New Car Dealers in High Gear

In Frank McClure's office, protected in a velvet-lined box, is Arizona auto license number 178. It was issued in 1914, the year that Monte Mansfield opened his Ford dealership in Tucson. McClure worked for Mansfield from 1954 to 1958, the year Mansfield sold his Ford dealership to Holmes Tuttle. When Monte Mansfield died, his widow gave the license to McClure, who is now the president at Holmes Tuttle Ford. It is in gestures such as this, as well as through memory and remembrance, that the history of the dealerships in Tucson is told.

While the idea of going to the dealer to buy a new car makes sense to us, things weren't always done that way. The first cars were sold factory-direct, and the first independent car dealers got their start by buying cars from the factory and then reselling them alongside reliable products, like bicycles and horses. The first dealerships were even referred to as stables, until Percy Owen opened a site to display automobiles in New York City in 1899 and called it a showroom.

The distribution of automobiles was not particularly organized in those days. The manufacturer sold them to a distributor, who sold them to a dealer, who sold them to the customer. The distributors were mostly large urban dealers who sold to the smaller rural dealers. Factories continued to sell cars directly to the public at the same price for which the distributors purchased them.

But in the early part of the century the manufacturers began to formalize agreements with individual dealers, who would pay cash for cars, then wait for them to be built before they could be delivered and resold to the public.

By 1906, the City of Tucson Directory listed two auto dealers: the G. A. Wells Auto Co. at 208 W. Congress St., representing Winton, and the Huntsman-Sheldon Auto Co. on Scott Street, distributors for Oldsmobile.

By 1912, the number of Tucson auto dealerships and repair facilities swelled to nine, among them the F. Ronstadt Co. and F. J. Villaescusa--both of whom were also dealers of buggies, wagons, saddles and equine equipment. J. Breck Richardson owned a dealership at 231 E. Congress St. that would be sold two years later to Monte Mansfield.

"I have never known anyone else who had so much empathy for people and who was so good to his employees," Frank McClure said of Monte Mansfield.

Indeed, Mansfield is credited for a lot more than selling cars. He lobbied Congress to bring Davis-Monthan Air Force Base to Tucson, got the Stone Avenue underpass built and helped convince Hughes Aircraft Co. to locate here, to cite a few of his accomplishments. Mansfield died the year after he sold his Ford dealership to Holmes Tuttle, who had begun his association with Ford in 1923 at their assembly plant in Oklahoma City.

When Tuttle came to Tucson, Frank McClure was the used car sales manager for Ford. The dealership, which had moved from Stone Avenue to Broadway Boulevard in 1947, had an open-air showroom that flooded during the monsoon season, sometimes badly enough that the cars were washed out of the showroom.

One of the first things Tuttle did was to enclose it and install air conditioning, a highly appreciated move.
For more information about buying a new car.

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Building Your Own Highway Cruiser? Installment 1 - Exhaust System

My ride is a 1969 Porsche 912, but just about any car can be thoughtfully set up to serve as a safe and efficient long-distance highway cruiser.

The total highway cruiser setup is a synergistic package of individually small things that, when properly combined, can change the character of the car and improve it for a new life on the open roads of America.

A personal favorite is an efficient exhaust system. Properly installed, a very efficient exhaust system requires only routine care or maintenance, and not much of that.

I live in California, so I prefer using a car built before 1973. That's when energy-sucking smog equipment and catalytic converters became mandatory. My 100% legal 1969 Porsche 912, for example, must only have an unrestricted crankcase breather tube.

Above: This view of my 912 engine from the bottom shows part of the Bursch tube header exhaust system. Tube length is carefully measured so exhaust pulses reach the muffler one at a time. At high engine speeds, gas dynamics take over and the result is what one would expect from these small but powerful race-bred engines.

While mandatory for race cars, your cruiser will benefit only slightly from headers. That's because, at normal cruising speeds, your engine just isn't working that hard. Headers might have some benefit, of course, and would give your engine compartment a completely different look. But for a highway cruiser, are they worth the cost or purchase, installation and maintenance when cracks start to appear? Probably not.

A pre-1973 American V-8 with factory manifolds (some of which are remarkably efficient) would have a two mufflers and tailpipes, each serving four cylinders - real dual exhausts!

Later engines equipped with catalytic converters may be factory equipped with two - one on each head pipe serving one bank of cylinders. My 1989 Lincoln Town Car's 302 Ford engine has such a setup.

Above: The '89 Town Car's "Y" connector aft of the dual catalytic converters cuts manufacturing costs and may save a bit of weight, but it's not very efficient. I didn't touch the converters but converted to real dual exhausts and picked up since nice benefits for the one-time cost.

Though it came from the factory with a "Y" connection behind the catalytic converters to force all that exhaust gas into a single tailpipe-muffler setup, I simply trashed everything behind the catalytic converters to keep the car legal and had dual glass-pack mufflers and oversize pipes (exiting below the rear doors).

Above: This is the new '89 Lincoln Town Car dual exhaust setup with glass-pack mufflers and oversize pipes exiting below the rear doors. The Town Car is hardly a "hot rod", but this setup is much more efficient. It also gives the car a very sweet sound "cruise-controlling" down the Interstate at a legal 65 or 70 miles per hour.

My Lincoln Town Car factory literature says dual exhausts alone produce 10 more horsepower at 3,400 rpm and another 10 lb-ft of torque at 2,200 rpm for a modest one-time installation cost. The other side of the performance coin, of course, is economy because the engine is simply more efficient.

I'm enjoying these benefits now on the 1989 Lincoln Town Car for one set of reasons. I also enjoy the same benefits on the '69 912 because it has the Bursch tube header exhaust system suitable for a Porsche race car.

