The Brass Lamp the Brass Lamp

November 2014 The Brass Lamp The First Auto Show Beans...no beans...red...white...mild...spicy in St. Louis November 21 at 6:30 PM by Gerald Perschbacher Join us for our next What do a $250 Success and a $4,000 Thomas meeting at Logan to “Flyer” have in common? They were offered sample the best chili reci- for sale at the first Auto Show held in St. Louis pes our members can 107 years ago. cook up. Bring your fa- From April 1 to 6, 1907, the first show was held vorite chili for sharing. in the Jai Alai Building on De Baliviere Ave., an exposition facility with 20,000 square feet of in top-quality wool and leather. Its fit and finish floor space. It played host to the St. Louis Auto were superb, and its $7,000 price was astronomi- Exposition Company, which fielded a wide cal. By the standards of 1907, the Detroit-built car range of automobiles, including several which was the price of seven modest sized homes! were manufactured exclusively in St. Louis. The Thomas "Flyer" made in Buffalo, New York, was considered a star of the show. The carmaker had been in production since 1900 and was a sea- soned company by the standard of the day. In 1908, just one year after the first auto show in St. Louis, a 60 horsepower Thomas "Flyer" similar to the model that appeared at the St. Louis show won the New York-to-Paris Race in 151 days of driving, covering 13,341 miles. That achievement marked a major milestone in car history. The Success was one of those St. Louis-made Displayed at the first St. Louis show were cars car- cars. It was a frail looking “highwheeler” about rying a wide range of names, now only fondly re- the cheapest car made and sold in America. membered by automotive historians or car collec- With its one or two-cylinder engine option, it tors: Logan, Locomobile, Winton, Peerless, delivered no more than 12 horsepower. Its bug- Pierce, Lozier, Baker, Welch, Orient, and Knox. gy-type wheels were surfaced with a steel band, Some were water-cooled, others were air-cooled. unless the buyer wanted hard-rubber tires for Several were powered by electricity. Locomobile $25 extra. Made by the Success Auto Buggy had its start as a steam car. Makes made in St. Mfg. Co. at 530 to 540 De Baliviere, the car Louis included Moon (produced in the 4400 block offered entry-level motoring to Americans, of Main & Cornelia), Dorris (a well-engineered breaking with the belief that motorized travel make that was to be produced well into the 1920s), was meant for the wealthy. the spindly and fragile looking ABC, the substan- On the high end of the scale tial and costly American Mors ((made by the St. was a magnificent Packard Louis Car Co., which made its mark in the produc- limousine, standing more tion of trolley cars and buses) and, of course, the than seven feet tall and Success. with luxury appointments Continued on Page 5 >>> A Toy Story...The President's Column Martin L. Hassel (314) 232-5934 by Larry Hassel President Recently, I was chatting with some of my coworkers about toys we Mark Goldfeder had as children. You might call it reminiscing to a time when life (314) 878-2786 1st Vice President was much more simplistic and toys didn’t have to be politically correct...we really never thought about those things. It seems like kids Vacant nowadays don't have the same opportunities we had. I suppose 2nd Vice President/Membership that the “do-gooders” have invaded the toy world too...no more Peter Bitzer Mattel Tommy Guns and Colt Six-Shooter revolver cap guns. (636) 256-7511 While we had fun with these and played pretend war, there were Treasurer other things vastly more fascinating to me. My favorite toys always Joe Yochim involved cars, trucks and trains. I know now why that “Wonder (636) 947-1157 Bread” add referred to those as the “formative years” not that Recording Secretary Wonder Bread was really healthy for you. Well, look where those Vacant toys took us…they just got bigger. Corresponding Secretary I had a pedal car that was made like a miniature dump truck...it Directors Patrick Howk (2014) was yellow and black. I have no idea what ever happened to it, but Ron Nelson(2014) I sure wish I had it today. Ted Hamburg(2015) Ted Baker(2015) Bill Albertin(2016) Don Hoelscher’s presentation at Al Mercer(2016) HCCM on pedal cars was excit- Gerald Perschbacher ing…I think he had the same (314) 849-5249 truck in his collection, as I Past President looked at his pictures and tried Ron Nelson to recall mine. We had many 9826 Affton View Ct. "Matchbox" cars. My favorite St. Louis, MO 63123 Brass Lamp Editor was a VW Beetle from the early sixties. Hot Wheels hadn’t been Don Hoelscher (636) 939-9667 invented yet. Webmaster Another one of the first memorable toys I recall that stimulated the creative imagination was a Gilbert Erector Set that mom picked up used at a garage sale. I thought it was “cool” be- cause I could construct things. What did I construct? Cars of course. www.hccmo.com Your imagination was only (314) 991-HONK limited by the number of pieces you had. Celebrating 70 Years In St. Louis! 