11 replies to this topic

[smarjoram]

Somebody sent me a fascinating image today which he found in a box of documents in the Milwaukee area. I believe it's The Ford Arrow, which later became the record setting 999. Sadly the Arrow crashed in a record attempt, killing the driver Frank Day. Has anyone else seen this image before?



Here's a NY Times article from Sep 13th 1903...

[f1steveuk]

Looks like it is in '999' spec'. Is this post accident as the rear wheel looks out of alignment? But in summary, no, not seen that before.

[smarjoram]

Looks like it is in '999' spec'. Is this post accident as the rear wheel looks out of alignment? But in summary, no, not seen that before.

How did the Arrow differ from the 999? It looks like the front tyre is off too - and is there something amiss with the radiator - it looks different to other photos I've seen of it.

[f1steveuk]

I'm open to being proven wrong, but wasn't the rad' different on the Arrow and the induction system was different.

[tbolt]

In the Cyril Posthumus book "Land Speed Record from 39.24 to 600+mph" he states that for the record run the radiator was replaced with a brass tank (below), I have also seen a photo taken in Detroit of the car with a radiator that looks to be about half the size of the one in the picture at the top of the page.

[f1steveuk]

I knew there was a difference in radiators, but that doesn't look like the same chassis to me.

[smarjoram]

There's also this picture which puports to be Barney Oldfield in 1903...



To me it looks like the same car as the first one I posted and shows how the first one has damage to the steering and radiator (and plumbing). So could it be Oldfield's car?

http://datagrange.co...s-year-of-1903/

[Pullman99]

Somebody sent me a fascinating image today which he found in a box of documents in the Milwaukee area. I believe it's The Ford Arrow, which later became the record setting 999. Has anyone else seen this image before?

Could the gentleman in waistcoat and hat, standing on the trailer next to the driver's seat, be Henry Ford?

Edited by Pullman99, 19 April 2011 - 08:53.

[Doug Nye]

This very interesting photo looks like a post crash shot - distorted radiator, missing tyre, and (not least) apparently damaged fence in the background suggesting the track just beyond, over that ridge. The length of timber lying on the ground is surely too light to have been one of the loading ramps used for the car, and looks more likely to have been a fence rail detached by impact?

DCN

[smarjoram]

I ended up doing quite a bit of research into these cars. i started with modern accounts but found that they kept contradicting each other when it came to names, colours and who drove what where. I trawled through newspaper archives and found several interesting articles which seem to construct a fairly solid story but there are still a few grey areas. It's all quite fascinating even though it only covers the space of a few (very busy) years. Eventually i'm going to put together some sort of timeline. One thing that helps work out which car you're looking at is that they went through a few design changes. The crashed one looks like quite an early one. There are some photos of a later model with an overhead camshaft. Then there's the one which Ford used for his record which has a small pointed radiator and a steering wheel instead of a tiller. 999 features in a film made in 1927 'The Story of the Auto' I think it was called - but I suspect it may be a recreation because it doesn't seem to look right (even ignoring the radiator which is really odd). One car ended up in LA and was demonstrated at the opening of the Motordrome after having been rebuilt by Bruno Seibel. I haven't found any images of the car showing how it looked at this stage.

I'd like to know how restored the one in the Ford museum is. if it's the LA one then it wasn't that different after all. If it's the other one then that ought to be the one with the steering wheel that Ford himself used and it's been returned to it's original state.

As to the chap in the hat - it's hard to say but I think it's unlikely. Ford sold his share in the cars to Tom Cooper before they were ever raced and was busy forming the second version of the Ford Motor Co. I haven't come across any mention of his having been at any events. At this time the cars were referred to as Cooper-Fords or Cooper Gasoline Racers.

[Mark Godfrey]

I have not seen this photo of the Arrow before.

From what I gather, Henry Ford and Tom Cooper built two cars; one painted red the other yellow. Before they were sorted-out, Ford sold his interest in both cars to Tom Cooper. Copper, Barney Oldfield and Spider Huff got the red car running first and named it "999" after the record-setting steam locomotive. The yellow car, known as the Arrow, was later painted red and at times billed as "The Red Devil". The Arrow was also at times promoted or billed as "999" or later as the New 999. The Arrow & 999 can be distinguished by the intake manifolds.

According to Hans Tanner's book, The Racing Fords, the Bruno Seibel rebuild on 999 was completed by the William L. Hughsons Ford Dealership in San Francisco. The car looks very much the same today as it did then.

Mark
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[D-Type]

This site clarifies the story.

(courtesy of a link from tbolt in connection with my Blitzen Benz query)

Edited by D-Type, 14 June 2011 - 19:44.