Take a look at the exhaust system on your ride. You may very well enjoy a nice improvement in either performance or fuel economy (depending on what you want) with a fairly inexpensive upgrade to your exhaust system.

Remember, though, to keep everything legal.

For more ideas on how to create your own long-distance highway cruiser, please visit my web site Shopping Cart to order all eleven Installments (as PDF e-book, black & white printed booklet or deluxe full color printed booklet) of "Building Your Own Long-Distance Highway Cruiser?"

Michael "Mike" Newlon Retired in 2005 after a dual career in private sector corporate management and as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Reserve.

When he is not exploring current or former U.S. highways, like CA 99, in his Porsche 912 or Lincoln Town Car, Mike enjoys reading 20th Century history and popular action novels.

If you have questions about Michael "Mike" Newlon call him today: 760-636-5560
or visit his website http://www.highwaytripbooks.com/

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Auto History - Steam Automobiles

RIKER ELECTRIC
Around the turn of the century, electric cars emerged as the elegant solution to horseless transportation. Because EVs were not temperamental or difficult to operate, they became the vehicle of choice among women. And many lawyers and physicians preferred them because they were clean. Charging at home also was considered a luxury, certainly more refined than pumping gas and adding oil. The 1897 Riker Victoria (shown) was one of the more refined examples of an electric car of that era, although it was one of the worst in terms of range. The stylish bodywork took precedent over battery placement, shortening its range to about 20 miles per charge. Still, that was far more than the average driver of the day ever needed. A.L. Riker, founder of Riker Electric Motor Co. in Brooklyn, blamed the car's limited range not on its design, but on the lack of a satisfactory battery technology. During a 1897 meeting of the Electric Vehicle Manufacturers, Riker said he had "yet to learn of a battery of high-efficiency and low-depreciation, which was the type required" for electric vehicles.

EARLY FWD CAR
The Horseless Age
Walter Christie's patent application for a front-drive car appeared in our June 29, 1904 issue. The powerplant sat transversely between the front wheels, with the crankshaft connected to the front wheels through, " a novel and improved transmission-gearing and clutch mechanism. The clutch was used to couple and de-couple the front wheels from the engine. It also was used to shift between low and direct gear, or reverse. The short halfshafts ended in Hooke joints, and the steering pivot was carried on the outer stub shaft. Walter Christie specialized in racing cars and "motor-propelled war chariots, including those of the amphibian type." The front-drive system shown here was used successfully by Christie on some of his early racing cars, but the lack of a suitable transaxle design likely doomed this novel approach.

DETROIT AUTO SHOW
Unlike serious motor vehicle exhibitions such as the Paris show, the 1903 Detroit Auto Show was actually an adjunct to a Sportsmen's show that ran at the Detroit Armory. The Horseless Age covered the event in its February 18, 1903 issue, stating that the event only had about 3000 visitors per day, and that most of them did not come to see the cars. "To put it mildly, the show from the standpoint of the automobile exhibitors was hardly a success," our editors reported. "The growling of the 200 or more dogs and the noise in the shooting gallery put a hard strain on the nerves of some attendants." We concluded that a dog show was not the proper place to promote the automobile.

SPRUNG POWERTRAINS
This device, written about in our May 24, 1899 issue, was designed to transmit power "jerk-free" by attaching the drive gear to a spring-mounted arm. A casing was fitted around the solid axle connecting the left and right wheels. It carried the lower spring arm and axle assembly. This could rotate fore and aft, changing the position of the drive pulley. Acceleration and bumps compressed the spring and moved the pulley forward, which slackened the belt. Under braking, the spring expanded, stretching the belt tight. This was, the inventor claimed, especially effective when an electric motor was used for both drive and braking. About this same time, A.B. Andrews of Center Point, Iowa was taking spring theory a bit farther. He used a clock spring type mechanism to drive a vehicle. His prototype was his child's baby carriage. A winding mechanism was fitted to permit the "engine" to rewind on downhill sections, or to provide self-winding on level roads.

RACING
Growing interest in the automobile spawned the inevitable sport of racing. Henry Ford was one of the pioneers, building his first race car in 1901. Ford's 26 hp racer was tested against a Winton in October of that year, winning the race handily with an average speed of 43.5 mph. Mr. Ford later claimed to have done a flying half-mile in 26 seconds (69.2 mph), and defied any foreign machine to challenge him. In France, speed was also a topic of the day. M. Serpollet drove his torpedo-shaped steam-car (shown) to a flying-kilometer record at a speed of near 75 mph. It broke the world's record in April 1902. Two years later, Ford drove his famous 999 racer over a record flying mile, averaging 92.3 mph. In the same year, Ford's 999 set a speed record on an oval track at nearly 60 mph.

STEAM POWER
Steam power was well understood in early automotive days, but its use in passenger vehicles peaked quickly and disappeared. Because of its limitations in range and safety, it was best suited for industrial applications such as locomotives or overland freight trains as shown in this 1899 ad. Steam automobiles couldn't carry enough water to provide acceptable mileage, and the drive to make passenger vehicles lighter forced boilermakers to compromise integrity for weight. Many tragic boiler explosions resulted, tainting the image of the steam-powered car. By the time a reliable kerosene-fired boiler came on the market, along with more steam-efficient engines, demand for the technology was surpassed by interest in electric and gasoline power.

By the time a reliable kerosene-fired boiler came on the market, along with more steam-efficient engines, demand for the technology was surpassed by interest in electric and gasoline power.
Useful materials about auto on a site engineturbine.com.

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