Have you seen a Mors recently?

A few years ago Chester McKaige in Australia and I (in England) tried to compile a list of all the surviving cars built by the Mors company (we both had 1912 model NX 12/15 Mors cars).

http://www.autopuzzl....0;id=322;image

Most that we found were in the UK, but we didn't have a French correspondant, so those that have survived in their homeland are not on our list. There was one in the Mulhausen museum I think.
I know most of the readers of this won't be interested in cars from so long ago (Mors built cars from 1895-1925) but we do have a good international membership so I think it worth asking.

I believe Jan Voboril in Topanga, CA is restoring a 1908(?) Mors right now for a client.
Anton

Don't forget "Le Sanglier" a Curtiss OX engined Mors from 1908? which features regularly in VSCC hillclimbs. Can do photographs from wet Wiscombe 2007. Amazing piece of kit IMHO, albeit for a "new" car
Roger Lund

Originally posted by bradbury west
Don't forget "Le Sanglier" a Curtiss OX engined Mors from 1908? which features regularly in VSCC hillclimbs. Can do photographs from wet Wiscombe 2007. Amazing piece of kit IMHO, albeit for a "new" car
Roger Lund

Yes, thanks, that's "new" since our lists.
I must investigate the Mors content sometime.

Allan
The Collier Collection, in Naples, Florida has a 1902 Type Z Gordon Bennett racing car, and a 1908 Mors Grand Prix car. I was there last November and saw them. No photography was allowed inside the collection, although I am guessing you know what these two look like.

Allan, are you aware of the 1913 RX model, 4 cyl, 12cv, 2 seater with Citroen gears, on show at the Museum at les Sables d'Olonne? They restored it in their own workshops, and as with all of their cars displayed, it is in tip-top condition.
Roger Lund.

I registered for the web site, but the page you referenced doesn't seem to exist. I can't see the list, so don't know if this car might already be included.

Approximately 30 years ago I visited David Uihlein's house in Milwaukee. He had a museum of sorts behind his house, with a great collection of Alfas among other cars. There was also an old mill, and among the Bugattis stored there I was shown a car which I clearly remember as a Mors, perhaps from 1906 or 1908?

Is my memory correct? Has this car appeared somewhere?

Cynic

Originally posted by Cynic2
I registered for the web site, but the page you referenced doesn't seem to exist. I can't see the list, so don't know if this car might already be included.

Approximately 30 years ago I visited David Uihlein's house in Milwaukee. He had a museum of sorts behind his house, with a great collection of Alfas among other cars. There was also an old mill, and among the Bugattis stored there I was shown a car which I clearly remember as a Mors, perhaps from 1906 or 1908?

Is my memory correct? Has this car appeared somewhere?

Cynic

That link was supposed to get you a picture of my Mors - that site lets you post photos directly which we can't do here.

The Milwaukee car and the 1908 Collier one or the Topanga, CA one might be the same for all I know at present (no photos of any).
Interestingly there were none dated between 1905 and 1912 in the UK when we compiled our list.
We've "lost" a two-seater 1913 RX, once owned by Malcolm Campbell, that was still in England in the 1970s - could be in les Sables d'Olonne by now.

Mors of Baron Pierre de Caters - 1902 Paris-Vienna race - first shot taken adjacent to the Jardins des Tuileries in Paris, the photographer Maurice-Louis Branger's office being about 150 metres away up a side turning to the left just here...


1

Below, de Caters dutifully following the escort marshal through the neutralised (untimed) street section of the 1902 Paris-Vienna, in Salzburg, Austria


2

Mors cars at the 1908 Grand Prix de l'ACF, Dieppe.


3


4

Photos copyright: The GP Library (by Maurice-Louis Branger)

Wasn't there a Mors at the Monterey Historics that blew up the motor about 10 years ago?

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Mors of Baron Pierre de Caters - 1902 Paris-Vienna race - first shot taken adjacent to the Jardins des Tuileries in Paris, the photographer Maurice-Louis Branger's office being about 150 metres away up a side turning to the left just here...


1

Below, de Caters dutifully following the escort marshal through the neutralised (untimed) street section of the 1902 Paris-Vienna, in Salzburg, Austria


2

Mors cars at the 1908 Grand Prix de l'ACF, Dieppe.


