

Restored Edison Electric car from 1889 - eplanit
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/06/restored_edison_electric_car_from_1.html

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thaumaturgy
I'm not an expert in turn-of-the-century automobiles, but my father is --
probably one of the foremost in the country -- and I've grown up around them
all my life.

So, I'm quite certain that's not an 1889 anything. The first dead giveaway is
the wire wheels -- they're earlier than late-20's model A wires, but look
similar to Buffalo wires in the earlier 20s. I would guess that there's just
no way that the wheels are earlier than 1917, _at best_. In 1889, almost all
available automobiles had derivatives of carriage wheels. They were usually
wood, with a thin, uninflated hard rubber "tire". (Remember, paved roads
didn't really exist yet.)

The tiller steering would be correct for a turn-of-the-century car, but the
body is just not. Cars of that era weren't fully enclosed shiny sheet metal
ordeals; they still closely resembled carriages, built mostly out of wood and
hand-forged steel, with seats on leaf springs and a small motor box.

There _were_ electric cars in 1889, but this wasn't one of them.

~~~
thaumaturgy
...derp. Right at the beginning of the video, and at the top throughout most
of it, it says in plain sight that the car is ca 1914, which looks perfectly
reasonable.

Clearly I need to go play outside for a while.

~~~
MaysonL
The article does say that the motor is a GE automobile motor, _patented_ 1889.

