Author Topic: Monty129 - Solved: 1911 Kelsey Model M Motorette  (Read 358 times)

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Offline el_monty

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Monty129 - Solved: 1911 Kelsey Model M Motorette
« on: June 02, 2017, 03:59:32 PM »
Fellow Autopuzzlers, for a point please identify the make, model and year.

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Offline el_monty

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #1 on: June 14, 2017, 03:23:29 AM »
Up to the Experts
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Offline Fёdor

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2017, 11:53:20 AM »

 American car

Offline el_monty

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2017, 02:08:57 PM »
Yes
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Offline Fёdor

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #4 on: June 15, 2017, 12:31:46 AM »
Kelsey

Offline el_monty

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #5 on: June 15, 2017, 03:19:53 AM »
Yes, it's a Kelsey, locked for you to provide the model denomination and year
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Re: Monty129
« Reply #6 on: June 15, 2017, 06:29:15 AM »

 Motorette model M 10hp 1911

Offline el_monty

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Re: Monty129
« Reply #7 on: June 15, 2017, 07:01:47 AM »
That's right, the point is yours!

Here are some notes from Sotheby's 2015 auction:

"10 hp, 72.2 cu. in. two-cylinder two-cycle water-cooled engine, two-speed planetary transmission, solid front axle with full-elliptical leaf springs, single rear wheel with double quarter-elliptical leaf springs, and driveshaft and rear-wheel drum brakes. Wheelbase: 74 in.
[...]
Cadwallader Washburn Kelsey was a visionary. Alas, his visions never really took hold, but along the way, he left some very interesting machines. His first ride in an automobile came in 1897, when a banker named Robert Glendenning took him for a ride in a new Panhard. This inspired him to build his first car, a two-cycle, single-cylinder affair that proved to be a failure, but he kept many of the parts. Enamored of the Léon Bollée tricycle, he joined with a classmate, Sheldon Tilney, to build a three-wheel car called the Autotri (https://www.autopuzzles.com/forum/2009-37/whaddyacallit-297-solved!-1899-kelsey-tilney-autotri-runabout), now said to be at the Smithsonian Institution. He became an agent for Autocar in Pennsylvania and continued to build cars of his own design before selling Maxwells, and then he became sales manager for Columbia in Hartford, Connecticut. In 1910, he attempted a startup with the Spartan car at Hartford. It was stillborn after a single prototype.

It was the Motorette that finally went into production. Kelsey again embraced the three-wheel formula, with a single rear wheel and a two-stroke 10-horsepower engine. After air-cooling proved insufficient, he switched to thermo-syphon water cooling and birthed the Motorette at $385 F.O.B. Hartford. With a 74-inch wheelbase, it weighed just 700 pounds, delivery models being slightly heavier and more expensive. Unfortunately, in 1912, he endeavored to cut costs with outsourced engines, which proved to be very poorly built. By the time the problems were solved, the Kelsey Manufacturing Company was in dire straits and went into receivership. A concept for an automobile drivetrain with enclosed friction discs failed to gain traction, although he endeavored to produce it in an otherwise conventional Kelsey car in 1920/21. Carl Kelsey spent most of his subsequent career with the very successful Rototiller company in Troy, New York. In the 1960s, he patented the Skycar, a two-passenger vertical-takeoff helicopter. He died in 1970, aged 89.
[...]
Total production of the Kelsey Motorette was some 200 cars, so survivors are very scarce.[...]"

Below is the unedited picture.
"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans" - John Lennon