3


4

Photos copyright: The GP Library (by Maurice-Louis Branger)

This forum is a constant source of amazement. Some one asks an obscure question (to me) and within moments several answers appear, maybe several tangents and then a wonderful pictures to make a point. The pictures are not some recent over restored piece of preciousness but a period pieces with identities and a story. Thanks Doug.

The Paris-Vienna car was in active use in the UK for some years from the 1980s and was in the hands of Vijay Mallya when I last heard of it.

Originally posted by Allan Lupton
The Paris-Vienna car was in active use in the UK for some years from the 1980s and was in the hands of Vijay Mallya when I last heard of it.

Do you mean to say the same as in Doug's photo? What a coincidence!!!

Doug, do you have an explanation as to why the Mors in your picture displays race number 15? I have had two sources showing de Caters in Mors #3! And, to be honest, that driver in the first picture doesn't look at all like him to me! Maybe it's the bowler?

You can seen the Collier Mors here:
http://www.circuit-a...n/1902_2002.php

... and wouldn't you know, the period picture of the car shows race #3! Now, who's the guy in #15? The number doesn't show at all in my database!

Originally posted by Pils1989
You can seen the Collier Mors here:
http://www.circuit-a...n/1902_2002.php

That's the one I was on about: you can see it still seems to have its UK registration A-187

The car in the Ardennes link, Z30003, we refer to as the Paris-Vienna car. and have done since Bill Lake restored it in the 1970s. It had been rebuilt as a touring car in the 1920s (allegedly).
The 1902 Gordon Bennett race ran alongside the Paris-Vienna as far as Innsbruck, Fournier's Mors (like the other two French entries) failing to finish.
So far as I can tell the P-V and GB Mors were to the same specification

Originally posted by Allan Lupton
A few years ago Chester McKaige in Australia and I (in England) tried to compile a list of all the surviving cars built by the Mors company (we both had 1912 model NX 12/15 Mors cars).

http://www.autopuzzl....0;id=322;image

Too lazy to register but the Louwman collection here in the Netherlands has at least one Mors: http://www.pbase.com...wman_collection

Originally posted by scheivlak
Too lazy to register but the Louwman collection here in the Netherlands has at least one Mors: http://www.pbase.com...wman_collection

Thanks for that: it seems to have a strange post-period body, but otherwise looks o.k. No all I need to find out is the chassis number!

The driver at the wheel of #15 Mors (1902 Paris-Vienna) is Foxhall Keene.

Thanks, Robert! Any idea as to why he didn't start?

Keene started, but fell out in the first leg towards Belfort.

Some precisions:
"Foxhall Keene started at 3:45 A. M. He wore an ordinary lounging suit, instead of being muffled in a mackintosh, as were the other competitors...
Foxhall Keene dashed into a gate at a level crossing at Ozier, eleven miles out. His automobile was injured and he was unable to continue the race. Mr. Keene was not injured."

Now I am very ! Looking again, I have Keene starting on Mors #4 at 3:49 am, actually the 7th off. Here's my list:

3:30 Girardot (CGV #12)
3:32 Fournier (Mors #1)
3:34 Edge (Napier #45)
3:36 de Knyff (Panhard-Levassor #5)
3:45 Gabriel (Mors #2)
3:47 de Caters (Mors #3)
3:49 Keene (Mors #4)
3:51 M. Farman (Panhard-Levassor #6)
3:53 H. Farman (Panhard-Levassor #7)
3:55 Jarrott (Panhard-Levassor #8)
etc.

You're right Michael - just beat me to it. We are all screwed-up here...

The 'La France Automobile' report in its issue No 26, 28 June 1902, publishes a full listing of Paris-Vienna entries. The only No 15 is Henri Deutsch's Mercedes which was to carry three passengers in the more or less concurrent 'Touriste' class. There was NO No 15 amongst the 1902 Paris-Vienna's racing categories.

The 60hp Mors entered were as follows:

No 1 - Fournier - car weighed-in at 1003Kg
No 2 - Gabriel - 987Kg
No 3 - De Caters - 1007Kg
No 4 - Foxhall-Keene - 981Kg

A 40hp Mors was entered as:

No 90 - Augieres - 998Kg

Of the 60s only De Caters survived even the opening stage from Paris to Belfort (408kms), which he completed in 6hrs 3mins 18secs. He went on to finish, 10th overall. Augieres actually beat him home, into 9th place, in the 40, by some 7 minutes.

