Edison's touring car

[SteveD]

Spent a nice morning servicing and test driving Edison's 22 at the museum in West Orange NJ.
Pictures to follow

[SteveD]

[aDave]

Interesting that with all his knowledge of electricity, and his forays into electric vehicles, he still had an internal combustion engine. I don't understand California's push to go all electric when the state doesn't have enough electricity now to prevent rolling blackouts. Perhaps the ultimate goal is to get people walking again....or bring back 4 legged horsepower???

[Norman Kling]

The ultimate electric vehicle is an elevator! San Diego now has a proposed building with commercial on the ground floor, offices above that and residences toward the top. No parking for cars. It will be near trolley and bus routes. Meanwhile last week the news announced that people who ride certain trolley routes have been exposed to Tuberculosis. I suppose if someone who lives in the building could take the stairs!
Norm

[TXGOAT2]

Edison did a lot of work aimed at improving storage batteries. He wasn't able to materially improve on what was available at the time for automotive use. Batteries remain the primary obstacle to truly practical electric vehicles. If that obstacle were to be removed tomorrow, a substantial number of other obstacles would quickly come into focus.

[TXGOAT2]

Unfortunately, animals once commonly used to move vehicles, such as horses, goats, and oxen, are known emitters of greenhouse gases, including the horrid methane.

[TRDxB2]

Interesting that with all his knowledge of electricity, and his forays into electric vehicles, he still had an internal combustion engine. I don't understand California's push to go all electric when the state doesn't have enough electricity now to prevent rolling blackouts. Perhaps the ultimate goal is to get people walking again....or bring back 4 legged horsepower???

California has many confused realities. For example: In the last deluge of rain the LA river captured the downfall and expedited the flow into the ocean. The State is still in drought yet has mud slides. This last census indicated 500K people left the State.
This is what the Governor drives

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Combined fuel economy is a weighted average of City and Highway MPG values that is calculated by weighting the City value by 55% and the Highway value by 45%.
This is what is claimed 21 combined city/highway MPG; City 20mpg; Highway 23mpg. So it gets better fuel economy when its nonelectric
Who drives 30mph in California?

[TXGOAT2]

Who drives 30 MPH in California?

O.J. Simpson?

Jethro Clampett?

[Retro54]

Very cool that you got to have a hand in taking care of a real piece of history! Thanks for sharing.

What a shame the others posting on this thread can't stay on topic!

[George House]

Wow! What an honor to service Edison’s touring and source of excitement to actually drive it. I’m green with envy.

[mortier]

As we know, Henry's wife Clara drove a Detroit Electric.

I wonder how many miles Edison put on that Model T Touring.

[Moxie26]

Haven't seen motion pictures of Thomas actually driving, just pics of him behind the wheel. He did have a personal driver, with " the Old Man " sitting in the right passenger position of the back seat. A big "THANK YOU" to those who serviced the 1922 Touring for preparation in the West Orange St. Patrick's Day Parade !!!!

[Moxie26]

mortier..... Looking at the back picture of the '22, you will see two Detroit Electrics.,.. one to the right as seen thru the '22, and the other head on to the left...... Possible the electric on the right is a Baker with leather fenders.

[John kuehn]

I was thinking there was an older post of Edison’s brass era Model T. It had some upgrades if I remember. Seems like Ford gave it to him??

It’s been a while ago but seems like it was an older Touring than the one in this post. Maybe somebody remembers if it was Edison but whoever it was he was of the early giants in turn of the century America and a little later. It looked like he really drove it regularly and wasn’t pristine but a good driver in todays terminology among T owners today. And he probably had other cars as time went by.

[Moxie26]

John, your thoughts are correct.. at the Edison estate in Florida, there is a brass radiator Model T, not sure of the correct year. A young Mr Ford did work for Thomas Edison, and they were very close friends the rest of their lives.

[SteveD]

Haven't seen motion pictures of Thomas actually driving, just pics of him behind the wheel. He did have a personal driver, with " the Old Man " sitting in the right passenger position of the back seat. A big "THANK YOU" to those who serviced the 1922 Touring for preparation in the West Orange St. Patrick's Day Parade !!!!

Hi Bob. I didn't get a chance to talk to you, but I think you spoke to Vin, from our club. Thank you, for sharing the opportunity. It's pretty neat to think I'm driving a car that Edison himself operated.

[Moxie26]

Steve.... Were you asked, or one of the others, to be available to drive in the St. Patty's parade ????

[SteveD]

No we weren't. Jerry actually introduced us to one of his employees who will be the driver.

[John kuehn]

Thanks Moxie.
If I remember the Brass Touring he had was his go to daily driver.

[Herb Iffrig]

Here is a different

one.

[Moxie26]

John and Herb ..... That's the car in the Florida estate museum. Changes on the 22 and the, I'll say the 16, we're made as experimental tryouts before approved for regular production run.... examples such as different wheels and tire sizes and differential gearing..... Those tires don't exactly look like 30x3.5 ?????

[John kuehn]

Looks like a 16?

[TWrenn]

Looks like a 16?

Yeh and wonder what happened to the sidelights?

[JTT3]

…—-…—-…—-…—-…—-…—-

[Moxie26]

Yeh and wonder what happened to the sidelights?
Could be the car never had the side lights or the windshield and brackets and frame
were replaced sometime after.

[John kuehn]

Here’s a photo and brief earlier post about Edison’s 1916 T. https://www.mtfca.com/discus/messages/2 ... 1330578188

[Moxie26]

1916 Touring ,... some time after delivery in Florida. Thanks John and Herb for posting picture links of the '16

[ModelT46]

Edison owned the Detroit Electric Company. Ford started out as a junior mechanic and rose to chief engineer. When Ford became famous he met Edison and reminded him that he had worked for him in Detroit. Edison did not remeber that.

[Moxie26]

At that moment, good possibility that Edison did not hear Ford's words exactly, since he had a progressive hearing loss. They both were good friends for years and had neighboring estates in Florida.

[DHort]

I think you should drive the 22 to Fort Myers and bring the 16 back to NJ.

Helps to rotate exhibits once in a while.

[Moxie26]

Was Edison the first recipient of the new 1928 Model A from Henry Ford. ????? ...... https://youtu.be/1OXrVLF5Y9o