Topic: Harkness 120HP racing car by Harry Harkness for the 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup

[grobmotorix]

Not Vanderbilt, but comparable - his family belongs to big money...

Beachey
Buffum
Curtis
Hanshue
Knox
Locomobile
Lozier
Lytle
Maxwell
Owen
Rickenbacker
Roberts
Simplex
Vanderbilt
Vaughn
Winton
Wright

[mekubb]

Must be Harry Harkness then

[grobmotorix]

 

Yes!

LOCKED for you!

Now I need a year a what this car was supposed for.

[mekubb]

Could it be the 1903 Paris-Madrid race ?

[grobmotorix]

No.

The photo was shot in 1903, but  for a 1904 race. Which one?

[mekubb]

The 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup ?

[grobmotorix]

Yes, it´s the 120HP Harkness racing car, driven by Harry Harkness at Paris during the 1903 eliminiation trials for the 1904 Gordon Bennett Cup!

[Otto Puzzell]

Nice solve!

It seems Harkness intended to participate in the 1903 Bennett Cup race, but the car was not completed in time. This snippet is from The Motor Car Journal ("every Friday, one penny") from November of 1903. I don't believe Harkness competed in the 1904 race. The second pic is a list of entrants (including an unnamed Austrian.)

[Allan L]

I found Harkness in the list of potential competitors for the 1903 GB and would have guessed him but
(a) could find no photo of the car, and
(b) did not recognise the name from aviation
(c) Harkness is a local rose-grower

Some of those internet race summaries are unreliable, but then so are books. For what it's worth I can say that the Montagu/Sedgwick book of the GB races shows Werner from Austria in a Mercedes in 11th place at 7:32:13.2 ahead of Jarrott and shows Warden as DNF after 2 laps.

[Otto Puzzell]

The Internet site that included the list of finishers attributed the list to "(Beaulieu, p206)".

[grobmotorix]

Thank you for your contributions!

I think he only participated in the 1903 elimination trials for the 1904 race and did not qualify.

Nevertheless I´m happy that I´ve found this high-resolution photo of this interesting car.

[Fёdor]

Another photo

[grobmotorix]