Naturally one then checks the contemporary published photos and their contemporary captions to confirm whether or not the cars really raced under the previously published lnumbers. They certainly seem to have done so.

Branger's other glass negs from this race check out correctly. The inscribed caption on the glass-plate neg I used for the pic posted here - and which I didn't bother to check (how much time has one got when one makes these impulse posts?) - reads 'Caters - P.vienne 02'.

So either the car was carrying the wrong number - '15' - when photographed pre-race during check-in and scrutineering, or the neg doesn't relate to the '02 Paris-Vienna at all. Was the number '15' left over from a previous outing? I don't know, and right now I haven't time to look.

Interesting though, isn't it. I've always liked Mors cars. Not least because they were one of the first, if not the first, constructor to fit hydraulic-dampers to their suspension, and the cars proved particularly controllable at high speed over the awful surfaces of that time.

DCN

And though I have difficulties locating a good enough picture of Keene, I don't think it is him on #15. His 'tache is usually bushier, and I can't picture him wearing a bowler, either.

If it's George Bush I claim my £5.

DCN

Originally posted by Doug Nye
So either the car was carrying the wrong number - '15' - when photographed pre-race during check-in and scrutineering, or the neg doesn't relate to the '02 Paris-Vienna at all. Was the number '15' left over from a previous outing? I don't know, and right now I haven't time to look.

De Caters drove Mors #16 at the Circuit du Nord six weeks earlier, but I believe that was a different car, and anyway the pictured man on #15 isn't de Caters, I'm sure, and I don't think it's Keene. For the Vienna race there was a light Mors 20CV entered as #16 again, for a M. Fraignac, starting at 4:03 am!?

The car photographed is unmistakably an '02 Mors. The bowler-hatted gentleman may well not be the owner or entered driver, but perhaps then one of the manufacturer's senior chaps, merely presenting the car for scrutineering?

This hypothesis still does nothing - of course - to explain the race number. It's difficult to imagine it was a simple error - precious little similarity between Nos 1-4 and '15'. All very strange. indeed...

DCN

After the first leg, La France Automobile (1902, page 406) quoted:

Mors in the 650 - 1000 kg class
#1 Fournier
#2 Gabriel
#3 de Caters
#4 Foxhall Keene
#22 Rolls
#90 Augières
#107 Vanderbilt
#216 d'Arnaud

400 - 650 kg
#16 Fraignac
#91 Godard-Desmaret

There was no number 15.

= = = =

#16 Mors in the Circuit du Nord, a few weeks earlier, was for de Caters. This was the only Mors in this race.
Possible that Keene had entered his Mors in the Circuit du Nord, got #15, but did not start since he was injured after a polo accident.
Then Keene came to the "pesage" of Paris-Vienna with this older #15.

= = = =

That Keene started in the Paris-Vienna at 3:45 was quoted in the New York Times.

His accident:
"Keene came to grief almost at the start at a very nasty railway crossing a couple of miles or so outside of La Ferrière. The spot is in the centre of the splendid Forest of Armanvilliers, one of the best shooting preserves near Paris, and owned by Eugène Péreire, President of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique.
The road in crossing the railway track describes a complete semi-circle in the space of thirty yards. Nice track for an automobile going 100 kilometers an hour!"

= = = =

Another photo of Keene for comparison:
http://memory.loc.go...3200/03297v.jpg

Originally posted by robert dick
Another photo of Keene for comparison:
http://memory.loc.go...3200/03297v.jpg

Alright, alright, so he did wear a bowler from time to time, but I still insist the moustache is bushier!

Originally posted by robert dick
#16 Mors in the Circuit du Nord, a few weeks earlier, was for de Caters. This was the only Mors in this race.
Possible that Keene had entered his Mors in the Circuit du Nord, got #15, but did not start since he was injured after a polo accident.
Then Keene came to the "pesage" of Paris-Vienna with this older #15.

He may even have started at the Circuit du Nord with #15 for all I know! I only have the identity of 57 of the 65 or 66 starters for that race! Anyone else with more info?

A simple question
At what point were cars in these early days allocated their race numbers? Would they be presented for scrutineering and then be allocated a number? In that case the number from a prvious week's event would possibly be still on the car.
Roger Lund.

Have I seen a Mors recently? Er...........yes, about half an hour ago. This was photographed at the VSCC sprint/hillclimb at Brooklands Museum :

a few more :

That had me scurrying for my books, really - an OHV V8 Mors??? Didn't know something like it existed... What's its history?

