17 replies to this topic

[Ralf Pickel]

Since there are quite a few experts on early American race history around here, I would like to have some questions about above mentioned cars, actually the ones running around as racers converted from fire trucks.
Quite a few of them are senn at events, they are especially popular on the continent over here.
To me they always semm out of proportion, simply too big even for Edwardian racers. LaFrance owners always tell that the company built cars too, which,of course, is true.
But- here are my questions- have theh few cars had the same sized frames as the "racers" built today as conversions from period fire trucks ? Have the originals ever been raced and would the modern rebuilds really be at least a bit correct ?
Also, I have heared that supposedly a few of the Mercedes Edwardians that should have Mercedes built Simplex engines run indeed with LaFrance engines with the LaFrance simply ground off.

If anybody knows any answers, I would appreciate if they could be posted here. I am always keen to learn - and maybe these cars should get better appreciation ?

Edited by Ralf Pickel, 29 November 2010 - 16:12.

[Allan Lupton]

Can't really give the definitive reply your questions deserve, Ralf, but there was a Fire Chief's "car" which I understand had the four-cylinder engine and was more or less the same chassis length as the six-cylinder imitation "Raceabouts" usually have.
Keith Marvin, writing in the Georgano Encyclopedia says that two cars were made under the American LaFrance name (as against "LaFrance")and both were shaft drive (and were still in existence when he wrote about them in 1981 or so).
When the VCC had a Dating Committee/Panel and I was on it, if there had ever been a real production car I am sure we would have had to consider some of the specials, but as they were deemed to be converted commercial vehicles the VCC had no place for them.

[raceannouncer2003]

We were heading up the highway near Duncan on Vancouver Island about a month ago, when we had to stop at a traffic light. A monstrous contraption then came through the intersection in front of us, and turned down the highway the other way, its driver sporting a leather helmet and goggles. I found it was Jim Walters of Bristol Motors in Victoria in his 1917 LaFrance, which he is apparently going to run in a Paris-Peking event. Here is Jim's website, where he can be contacted:

http://www.bristolmotors.com/

Vince H.

[Ralf Pickel]

Allan, thank you for your informations.
Vince - he might be late for Peking-Paris, this event took place this year, so he might have to wait.
But LaFrance owner do like to dress their cars up as participants of this event, a German owner has the words "Peking-Paris" on his engine cover since earlier this year. He must have missed it, too, because at the same time he was seen at events here in this country...
Of course, LaFrance have been used for that rally and are very popular, but trucks should withstand that mistreatment easier than cars....

[f1steveuk]

When I was curator at Filching Manor Motor Museum, a couple of La France fire trucks were imported, one I recall from "Bugtussle". Monster to drive and as one purchaser said, "great source of spare for my Mercedes".

Through this we met a chap who collected fire engines and motor bikes (based in the Addlestone area of Surrey) who converted quite a few and sold them on, and he said several were raced.

[BMH Comic]

When I was curator at Filching Manor Motor Museum, a couple of La France fire trucks were imported, one I recall from "Bugtussle". Monster to drive and as one purchaser said, "great source of spare for my Mercedes".

Through this we met a chap who collected fire engines and motor bikes (based in the Addlestone area of Surrey) who converted quite a few and sold them on, and he said several were raced.

An American Le France was competing at the Festival of Speed in Perth Western Australia this last weekend, has been here in WA for many years.

I will endeavour to locate a link for you to a photograph of the car/truck/racer

However if you are a member of the Motor sport forum in Western Australia - Speedwest then this link will take you to the photography section which has a shot of the Le France in action

http://www.speedwest.net

Edited by BMH Comic, 30 November 2010 - 16:48.

[Stephen W]

La France roadster tackles New Brighton sprint course

[Ralf Pickel]

Thank you all for your input - but...I am not looking for evidence of LaFrance trucks raced today, but "in period". That they are used today is not the question, they, due to their massive build, probably last forever which makes them good cars for long distance events.
But proof of any history has yet to surface.

[BMH Comic]

Thank you all for your input - but...I am not looking for evidence of LaFrance trucks raced today, but "in period". That they are used today is not the question, they, due to their massive build, probably last forever which makes them good cars for long distance events.
But proof of any history has yet to surface.;)

They probably raced to a lot of fires in period Ralf!!!

Anyway here is the La France competing at the Festival


http://cid-b6e6ba956...esphotos028.jpg

Edited by BMH Comic, 01 December 2010 - 12:24.

