Topic: CG #19 - 1912 FIAT Display

[Craig Gillingham]

For 1 point, tell me the make of cars that are on display at this exhibition?

[Craig Gillingham]

Up to Expert level.

[RayTheRat]

Peerless circa 1913?

RtR

[Craig Gillingham]

Peerless circa 1913?

Ray, you're close on the year, I believe this photo was taken in 1912. But no, they are not Peerlesses.

As a clue, the car on the right is American, I'm not sure about the one on the left.

[Craig Gillingham]

I should add that both cars are the same make (I may have given too much away by saying this).

[RayTheRat]

I don't think you gave away too much, but a search of my reference files came up with a 1912 Simplex 38 hp that looks a lot like the cars in the puzzle photo.

RtR

[Craig Gillingham]

Not a Simplex. But, this car (on right) wouldn't have been made far away.

[RayTheRat]

Not to awfully far away Locomobiles were made...like the Model 48 7-passenger touring.

At least the physical distance between the 2 companies is not far, but I use Western US distances as a benchmark.  Two hundred miles isn't far.  A 700 mile trip to run my race car on a dry lake in September isn't terribly far away...a 12 hour drive, roughly.

RtR

[Craig Gillingham]

Hate to say it but, no, not  Locomobiles. But you're in the right area, just need to go about 70 miles NW from Bridgeport, Connecticut, and I think you'll solve this one.

I hadn't thought about this before, but a lot of the car companies from that era and made in that area looked very similar.

[RayTheRat]

Ahh, yes.  This is Autopuzzles where things are rarely as they seem, right?  The first notion for someone heading NW of Bridgeport would be Buffalo, where Pierce-Arrows were built.  And the the 1911-1913 Pierce-Arrows are very similar in appearance to the puzzle photos.  Only a small problem.  If one were to "shuffle off to Buffalo", one would have to shuffle for about 420 miles.  A bit of a long shuffle. 

However, along that general route, one might just shuffle through Poughkeepsie, NY, which is roughly 70 mile NW of Bridgeport.  And in Poughkeepsie, the American Fiat was made between the years of 1910 and 1917.  I've attached a photo of one.  Not my photo, but one I found on the web.  I found very little about American Fiat, other than some info stating that they were very large cars with an 8.6 liter six-cylinder motor and brakes on the rear wheels only.  Scary as hell if ya ask me.  Ohh...and there are only 10 of them known to exist today.

If I didn't hit the bullseye with this one (and thanks to your clues, I've learned a lot)...well, I photographed a car show this evening and shot it all in RAW format...a new venture for me.  I'm gonna have to do some trial and error to see which method of editing them works best.  I prefer Corel's Paint Shop Pro Photo for several reasons, but it's very slow in dealing with RAW images.  I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and see if Photoshop CS5 does any better; another thing, the computer I'm doing the editing on is a pretty hefty one...4 dual-core processors with 16 gb of ram and a whole buncha disk storage...and an SSD for the operating system.  But the RAW handling in PSP seems to be able to suck up as much memory as a single application is allowed to do, based on the way I have it configured (to run as a server, rather than a workstation...it actually runs at its best that way.)  But I ramble. 

I better get to work editing photos.

RtR

[Craig Gillingham]

Ray, you nailed it, they are Fiats. The car on the right is a Poughkeepsie built Fiat Type 56. The car on the left, I think is a 15hp Tipo 2, which I don't think were built in the US. I understand the 35hp models were the smallest Poughkeepsie built Fiats. Only shaft drive models were built, the chain drive versions were from Italy.

As you say, there isn't very much written about them, and very few cars left, which I find unusual. Attached is the original photo, before I chopped and changed it.

I use Photoshop CS5, which serves me well, and I was told by a photographer, that RAW format is the way to go.

[RayTheRat]

Thank you, sir.  Yes, Photoshop seems to handle the RAW format files much better than PSP.  I don't like PS's interface, but I can live with it.

RtR