Originally posted by fines
That had me scurrying for my books, really - an OHV V8 Mors??? Didn't know something like it existed... What's its history?

Don't panic, it was built last year and has a Curtiss OX2 aeroplane engine!
Referred to in post 3 of this thread

Competition numbers:
in the Circuit des Ardennes linked page, de Caters' car in 1902 seems to be no. 13. Offhand I don't know the relevant dates of these events, but perhaps the photo showing no. 15 is of a car still carrying its earlier number from that event.
The driver could well have been a member of the Mors staff as he looks dressed for the office, not the races - Mors was at 48 Rue du Theatre, Paris 15e only a couple of kilometres from the Tuileries - but it is not Emile Mors himself, as he had a full beard.

Originally posted by Doug Nye I've always liked Mors cars. Not least because they were one of the first, if not the first, constructor to fit hydraulic-dampers to their suspension, and the cars proved particularly controllable at high speed over the awful surfaces of that time.

DCN

Racing improves the breed, but even by 1912 the middle-class man in the street got no damping of any sort on his NX 12-15 - see car in the Louwmans link - and even the RX of 1913-15 had none

Originally posted by Allan Lupton

Don't panic, it was built last year and has a Curtiss OX2 aeroplane engine!
Referred to in post 3 of this thread

Although it looks a bit scruffy for a 2007 model, I dare say!

Allan, I don't know about passenger cars, but Mors famously introduced shock absorbers to racing in 1902!

Originally posted by fines

Allan, I don't know about passenger cars, but Mors famously introduced shock absorbers to racing in 1902!

I know, that's why it's so irritating that we who own cars made a decade later are not expected to need them.

Mors at les Sables d'Olonne Museum, which I heartily endorse.

and what they started with

photos copyright ;Roger Lund

Thanks for posting those photos, Roger.
It looks more like an RX than NX: the faired-in scuttle with integral fuel tank, and the Sankey wheels are not NX features (although my NX has the wheels, they date from a 1960s rebuild and are known to have come from a later car!). The use of Citroën gears in the rear axle is also an RX feature so far as I know.
Andre Citroën was works manager at Mors for some years: I suggest that if things had worked out differently between him and Emile Mors, he wouldn't have left to set up his own car manufacture and the Mors badge might still be on production cars!

Just a suggestion trying to understand pic 1 and #15 Mors:

For me it's sure that the gentleman at the wheel is Foxhall Keene, and
that the photo was taken during/just before the pesage/scrutineering of the 1902 Paris-Vienna race.
Concerning the car, I tend to a 650-kg Mors and not a 1000-kg car (front axle, frame horn, venting slots, radiator).

La France Automobile reported that Mors had problems in completing enough 1000-kg cars in time for the Paris-Vienna race.
Since Fraignac was entered and started with the #16 Mors in the 650-kg class, it is probable that a second 650-kg Mors had been entered with #15.
Keene appeared with this 650-kg Mors at the scrutineering.
Either Keene drove this #15 car in the race,
or he switched over to a 1000-kg racer which had just been completed and started with #4.

Originally posted by Gary C
a few more :

Apparently it is road legal. I saw it leaving Brooklands to go home by road.

Originally posted by robert dick
There was no number 15.

Yes there was, Robert - as above - Henri Deutsch (presumably 'de la Meurthe'??) in his Mercedes participating in the tourist category of the event. In most instances, though not all, duplication between numbers allocated for the tourists and the competitive runners was frowned upon.

DCN

Originally posted by Doug Nye
... In most instances, though not all, duplication between numbers allocated for the tourists and the competitive runners was frowned upon.

I don't see it so severely:
There were 51 starters in the tourist event between Paris and Vienna, numbered from 1 to 58 (the tourists took another route, further to the south, via Dijon and Bern, between Feldkirch and Innsbruck on the same road as the racers, then via Klagenfurt to Vienna).
30 of these 51 tourist numbers could also be found in the real race - for example the Mors racer numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 (1000 kg) and 16 (650 kg).
So it was quite possible that #15 was originally allocated in both events, not only in the tourist event but in addition in the real race, maybe to a 650-kg Mors.

Henri Deutsch (de la Meurthe) as driver in pic 1, after having replaced his Mercedes by a Mors?
Deutsch looked different, aged 56 in 1902, (more or less) full bearded.

