1904 and ended at the 1904 World's Fair at St. Louis, Missouri. The AAA sought a major event that would involve local clubs and draw national attention to the possibility of cross-country motoring. After the 1913 tour, it was felt that the purposes that had given rise to its birth had been fulfilled, and the activity ended.

The 1909 version of the tour would be longest thus far in the series at approximately 2636 miles. Tour participants started out in Detroit, making there way to Chicago, then north to Minneapolis, on to Omaha and Denver, and then ending up in Kansas City.

The initial road out of Detroit was about 10 miles of brick pavement, but then turned to mostly deep sand for the rest of Michigan. If that sounds ridiculous, remember, one of the biggest sand dunes in America is in Michigan, Sleeping Bear Dunes. Michigan is home to the largest dune system in the world, associated with a freshwater lake. http://geo.msu.edu/extra/geogmich/sand.html

The sand was so deep that the drivers found themselves bobbing and weaving back and forth as if in a boat on some rapids. And the dust was so think behind the cars that any follower had to trail behind 50 yards just to be able to see where he was going.

If you look at the picture taken during the pathfinding expedition, you will notice that mud. The E-M-F was either driving through it, stuck in it or being pulled out of it.

http://emfauto.org/EMF_photos_1909.php for this and many postcards of the 1909 pathfinding trip

At one point in the journey, after driving through hub-deep mud for hours, Lewis and the crew stopped in Minnesota and weighed the car and found they had picked up an addition 1100 lbs. in mud!

http://emfauto.org/Hyphens_Archive/0602_Feb_2006_Vol4_Issue1.pdf
http://fastisfast.blogspot.com/2013/03/emf-30.html
https://www.flickr.com/photos/aaasafety/sets/72157627077683064

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Savannah, first city in the USA to have a grand prix, in 1908

Savannah had earlier fame in national bicycle racing competitions and it had ties to the powerful dynasties who controlled the racing world, so it was chosen for the 1st Grand Prix

The construction of the course resulted in a course considered "America's greatest" by international racing experts of the period. It was 27 miles long of Augusta gravel and faster than the Vanderbilt Cup course, however, convict labor was used to build it

Six giant scoreboards with ladders had been erected with special thought given to their positioning to make them visible to the occupants of the 16,000-person, 2,000-foot long grandstand.

The international flavor was a direct derivative of the devestating battle between William K. Vanderbilt Jr. supported by the American Automobile Association (AAA) versus the Automobile Club of America (ACA). The ACA was the club in good standing with the Automobile Club of France - the dominate club of international rules - and stole the thunder of the Vanderbilt Cup by organing the American Grand Prize to earn the honor of hosting the European manufacturers formerly attracted to the Long Island race.

In that race Ralph de Palma set fastest lap in his Fiat, with an average speed of 69.80 mph, for context, to that date Felice Nazarro's drive in the 1907 French Grand Prix at an average above 70 MPH was the gold standard. Chadwick driver Willie Haupt creatd excitement when he recorded a lap of 71 MPH

http://www.firstsuperspeedway.com/articles/1908-american-grand-prize

Julian Quattlebaum, a doctor by profession but also a car enthusiast and historian. He was the author of the definitive book about the early and important motorcar races held in Savannah.

Quattlebaum as a child was among those who had attended those races, including the International Grand Prize Race in 1908 and the Vanderbilt Cup that ensued as Savannah emerged as the early home for international auto racing in the United States.

This 1911 EMF finished third in the Tiedeman Cup race

The EMF team swept the 1911 podium

Coachbuilder and Wayne manufacturer Barney Everitt, star Cadillac salesman William Metzger, and Walter Flanders, production manager at Ford, launched their own automotive brand in 1908.

They decided to further promote the brand by going racing in “light car” class for production-based vehicles. The biggest of those events would be the 1911 Tiedeman Trophy race at Savannah, and they sent three specially built 30-horsepower machines to Georgia, where the cars finished first, second and third.

the car that came in 3rd was found in pieces in a barn in 1983, and restored, and now looks like