Topic: One from Allan L: AL72 1904 Turner-Miesse steam car

[Allan L]

I don't think we have had this before, but I could be wrong . . .
Year, make, country of origin and anything else that makes it unusual will gain you at least a point, and a full set of gen. might even be worth two points!

[Allan L]

Thanks for putting this on the front page !

[Otto Puzzell]

Nice car - I can't wait to find out what it is!

[Allan L]

Here's another photo of it in an earlier state of rebuild:

[Allan L]

Not many rookies these days, so I'll send this to the Experts after less than a week.

[Allan L]

Featured on the front page, 136 views, but not a guess so far, so I'll kick it upstairs in a couple of days.

[Allan L]

Featured on the front page, 136 views, but not a guess so far, so I'll kick it upstairs in a couple of days.

158 views, but not a guess, so even though it's not that old, up it goes

[Otto Puzzell]

Is/was the manufacturer from the UK?

[Allan L]

Is/was the manufacturer from the UK?

Yes, but with a strong non-UK connection.

[pnegyesi]

MMC?

[Tom_I]

Well, I've just been thumbing through my 1963 Veteran Motor Car Pocketbook, and amazingly there is a picture of a very similar looking car.

So this is a Turner-Miesse steam-powered car, circa 1904. Turner & Co. of Wolverhampton was an established engineering company which started importing Miesse cars from Belgium in about 1902, but from a couple of years later started making cars under the Turner-Miesse name. Although their adverts claimed that they were "built entirely in England", it seems that they may have imported them as complete running chassis, but details are sketchy.

There were different models (I think the puzzle picture is the 15 hp), but they all had a paraffin (kerosene) fired flash boiler under the bonnet, and a 3-cylinder single-acting engine mounted transversely under the floor, geared to a differential countershaft, with chain drive to the rear wheels (shaft drive from 1907).

Below is an ad from 1904, and an interesting snippet from the Pocketbook about the steam generator.

[Allan L]

Well, Tom, that's a pretty comprehensive and correct analysis. We had it as a 1904 10 h.p. when it was VCC Dated and I can't remember if there is any way of telling from a photo, so I won't worry about it and that's two points by anyone's standard.
Well done.

As noted, the three-cylinder engine was single-acting which was unusual for steamers but the working pressure was extremely high so getting a stuffing box to hold that pressure would have been difficult. Also, again because of the steam pressure, the cylinder bore was tiny and a piston rod would have been nearly as large as the bore so there would have been very little effective area had they tried to use double-acting.

[D-type]

 

... directing a five foot jet of flame at a policeman's boots