Originally posted by robert dick
Just a suggestion trying to understand pic 1 and #15 Mors:

For me it's sure that the gentleman at the wheel is Foxhall Keene, and
that the photo was taken during/just before the pesage/scrutineering of the 1902 Paris-Vienna race.
Concerning the car, I tend to a 650-kg Mors and not a 1000-kg car (front axle, frame horn, venting slots, radiator).

La France Automobile reported that Mors had problems in completing enough 1000-kg cars in time for the Paris-Vienna race.
Since Fraignac was entered and started with the #16 Mors in the 650-kg class, it is probable that a second 650-kg Mors had been entered with #15.
Keene appeared with this 650-kg Mors at the scrutineering.
Either Keene drove this #15 car in the race,
or he switched over to a 1000-kg racer which had just been completed and started with #4.

I think this is a good (= possible) explanation. Cars for these big races were often completed at the last instant, of the top of my head I recall de Dietrich being in similar trouble in 1903. Still, the possibility of Keene competing in the Circuit du Nord with #15 intrigues me - anyone out there with a full list of starters for the earlier event?

Yes - Le Circuit du Nord a l'Alcool's entry is listed in 'La France Automobile' for May 24, 1902, page 325. I have no way of telling if it is a 'full' list as you specify. How would one tell? Presumably, however, it is complete. And, guess what, there is NO No 15...

De Caters' solitary 40hp Mors was No 16.

Oh yes, and here he is in his 1902 Paris-Vienna Mors No 3:



This is indeed not the same car as my mysterious mis-captioned No 15. That nose hatch on the engine cowl has five horizontal louvres, against only four on the No 15. The front axles appear the same size and type but No 3's is part blocked from sight by Mors' cylindrical shock absorbers, lacking on No 15. Both have six row radiator assemblies, but the lower three on No 3 are supported by drop-tubes from the horizontal front bar, those on No 15 are supported by rod or possibly sheet-plates, edge on to the camera. Other features of the two cars are remarkably similar, even to the bulb horn on the steering column, augmented on No 3 by a second horn for the intrepid meccanico.

DCN

= = = = =

650-kg Mors:
La France Automobile, page 313, fig. 334.

Originally posted by Doug Nye
... That nose hatch on the engine cowl has five horizontal louvres, against only four on the No 15. The front axles appear the same size and type but No 3's is part blocked from sight by Mors' cylindrical shock absorbers, lacking on No 15. Both have six row radiator assemblies, but the lower three on No 3 are supported by drop-tubes from the horizontal front bar, those on No 15 are supported by rod or possibly sheet-plates, edge on to the camera. Other features of the two cars are remarkably similar, even to the bulb horn on the steering column, augmented on No 3 by a second horn for the intrepid meccanico.

Agreed!
The Mors racers of the 650- and the 1000-kg class are extremely similar and hence difficult to keep apart, especially if the photo shows the front of the car.
In general, everything in the 650-kg racer is scaled down in a relation of 2/3 (which is in accordance with the weight ratio of 650/1000).
On all the photos that I could find, the number of louvres in the side of the engine cover is six, seven or eight in case of the 650-kg racer,
and ten, eleven or twelve in case of the 1000-kg racer.
That's the main reason why I have a tendency towards a 650-kg racer in the case of #15.

La France Automobile/1902, page 373, published a listing of the latest Paris-Vienna entries (nos. 150s-170s).
On the preceding pages, I tried to find the corresponding listing containing no. 15, but did not find it. Maybe that I'm going blind!
It would be a step forward to find out if or if not no. 15 was alloted (in the race category).

= = = = =

Michael,
according to the background, pic 1 was taken at the Place de la Concorde.
At the time of the scrutineering of the Circuit du Nord, the weather was bad and almost everybody wore winter clothes.
That's why for me it's sure that pic 1 was taken during the scrutineering of the Paris-Vienna race.

= = = = =

Rolls and his (1902 type - 1000-kg) Mors:
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327515.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10318512.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10318508.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10318505.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10318503.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327149.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327152.jpg

at the Paris-Vienna:
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327052.jpg

with streamline body:
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327055.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327031.jpg

1901 Paris-Berlin:
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327511.jpg

with his 1904 Mors racer:
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327776.jpg
http://www.sciencean...ty_10327160.jpg