Drive!: Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age

by Lawrence Goldstone

  *3 The problems with the transmissions on the Ford cars were due to a design flaw, not faulty fabrication at the Dodges’ plant.

  *4 Ford constantly inveighed against weight being synonymous with strength. “Excess weight kills any self-propelled vehicle,” he wrote later in My Life and Work. “There are a lot of fool ideas about weight. It is queer, when you come to think of it, how some fool terms get into current use. There is the phrase ‘heavyweight’ as applied to a man’s mental apparatus! What does it mean? No one wants to be fat and heavy of body—then why of head? For some clumsy reason we have come to confuse strength with weight.”

  *5 As a result of Frederic Smith’s ascension, Ransom Olds would eventually run into the same trouble Ford had with Malcomson—a key investor who did not share his vision. Smith insisted Olds produce a more expensive model, and when Olds refused, Smith forced him out. Ransom Olds went on to form the REO Motor Company (taken from his initials), which achieved only modest sales for the remainder of the decade.

  CHAPTER 13

  With great fanfare, Henry Joy announced his plan: “I want to have people crying out for Packard machines,” he told Automobile Quarterly in spring 1903.

  In Europe, cross-country car races regularly drew hundreds of thousands along the route, so many that spectators often spilled onto the roadway, leaving only a narrow channel for the racers to squeeze through. A race from Paris to Madrid, to be staged in May, had attracted a stunning international array of drivers and automobiles and was receiving unprecedented publicity, even in the United States. Joy thought to have Packard undertake an equally spectacular journey of endurance on this side of the Atlantic. But instead of a race, Joy would send a Packard Model F across the United States, “with the purpose of demonstrating the ability of the American moderate powered automobile to negotiate the all but impassable mountain and desert roads and trails of the Far West.”1 This was a feat no one had yet achieved and only one man, the redoubtable Alexander Winton in 1901, had seriously attempted. Winton had succeeded in traversing only California and then was forced to abandon the slog when his automobile became mired in the desert sands of Nevada. No one had ventured the journey since, as it seemed doomed due to the lack of adequate roads, particularly in the West. In fact, for much of the terrain between Chicago and California, there were no roads at all.

  The Packard would travel west to east, thus guaranteeing maximum exposure when it completed the run in the nation’s media capital, New York City. Logistics were daunting since, in addition to the absence of roads, there were no service stations—indeed, no way at all to acquire gasoline outside of major cities, unless it had been shipped previously to predetermined points. Navigating to those points would present an additional challenge because without roads, there were no road maps (although the Union Pacific Railroad map would be put to good use), and the topography, which featured quick descents from 11,000-foot mountains to searing desert, often lacked recognizable landmarks. So Joy, for whom this was a personal as well as commercial crusade, planned with extreme care.*1

  To drive the Model F across the United States, he chose E. T. Fetch, known as Tom, who was employed at the Warren, Ohio, factory as a test driver and either foreman or plant manager as well. To motivate Fetch not to abandon the journey during times of trouble, Joy arranged that Fetch’s payment for the job would be divided up and waiting for him at the same ad hoc depots at which Joy would deposit stores of gasoline and spare parts. A route similar to the one on which Winton became marooned in the sand was chosen, but Fetch would carry lengths of canvas to roll out and lay under the wheels to allow the car to traverse the most inhospitable tracts of soft sand. (Joy also arranged to have an expert mechanic parallel the car’s route on a train, an aspect of the plan that he took pains not to publicize.)

  To ensure maximum exposure, Joy solicited the trade journals to publish dispatches that Fetch would send whenever he was able to locate a telegraph office. Fetch would attempt to take photographs as well. Marius Krarup, editor of one of the newer weeklies, Automobile magazine, thought that was a fine idea, but he had a better one. Krarup offered to ride with Fetch, writing stories of their adventures; an accomplished photographer, he would also keep a detailed visual record of the journey.*2

  As soon as Frederic Smith got wind of what Joy was planning, he rushed to engage a top driver, Lester Whitman, and a mechanic, Eugene Hammond, both Pasadena-based, to take an Oldsmobile across the country as well. There was no way for the Olds drivers to complete preparations in time to leave before the Packard, or even at the same time, but since the odds of Fetch and Krarup completing the journey were not all that favorable, they were willing to dispatch one of their “Merry Oldsmobiles” weeks after Fetch and Krarup had departed.