[Ralf Pickel]

They probably raced to a lot of fires in period Ralf!!!

Very true !

[Red Socks]

Very true !

Go straight to ''Blood pressure'' without passing Go.
Truth is truth and cannot be qualified.
Very true is twaddle.

[Ralf Pickel]

Very right !

[Marticelli]

The name that hasn't yet appeared in this thread is Simplex, which is the missing link between Mercedes and La France...

To quote from Wikipedia.."The Smith and Mabley Manufacturing Co. of New York City was founded by Carleton Raymond Mabley (1878-1963) and his brother-in-law Albert Proctor Smith to import European cars for sale in America. They built their first car in 1904, which was called the S&M Simplex, largely from imported Mercedes parts. The company went bankrupt in 1906 and in 1907 the firm's assets were absorbed into the Simplex Automobile Co. Herman Broesel, passionate about racing, purchased the company and redesigned the "Simplex" so it could reach speeds of 90 mph (140 km/h). The firm became Crane-Simplex after purchase of the Crane Motor Car Company of Bayonne, New Jersey, which had been founded by Henry Middleton Crane, in 1915. The Crane-Simplex Company was purchased in 1920 by the Mercer Automobile Company but by 1922 ownership had passed to Henry Crane, who then failed to realise an ambition to revive the marque." Jay Leno has a fine example of a Crane-Simplex tourer which is well known in the US.

As far as I am aware, the only vehicles built by La France in the Edwardian era were fire vehicles, indeed the company is still around today making these. The engines used by La France were based on the Simplex development of the original Mercedes Simplex of 1903/4 from whom Simplex took their name. These are pair cast T head sidevalve fours or sixes of approx 9 and 13 1/2 litres, 6" stroke and 5 1/2" bore and with gravity fed mains lubrication and splash fed big ends. The well known SCAT Targa Florio I ran in VSCC Edwardian events used a 1910 Simplex engine from a car, although the availability of La France spares from Ken Senior of Windsor (referred to above as being in Addlestone) meant that keeping the SCAT running was measureably easier than for some Edwardians for which there are few or no spares available...

As for racing, of course a Simplex racer driven by legendary racer Ralph de Palma came 6th in the first Indy 500, but that's another story...

Marticelli

[Ralf Pickel]

Very interesting and thank you for bringing the Simplex connection up.
This, too, does explain the spare parts compatibility.

[Agusta74]

Hiya chaps,
I was just surfing the net the other day for mention of American LaFrance cars and came upon this thread so I have registered to hopefully answer some of the questions.

Most of what has been said here is correct.....

The Mercedes 50hp was copied by Simplex in New York City. The engines were large 4 cylinder T head engines with three speed transaxles and dual chain drive to the rear wheels. They even copied the shape of the radiator.
When American LaFrance decided to seriously get into motorized fire appliances in 1909 they bought two Simplex car chassis of 50hp and 129 inch wheelbase upon which they build two rigs.
They then went on in 1910 to copy the Simplex and built their own rigs from the ground up with 570 cubic inch or 9340cc four cylinder engines.
It was these engines that were used in their passenger cars and the one race car that was made.
The company built 22 passenger cars in the period from 1910 to 1912. All but one had chain drive to the rear wheels.
ONE special car, the Type 8, was built as a Factory racer, with a normal differential. BUT it was never raced by the factory as Truckson LaFrance attended a race where someone was killed so he abandoned the idea of racing and the car was sold. That Type 8 is the only known car to survive today and is in the American LaFrance Museum collection.

The cars were Sporting automobiles not fire chiefs cars as is commonly thought.

Getting to the Speedster phenomenon...... they use the American LaFrance chassis and can use the four cylinder engine or the 855 cubic inch or 14010cc six cylinder that was introduced in 1911 by just adding two more cylinders to the engine.
In general they are not built to copy any particular vehicle. They are creations where people take what they think is the best aspects of the Mercedes, Simplex, Stutz, Mercer etc Speedsters and make their own car to suit themselves.

Some are very well done and some are just train wrecks!!
The comment about them being out proportion even for Edwardian cars is not always right..... they are basically the same size as a Simplex or the huge Pierce Arrow 66 with it's 13.5 litre six cylinder engine. Having said that SOME are not built with good lines.

