Charles Duryea and his1895 Duryea Automobile

Royal Feltner Extends a heart felt Welcome to the World of the Early American Automobile This is the largest automobile show on the internet with over 2500 photographs representing over nine hundred different manufacturers with dates and places of operations of automobiles from 1861-1929. free web hit counter Every visitor  is appreciated

1932 Franklin 163 Oxford

1902 Boston and Amesbury

1910 Bailey Electric

1909 Crown High Wheeler

Starting with the 1895 Duryea and ending with the 1932 Franklin, Amesbury was the largest maker of automobile bodies in the world. Shown above are three of several cars made in Amesbury.

To make it easier to navigate and to know what each page contains, a navigational page has been created. Just click and enter.

This web site was not done to refute any one's research, but to show what I have found. Some items have been given as historical facts without any research. Winton was not the first automobile sold in the country. Winton was put into production in late 1897. Duryea had been selling cars since 1895. Winton was not the first to advertise cars for sale. The 1895 November issue of the Horseless Age Magazine, the initial issue, carried several automobile advertisements.

With the aid of Google, information  was found that was impossible to find before. It is put on these pages strictly for educational purposes for automobiles built between 1861-1929 and anything can be copied.

This was started as for something to do in my my spare time after retiring from my antique business of forty-years, but it soon turned into a labor of love. To be able to see these beautiful cars and to read the history behind each one, was one of the most pleasureable things that I have done. I wanted it to be different and more informative than most of the other automotive sites.

Before Fisher Body had started making bodies, Currier, Cameron, Co, Carriage Company had made bodies for over seventy-five automobile makers and were doing so on an assembly line which had been in use by all Amesbury carriage makers since 1858.  These include Duryea,  Morris and Salom's 1896 piano box style Electrobat, Columbia, Riker, Winton, and several more. By 1905, They made bodies for more companies than any other maker in the entire automobile industry. These include such companies as Grout Brothers, Stanley Steamer, Locomobile, Mobile, Waltham Orient and Buckboard, Binney and Burnham, Pope Robinson, Stevens-Duryea, just to name a few. From 1895-1932, there were twenty-nine body builders in Amesbury and were known as the best in the business.

It is not very often that something is discovered that may put a new light on the earlier automobile manufacturing in the United States. Below is a 1901 Duryea advertisement published in the 1901 edition of the Horseless Age Magazine. that may have been overlooked by other researchers. As with all of the later Duryea advertisements, they were very small and had to be magnified to be readable. So, I have copied the information below.

Three Wheel Steam Automobile, built by E. S. Callihan,
Woonsocket, Dakota Territory, in 1884

American automobile makers were slow starters in the automobile industry. The Duryea Brothers of Chicopee, MA made their first automobile in 1891 and started marketing it in 1895, the first manufacturer to do so. By this time, European cars were much further advanced than American made. By 1904, American cars had caught up with their European counterparts and had surpassed them in some instances. By 1902, European cars were being built in America because they could not compete with quality and price of American makers. Almost every major European company had a factory in America from 1902 -1930.

The industry of today is trying to build electric, hybrid, and alternate fuel cars. Electric cars were marketed in the late 1890's, and for years were the top sellers. Stanley Brothers put their Stanley Steamer on the market in 1898 with Currier-Cmeron making the bodies. Munson built the hybrid car in 1898 using a gasoline for extra power when needed and a electric generator to keep the battery charged for ordinary driving and was charged while the engine was running. When Rudolph Diesel invented his engine in 1890. he used peanut oil for fuel. . In 1916, the Doble steam car went 1800 miles on a 20 gallon tank of water. One Doble automobile owner drove his car for over 200,000 miles and the only thing that was done to his car was three changings of tires. The first four wheel drive was the 1899 Twyford and the first automatic driven automobile was the 1905 Sturtevant.

This is not trick photography! These are fully grown Little People seated in a child size 1906 Baby REO automobile that was made especially for the Barnum and Bailey Circus

Updated every day with more images and information

Researched and web site published by
Royal Feltner
72 Haverhill Rd.
Amesbury, Ma. 01913
elroyal@comcast.net

Please visit my Amesbury City, Ma. web site at City of Amesbury where I now live and my home state of Kentucky web site where I was born and raised