  To compete in the publicity battle, Smith thought to add some wrinkles to Whitman’s trip. For example, he would play up that the Olds weighed only 800 pounds, a good deal less than the Packard—and Ford’s Model A. He would also note that it cost only $650, much less than the competition, and was unique in that it had been mass-produced. In another clever bit of marketing, by carrying a single letter, the Olds would become the first automobile to deliver mail coast to coast. Like the men in the Packard, Whitman and Hammond would file both stories and photographs with the trade magazines, and since the most widely read journals, such as Horseless Age, were not keen on publishing a competitor’s work, they were guaranteed more exposure than a number two would ordinarily receive.

  It took the Olds seventy-one days to cross the nation, an incredible feat for a car so light and with only 4.5 horsepower. To prove that the car wasn’t spent, Whitman and Hammond left New York City almost immediately for Portland, Maine, where they arrived eight days later. Although they lost twelve full days to breakdowns and were forced to employ a team of horses to tow them 35 miles to a blacksmith’s shop after one breakdown in the Nevada desert, Whitman and Hammond demonstrated that the Olds was a sturdy, remarkably well-made automobile that was capable of providing years of reliable service to the average driver at low cost. Almost certainly, that demonstration, which was featured prominently in their advertising, helped Smith sell those four thousand curved-dash runabouts the following year.

  All the same, nothing could make up for not being first. In sending the Olds off so long after the Packard, Smith had bet that the Model F would not make it all the way to New York. It was a bet that he lost.

  The Packard set out from San Francisco on June 20.2 The Model F that Fetch drove had been modified only slightly—the fenders had been removed, and it had been fitted with extra gasoline tanks and an additional low gear for negotiating mountains. In addition to the canvas, Fetch took along a pick and shovel and log chains to get the car through ruts. The car weighed 2,200 pounds stripped and almost 3,000 when laden with equipment. Finally, Fetch thought his chariot should have a name, and since they would initially be following the Southern Pacific tracks, he chose Old Pacific.

  Fetch detested the route, “straight through the Rocky Mountains and on to Denver,” which he believed was chosen by an advertising man Fetch later called a “dumb fool.” In fact, Packard’s general manager, Sidney Waldon, had chosen the route, but he didn’t disagree with Fetch’s assessment. “I didn’t understand the difficulties and consequently selected the wrong route from San Francisco to Emigrant Gap, Reno, Lovelock, Winnemucca, around the north end of Great Salt Lake, and from Salt Lake City told them to go right through the center of Colorado. Like a dumb fool, I was thinking from the standpoint of publicity, with pictures of the mountains and canyons, but what I sent them into was something terrific.”3 Clearly, Waldon was not using “terrific” in the positive sense.

  It took the Packard a full month to arrive in Denver. But the route, as hoped, provided a plethora of opportunities for publicity. A series of regular press releases were issued, such as this one that appeared in Horseless Age: “The Packard Motor-car Company reports that E. T. Fetch and M. C. Krarup, who have undertaken to run a
Packard automobile from San Francisco to New York City, have reached Wadsworth, Nev. in their progress eastward. This is the first time that an automobile has succeeded in crossing the Sierra Nevada Mountains.” They would also cross the Rockies; at 11,000 feet, the Packard set a record for altitude. There were no bridges built to accommodate automobiles, so Fetch had to use more than a little creativity to nudge the Packard along the tracks on railroad bridges. He also learned that the appearance of good fortune could be deceiving. More than once in the early weeks of the trip, Fetch found what appeared to be a well-groomed main road, only to learn after following it, sometimes for miles, that it led only to the entrance of a mine or some wealthy rancher’s spread. Asking directions was equally knotty, as few of those encountered on the trail had ever been more than a day or two’s horse ride from their homes.