I don't think any of the converted fire trucks would have been raced in the period, (1910-1925 say) simply because they were hugely expensive to buy new and by the time they because available for Speedster conversion they would have not been competitive.

One correction, the engines built from 1910 to 1915 do not have gravity oil feed to the main bearings but a dash mounted Pederson pump that is driven via a 90 degree bevel box from the back end of the inlet cam that draws oil from one tank on the four cylinder and two tanks on the six that are mounted on the engines.... it pumps oil to the mains after which everything is splash total loss.

In case you are wondering how I know all this.... I am building a period Speedster from the remains of a 1915 Type 12, 6 cylinder rig. It has the Pederson pump on the dash! I also have the LaFrance history book here and I have talked with a few very knowledgeable people about their history over the years.

Kind regards
Gavin
New Zealand

[Marticelli]

One correction, the engines built from 1910 to 1915 do not have gravity oil feed to the main bearings but a dash mounted Pederson pump that is driven via a 90 degree bevel box from the back end of the inlet cam that draws oil from one tank on the four cylinder and two tanks on the six that are mounted on the engines.... it pumps oil to the mains after which everything is splash total loss.

Actually the standard oiling arrangement on those early laFrance engines (as clearly shown in the handbook which I have) is a box sump with a lift pump driven by an extra cam lobe with lifts oil and feeds it into a pipe along the side of the sump which squirts into four transverse troughs which supply the dippers on each conrod. Excess oil just slops back over the edge of the troughs down into the sump below. The external pump you describe is a non-standard fitment but was done to improve the somewhat marginal splash arrangement, although such splash designs were commonplace in Edwardian engines - my 1912 8HP Clement Bayard 4M3 had an almost identical design (pictured below) which worked well.

The arrangement on the original American made Simplex engine had (as I described) a gravity tank with sight glass mounted on the dash or firewall which fed the three mains by gravity, and the oil then fell to the bottom of the curved sump into four shallow grooves for the four conrod dippers. Each groove had a small pipe set at about half an inch above the bottom of the sump through which excess oil dripped out onto the road - classic total loss. On the SCAT Targa Florio which was fitted with such an engine, it was equipped with a camshaft-driven pump to scavenge the oil from pipes which replaced these drippers so the oil could be returned to a catch tank from which the mains were then fed. This satisfied the scrutineers who took a dim view of total loss oiling on a track car, as you might imagine. It was nevertheless amazing how little oil was needed for reliable big end lubrication, as witnessed by the many miles the car did on long distance rallies like the 2003 and 2004 Paris-Bordeaux centenaries and the 2006 Targa Florio centenary.

Marticelli

Edited by Marticelli, 19 December 2010 - 16:43.

[Agusta74]

"Actually the standard oiling arrangement on those early laFrance engines (as clearly shown in the handbook which I have) is a box sump with a lift pump driven by an extra cam lobe with lifts oil and feeds it into a pipe along the side of the sump which squirts into four transverse troughs which supply the dippers on each conrod. Excess oil just slops back over the edge of the troughs down into the sump below. The external pump you describe is a non-standard fitment but was done to improve the somewhat marginal splash arrangement, although such splash designs were commonplace in Edwardian engines "

Hiya,
This might be correct for the first two rigs made using the two bought in Simplex chassis. Can you scan the copy of the relivant page of the handbook you have? Maybe you have a very very early manual their from other engines?

As far as I know from then on all the La France made engines up until 1915 did have the Pederson pump as standard. It's in my manual and parts book from LaFrance. The Pederson pump was never a non standard fitment of that I am 100% sure. The eveidence for that is that it's mentioned in a large section of my hand book, it's in the parts book, and the way it's driven.

Post 1915 they had a geared oil pump with wet sump with "force feed and splash system" quoted from hand book. The pump was in the bottom of the sump and was driven by the same shaft that ran the distrubutor on those later cars (pre 1915 was magneto only).

Let me know what book you have!
Regards
Gavin

[Iana101]

Hi Gavin,

 

Bit of a jump from 2010 to now  , I have a 1911 Type 10 Simplex engine to build and note from your info that it would be a total loss oil system, not ideal for modern times, is it possible to install a sump suction pump from later engines to convert?

Do you have any images of the Pederson oil oil pump mounted on the dash?

I also could do with a manual showing main and big end bearing clearances etc. would it be possible to obtain a print of that info from yourself?

 

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

Southern Ireland