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classic cars 1899 columbia electric landaulet

This 1899 Columbia Electric Landaulet sold at auction this past summer for $550,000.

If you're looking for a way to electrify your driving experience you can opt for one of Nissan's shiny new latest-tech all-electric Leafs for about $40,000 or you could keep an eye open for a good used model.

But be warned there aren't many around as it's been a century since pure electric cars have been built in any numbers and, as a result, resale value can be a tad high. An 1899 Columbia Electric Landaulet, for example, changed hands this past summer at an RM Auctions sale, setting an electric vehicle record of $550,000.

That's quite a premium over a Leaf considering the latest owner of the Columbia might expect a range of perhaps 60 kilometres versus the estimated 160 for the Leaf. And the Leaf can wind itself up to 140 km/h while the Columbia can only manage about 20 km/h. The Leaf driver also gets to sit inside, unlike Columbia's high and out in the open buckboard-like chauffeur's perch. The Leaf doesn't have that neat landaulet three-way-folding roof to let passengers enjoy a little fresh air and sunshine, though.

One thing Leaf buyers and purchasers of early Columbia electrics likely do share in spite of the century separating them is the feeling they were/are riding into a new era powered by the fuel of the future. For the Columbia owner, this notion was short-lived.

Electrical World and Engineer magazine in 1900 noted that electrics were the first vehicles to prove themselves in North America and that "it is generally conceded the electric vehicle in urban service where the mileage limitations of storage batteries need not be considered, has no rival." But the author also felt gasoline-fuelled vehicles were more practical in most other areas of usage.

Although battery power meant the Columbia owner didn't have to put up with nasty smelly gasoline and its rough, unreliable and noisy early engines, or deal with smooth but fiddly to operate and potentially explosive steam power, advancing technology meant it was gasoline that soon emerged as the dominant automotive power source.

Which it still is, and to the chagrin of modern electric vehicle enthusiasts, will likely remain for decades to come. Range was, and still is, the key issue. That led to electric car sales peaking by the early 1910s, fading away in the 1920s and essentially disappearing by the 1930s.

But as the century was turning, the electric car business was humming – electrics outselling gas and steam cars combined – and Pope Manufacturing Co., the biggest bicycle builder in the United States, was enjoying the fruits of its pioneering electric car efforts.

In the mid-1890s, founder Colonel Albert Pope had hired engineer Hiram Percy Maxim, the son of the inventor of the fully automatic machine gun, who had designed something that produced loud repetitive bangs himself, a three-cylinder engine he used to power a tricycle.

Working for Pope, he soon re-jigged this into an electric-powered four-wheeler that the company began producing in 1897 under the Columbia name. By 1904, the newly created Columbia Automobile Co. of Hartford was selling 22 electric and three gas models.

Things were also getting a little complicated on the business side with Pope and various partners involved in the notorious Selden Patent, which claimed design rights on all automobiles and was used to hold the industry up for licensing contributions. It was subsequently overturned.

With its Selden cash-flow gone, the Columbia company then became a pawn in another grandiose auto empire building scheme, but with interest in electrics waning and facing other problems, it was forced to close its doors in 1913. Just 27,000 Columbia-badged vehicles in total were built.

Designer Maxim – an early amateur "ham" radio pioneer and also responsible for creation of the gasoline-powered Columbia models – later parlayed muffler development into the invention of the "silencer" for rifles and pistols.

Columbia electrics, like the 1899 Landaulet, were already more or less silent, of course, which was a large part of their appeal to a mostly genteel clientele interested in being sedately chauffeured around town in the company's offerings that year. These included Broughams, Surreys, Phaetons, Dos a Dos, various styles of physicians' carriages, Runabouts, delivery wagons and, it appears, the one-off Electric Landaulet.

This horseless town carriage with its unique three-way-opening-top body design was built on a tubular frame with solid axles front and rear suspended on fore-and-aft mounted leaf springs. It was powered by a pair of 2-hp Edison DC motors mounted at the rear with band brakes operating on their armature shafts.

Weight was 3,000 pounds or so with the batteries accounting for about half of that. These were recharged by a system that ensured they weren't undercharged – "starved" – or overcharged. An alloy plug was inserted into the controller beside the driver to complete the electrical circuitry and he could select from four speed ranges: three, six, 11 and 13 mph.

The Landaulet was apparently delivered to the Stevens Institute of Technology in New York where it was tested, and then used to convey officials around town before being sold to a Charleston-area plantation owner who used it for a few years and then put it into storage.

It emerged in 1976 and was fully restored to its current condition, its brilliant black finish highlighted by red pinstriping and red leather upholstery.



Back in 1899

Henry Bliss becomes the first person in North America to be fatally injured by an automobile when he steps off a New York streetcar and into the path of an electric taxi.

New York's newspaper boys – the “newsies” who hawk copies of the city's dailies to earn 30 cents for a long day – go on strike for two weeks.

German sewing machine and bicycle maker Adam Opel AG begins building automobiles.

The American Lines SS St. Paul becomes the first ship to announce her arrival by “wireless” after making contact from 66 miles at sea with a Marconi station in England.

Charles Murphy sets a cycling speed record, covering a mile in less than a minute while drafting a railway boxcar on a track laid between the rails on Long Island.



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