  The journey was immensely challenging. Extremes of temperature and altitude were exacerbated by bad food, no bathing facilities, fatigue, and a series of impediments that seemed to have been drawn from a Greek saga. Fetch and Krarup were called upon to use all the skills they had learned and some that they had not, like road construction. When they finally reached Colorado Springs, Krarup wrote of the terrain they had just traversed. “Nevada is awful, but Utah is the worst I ever saw. We carry a pick and shovel along, and we found it necessary in more than one instance to use them when we had to build roads ourselves, cutting along the sides of hills.” But a bit farther along, Krarup decided he wasn’t keen on Colorado either. “It rained and the water made the alkali roads like soap, making steering impossible….The strain going down into the gullies on the machine was awful and I was afraid something was going to break, but Old Pacific stood it all.” Almost all. At one point the car had to be pulled by a team of horses from a buffalo wallow, but other than that it ran the entire course under its own power.

  The wisdom of allowing an editor of one of the minor journals to accompany the expedition became questionable, as reports in the more important publications could be less than enthusiastic. For example, Horseless Age’s deadpan report of Old Pacific’s arrival in Denver, not published until two weeks after the event, was hardly what Frederic Smith would have hoped for. “The arrival of the Packard transcontinental car from Colorado Springs on the afternoon of July 20 stirred Denver to a more than ordinary interest in automobile affairs…a circuitous route was followed through the principal streets to the Packard agency, giving all the population an opportunity to realize that the most difficult and perilous portion of an unprecedented motor-car performance had been successfully finished.”4

  Fetch and Krarup remained in Denver for two days, talking with Packard representatives and taking a well-earned rest. Each had a bath. After Denver, they would not travel on a surfaced road until they reached Illinois.

  Still, they covered the eastern two-thirds of the nation in the same amount of time as it had taken for the western third. When Old Pacific reached Tarrytown, New York, on August 21, it was greeted by two hundred automobilists who formed an escort to lead Fetch to the finish, “bending all the 8 mile-per-hour speed limits,” Motor Age noted. A long article in the New-York Tribune marked the Packard’s arrival in New York City proper.

  The end of the long journey was marked with a good deal of ceremony, and the two men were hailed joyously by a large throng of horseless vehicle enthusiasts, who met them at One-hundred-and-sixty-third-st. and Jerome-ave. and, acting as their escort, brought them down through Central Park, over the Brooklyn Bridge and through the Coney Island Boulevard to a hotel at Sheepshead Bay, where a dinner befitting such distinguished explorers was given by the manufacturer of the car they used. Before the dinner was served, however, the car was run down to the ocean, and its wheels submerged in the deep, thus completing literally the journey from ocean to ocean, as at San Francisco the same formality was gone through.5

  Motor Age added, “The entry into New York was a triumphal procession, with the brilliant lamps on the machines shining through the dark and all the occupants were singing.”

  Although the mechanic who had been made available to Fetch and Krarup in the West had come in handy—he left the expedition in Denver—Old Pacific had completed the journey requiring no major repairs. When Packard’s hometown newspaper, the Warren Tribune, reported on the trip, it noted that the completion “demonstrates the superiority of the Packard machine over all other models, and this will be worth all the thousands of dollars it has cost the company.” As for Fetch, his sentiments were a good deal more prosaic. When asked to address the hundreds who had come to celebrate his arrival, he merely said, “Thank God, it’s over.”

  The Packard’s successful arrival in New York ensured that the Olds, still on the road, would not be feted as the first automobile to cross the United States. But besting the Olds would not reap Henry Joy the publicity bonanza he sought. As it turned out, Fetch and Krarup weren’t the first to cross the nation either. To Joy’s and especially Col. Packard’s chagrin, a Winton, of all things, had beat them to it. Even worse, the driver of that car was an amateur, a physician—and he did it with a dog.

