Topic: What it is 167...SOLVED>>>1914 Briscoe Model B Torpedo

[GRAYWOLF]

[Tuckeroo]

I believe this is a Briscoe, and the first model to have this headlight arrangement was the 1915 model B-15.  The only other model designation I can think of to give this car is Clover Leaf (or is it Cloverleaf?) Roadster.

[GRAYWOLF]

It is a Briscoe.

[Paul Jaray]

Hi, you was too fast!!!
It is a Biscoe clover leaf 3 passenger roadster 1915!

[GRAYWOLF]

Not a Clover Leaf

[Paul Jaray]

Whell it is very similar to the clover leaf 4-cyl 2.5 litre but if it's not it's a Briscoe eight from 1916...they have the caracteristic cyclops headlamps but I don't think that's the name you are looking for..

[GRAYWOLF]

It is similar, but if you look at the rear it is quite different.

I don't have any other info on the car other than the name and the year is slightly older.

[Paul Jaray]

Ok, than. Briscoe cars produced just a model called Model B ..in 1915 it was a 4-cyl 33hp available as a delouxe tourer 5 passengers and a cloverleaf roadster 3 passengers (my picture)...in 1916 it was called model 4-38 with the same spec of 1915 and there was the Model 8-38 an 8-cyl 35hp with the same 2 bodystyle. From 1917 till 1920 there was the Model B 4-24 with 24hp available as a tourer 5-passenger,club roadster 4-pas.,runabout 2p, a delivery car and a coachaire.In 1921 here again Model 4-34 with 35hp available as a tourer 5p,roadster 2p,coupe 3p and sedan 5p.It is certainly among these....

[GRAYWOLF]

It is older than those. I do not have a model #, so it may be a nickname rather than an actual factory given name.

[Paul Jaray]

Hi, Briscoe cars from Jackson Michigan built cars from 1914 (4938 cars) till 1921 (4175 cars)...after 1921 Benjamin Briscoe handed his company's presidency over to Clarence A.Earl who stard to produce "his" Model 40 as touring 5-passengers,roadster,brougham,sedan,screen delivery and panel delivery bodies.The "new" company was called Earl Motors Inc. and produced this model only in 1922 (1474 cars) and in 1923 (403 cars).I've got the same pic on a book (the illustrated encyclopedia of automobiles by David Burgess Wise) and it says "Briscoe tourer, 2514cc,with cyclops headlamps).I found the same pic on another website and once again it was referred to as a Briscoe...It has nothing in common with the Ajax cyclecar built in France by Benjamin Briscoe in 1913-1919..(excpet the constructor...)...that's quite all!

[GRAYWOLF]

What does you book call the 1914 car?

[Paul Jaray]

Hi..Benjamin Briscoe decided to ally himself with Jonathan D.Maxwell to produce the Maxwell car and than used the Maxwell-Briscoe company as the base around which to build a rival conglomerate to Durant's General Motors.His United States Motor Company was a disaster and in 1913 he left it to Walter Flanders,took off for France to form Brisco Freres with his brother Frank and to build a cyclecar that he would bring back to the US to market as the ARGO.He also decided to build a car to be named for himself.Due to his fiasco with the U.S.MotorCo. he wasn't able to enter in the banking circle of New York and he secured the financing for his new Briscoe Motor Corporation from the meat-packing Swifts of Chicago.This new Briscoe made its debut at the New York Automobile Show in January 1914.Powered by a 4-cyl L-head engine of 33 hp it was a typical medium priced american light car except for the cyclops headlight.
The production was the one I posted you before..Model B in 1914 and 1915,Model 4-38 and Model 8-36 in 1916,Model B4-24 in 1917,1918,1919 and 1920 and finally Model 4-34 in 1921.
The caracteristic single headlamp was against the law in many states and was drop toghether with the cloverleaf body (a compressed papier-mache body!) in 1916.That is what a book reports...another one reports:..the early cars featured a single or Cyclops headlamps built directly into the radiator cowling...and the pic is called Briscoe 2 1\2 litre roadster 1915...another book reports moreless what I posted before adding that Ben Briscoe built the Ajax cyclecar in Neuilly,France from 1913 to 1919.After the Briscoe adventure they all reports the new Earl managment... that's quite all...

[Paul Jaray]

Hi..I found some news in other two sources and one encyclopedia reports moreless the same thing I wrote and another one reports that: the cloverleaf roadster was one of the two automobiles in the Model B series produced by the Briscoe Motor Corporation of Jackson Michigan,in 1914-1915.Benjamin Briscoe started out in the automobile industry in 1886, making sheet metal parts and radiators for Oldsmobile.He later was an executive at the unsuccessful United States Motor Company,which made the Maxwell and he built the short-lived Argo Cyclecar.With financial backing from the Swift meat-packing family,Briscoe designed and produced a car using his own name,wich debuted at the 1914 New York Automobile Show.The Briscoe Model B series consists of two cars: a 5-passenger de luxe tourer and the 2-seat 3-passenger Cloverleaf roadster
....this is almost all....

[Paul Jaray]

Hi...another encyclopedia reports the same I wrote before and in a spiritualist seance Benjamin Briscoe in person told me that I'm right!
That is all!

[GRAYWOLF]

I give up, you get the point. The source of the picture labeled it 1914_Briscoe_torpedo.

[Paul Jaray]

I know that some bodystiles have different names but I wrote delouxe tourer 5 passengers...it's the same than torpedo!
I mean touring,tourer torpedo,phaeton...and to make thing worse:

[GRAYWOLF]

so, what the hell does "torpedo" mean?

[Paul Jaray]

Under the collective title of Tourer comes a variety of terms.It has come to mean a four or more seater open car with two or four doors.In the earliest days no weather protection was fitted, but later sidescreens appeared, and later still the wind-up window. Particular names originally associated with the tourer tradition were Tonneau and Phaeton, the latter revived many years later, mainly in the United States up to the Second World war. Another title was Roi-des-Belges, applied to similar Tourers of regal proportions, while Torpedo was applied to the lower-built tourers of particularly smooth outline.
In the 3 pics I've post there are different way to define Tourer or Phaeton or Torpedo if you are in France, England or U.S.