Local History and Genealogy

Friday, December 9, 2011

First Auburn 6-Cylinder Shipped From Angola

     Magnificent Seven Passenger Touring Car, Completely Equipped, is sent to the New York Show
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Monday of this week, January 1st, 1912, was shipped from Angola for the great automobile show in New York City, the first car built by the Angola branch of the Auburn automobile Company, a model that this company will build exclusively in Angola.  The car is a six-cylinder, seven passenger, thoroughly equipped, including shock absorbers, electric lights and other of the latest devices.  The lamps are finished in Ebony, with nickle trimmings, and altogether the car is a giant in strength and a thing of rare beauty.  Several other similar cars have been tested out and are being finished as rapidly as possible.

As mentioned above, this, the first car completed here, has been shipped to the great New York show.  The writer with several other gentlemen and some ladies through courtesy of Mr. Guton, superintendent of the factory, had the pleasure of seeing the car loaded in a box car but with the splendid equipment furnished by the Angola factory, the task was an easy one.  Before the car was loaded, however, seven people, seated in the car, took a ride back and forth through the long avenue of the north wing of the factory building, to show the perfect working of the engine, and the grace and speed of the machine, and the space under cover and over the hardwood floor made it possible to almost exceed the speed limit.  The Lake Shore had switched a box car on the siding that enters the building and when the large door had been raised, a rope from one of the cards that was being tested was fastened to the box car.  Then half a dozen men got on the auto to hold it down, while it pulled the heavy load into the building.  The doors at the end of the car were then opened and two trough like skids placed, one end in the car and other on the floor, with supports under them.  This done, the auto with its own power, moved up the skids and the lask of loading was over.

The car, a picture which accompanies this article has been thoroughly tested; one built at Auburn having last fall carried Mr. Eckhart and one of the proprietors of the factory together with his family and a driver a distance of 4500 mile at one trip.  A.L. Murray, a member of the party. has written a splendid article for the Automobile Dealer and Repairer, descriptive of the trip. They followed the usual routes along the lakes through Detroit and Buffalo to Boston, thence to Portland, Maine, including many side
trips; thence along the coast down to New York City; thence to Philadelphia, Washington, through Staunton, Va, to Charlestown West Virginia, following the New River the roughest in the United States, over broken limestone rocks, climbing irregular mountain rodes, journeying for three weeks over rocky roads, proving that the longest fastest all day runs created no extra heat or friction to any part of the machinery.  The tires with which rhw cars are equipped are the Goodyear,  and in spite of the journey of 4500 miles, the tires, strengthened bu the inter-locking inner tubes, were able to make this great journey, farther than from New york to San Francisco, with only one blow-out, and no punctures, and the blow-out occurred when only ten miles from home on the return trip.  The Auburn cars merit the praise of everyone.

Steuben Republican January 3, 1912