  In mid-May 1903, while Henry Joy was carefully planning the Packard’s trip, Horatio Nelson Jackson, a physician from Burlington, Vermont, was enjoying a vacation in San Francisco. He happened into a men’s club where, over cigars, a discussion on motorcars turned into a wager. Perhaps inspired by Phileas Fogg, one of his fellows proposed to bet Jackson fifty dollars that an automobile could not complete a trip across the country in less than ninety days. Perhaps also inspired by Fogg, Jackson accepted.6

  Within a few days, Jackson had purchased a slightly used 20-horsepower Winton touring car; named it Vermont; hired a mechanic, Sewall Crocker, to accompany him; and stocked up on supplies. On May 23, 1903, more than a month before Old Pacific’s departure, the Vermont took off for New York City. Unlike either of the other two drivers who would follow him or Winton, who had preceded him, Jackson headed north, willing to add more than 1,000 miles to the journey to avoid the Nevada desert. He carried three “cyclometers” to measure distance, but two would be lost on the trip. Much of the territory in northern California, Oregon, and Idaho lacked railroads, and so Jackson quickly and often became lost. They also lost most of their cooking equipment, which dropped off the back of the car after being inadequately packed. Days later, after finally reaching a town, Jackson was forced to wire back to San Francisco for tires, springs, and other parts, which would be dispatched by stagecoach.

  After more delays and a number of fits and starts, Jackson and Crocker reached Idaho. It had been almost three weeks since they departed. There, a local man offered them a third member of their team. As Jackson wrote to his wife, “We were stopped by a man and asked if I didn’t want a dog for a mascot. As I had been trying to steal one we were glad to get him so accepted the present (consideration $15.00). So Bud is now with us.” Bud was soon fitted with his own pair of goggles, of which he became so fond that he would refuse to begin a day’s journey without them. As the trip progressed, pictures of Bud began to make it into the newspapers, and he would become the most famous dog in America.

  University of Vermont Special Collections

  Bud at the wheel

  Other than Nevada desert, the Winton encountered all the difficulties that plagued the other cross-country vehicles. Jackson, Crocker, and Bud followed trails, rivers, mountain passes, alkali flats, and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks across the rugged terrain. A number of photographs were staged of the automobile in impossible locations, such as perched on boulders with no apparent means of extricating itself. The blacksmith shop became a popular spot, as there seemed always to be an axle, wheel rim, spring, or transmission part that required repair. Fortunately for Jackson, repairing an automobile part required no special training; for many of the blacksmiths, the Vermont was the first automobile they had ever seen.

  The sensation created throughout the country by the passage of these first transcontinental tourists can only be imag
ined. Whole cities turned out to greet the dust and mud-laden Balboas of the motor-car. Schools were dismissed, and business suspended completely. In Oregon and Idaho, the Winton tourists met many people who never had even heard of a motor-car. Some of them thought the car was an engine that had run off the railroad track and was going wild across their ranches.7

  One incident, also described in Motor Age, epitomized not just what it was like to drive across the United States in 1903 but the degree to which most Americans outside the big cities were unfamiliar with the automobile.

  They were out of sight of human habitation for days at a time. The only signs of life were the occasional emigrant and his family traveling in his prairie schooner. One of these, when he saw the strange object approaching “at lightning speed,” and apparently without any method of propulsion, was seized with terror and jumping down from the seat he hastily unhitched the horses and turned them loose. The whole family then got in the wagon and were on their knees praying when the motor-car came to a stop. They thought the judgment day had come and they were lost. It took considerable talking to reassure them, according to Dr. Jackson’s account of the trip.8

  As Jackson and his crew, often described as “tourists” in the press, neared the center of the country, where telegraph lines were more plentiful, word of their impending arrival reached both cities and small towns, and the Vermont was regularly gawked at by entire families who had sometimes traveled for days to witness the miracle for themselves. Jackson had begun the trip strictly as a private venture, without publicizing his departure, so the Winton Company had not received word of the endeavor until Idaho, when Jackson wired to request replacement parts. As the trip gathered momentum—and finally cleared the wilds of the West—Winton sent representatives to meet the travelers as they arrived in cities such as Omaha, where local newspapers would trumpet the amazing achievement of man, dog, and automobile.