2 I suppose the only thing similar today that are very popular are plastic Lego blocks, but I do find "Erector Sets" and type specific Erector kits still available when I search on the Internet. The Lego toys just aren't the same though….we had real steel. I always loved anything to do with cars and I remember one Christmas, we were in Chicago at Marshall Field Department Store...one of my favorite places. Mom had tak- en me up there on the train…the Wabash Blue- bird as I recall. This was also my first train ride. I do remember the dining car and great food with real silver place-settings, elegant Wabash Railroad China and fine linen tablecloths. I think there were even fresh cut flowers on the ta- ble. I even had to be “adult” and have a kiddy cocktail (here we go with that political correct- ness thing again). They had a great toy department at Marshall Field. I was enamored by a model of a 1927 vintage Rolls Royce Phantom I Piccadilly Roadster. I had to have it, and since it was Christmas time and my birthday, I had a win- win situation and mom bought me the car. I actually was successful in assembling the kit. However, plastic model kits had a tendency to fall apart after a few years...the glue just was- n't very good. However, I was in my Rolls Royce period of fascination...must have been about 8 or 9 years old. The movie, "The Yel- low Rolls Royce” had just hit the theaters and I think that I convinced mom and dad that I needed to see it. I was totally fascinated by that car...always wanted one. Well, I got it in miniature at Marshall Field. I loved everything about cars, and especially old Rolls Royce automobiles. Later, dad and I ventured over to Checkered Flag Hobby in Concord Plaza. The new thing was something called a slot car. They had about three big tracks and the first car I had was an off the shelf Lotus Formula One open wheel racer just like the one that Jim Clark drove. It wasn't very fast, but that led to a lighter, more powerful and more aerodynamic Jim Hall Chapar- ral Chevrolet that was a whole lot faster, but not fast enough as I got better at “driving.” Soon we were building our own cars from scratch...silver soldering brazing wire and brass tubes into cars...even piano wire suspen- sion systems. I was taught a whole lot about electric motors...dad teaching me how to rewind a motor to enhance performance by the gauge of wire and the number of windings. We even got “HO” scale race tracks for home use. We used to have “24 hour races like LeMans.” We would drill out the headlamps and wire in little tiny bulbs so we could turn off the basement lights and see the way. Some of those slot cars got pretty sophisticated…we introduced spon- gy tire technology and I remember putting some sort of oil of wintergreen on the tires to make them grip more. 3 Often we would meet at Checkered Flag and have competitions…hours on end. We experimented with all sorts of gearing, direct drive motors and aerodynamic bodies with wings for down force. We would compete with other tracks too. It was good clean fun and we learned a lot quite pain- lessly while doing. These days are gone…Irv, then the proprietor of Checkered Flag is gone…I heard he had passed away. The last time I talked to him, he said they cut up the tracks…no one wanted them and they made firewood and hauled everything else off to the dump. Ironically, Checkered Flag still exists in South St. Louis County…the toys of today may be more sophisticated…drone quad-copters in which you can mount a Go-Pro Camera, remote control electric cars, etc. However, a certain element of nostalgia is gone. I don’t see the hands-on design and assem- bly that we did as kids under good parental supervision…and yes I did learn some of those non-PC words from dad when I lost his tools or messed up something, but it was all in the interest of knowledge.

Load more