Stanley Steamer
 

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We were at my grandmother's house with the family. One of my mom's friends owns three Stanley Steamers and invited us to go look at one of them. This one was from the mid to late teens. Next to the Stanley was a 40's Ford pick up truck which had been crushed by a tree. The truck stopped the tree from destroying 7 other cars that included the Stanley Steamers.

Pretty cool. Did you make an offer?

that thing needs to be restored, or in a better protected place. can you buy it?

I agree it needs to be in a more secure area but actually you would have to jump a razor wire fences to get to the area. That's enough to deter the normal thief. The person is thinking of selling the cars because money is tight for them as it seems with everyone these days. I would have no idea for how much but Jay Leno knows of the family and the cars so he may be the guy that picks them up.

You can see a Stanley in action on Leno's site 'Jay's Garage'. He has a video about him starting it and driving it around.

Leno is proud to be the holder of the speeding ticket issued to the oldest car ever in LA. He was doing about 80 on the freeway in his 1903 Stanley.

The thing sounds like an old time locomotive going down the street. If you wish to see it all in pieces then check out the film 'Seabiscut' with Jeff Bridges since that is supposed to be Leno's Stanley that Bridge's character takes apart.

Every year at Hershey, the Stanley Steamer clubs runs through the complete cold start up routine. It attracts quite a crowd.

Seabiscuit is a favorite movie. I'll pretty much watch it anytime. I can't imagine they actually disassembled Leno's Steamer for those scenes. What kind of money are those original Stanley's worth?
Whatever the traffic will bear I'd imagine....

I love Seabiscuit too. I have read the book a couple of times and watched the movie prolly six times.

Leno himself commented on how nervous he was when they were filming the scene.

These are actually rather simple cars, and Leno himself has demonstrated how easy it is to take the 'engine' apart and service it. People at the time understood steam, and the ease of service was one of the big selling points.

But as easy as they were to service how many owners who could afford one be the type of person to drag out the old blacksmithing tools to make any repairs? We may drive cars that the rest of the world looks on as expensive and complicated things, but I would venture to say that anyone here could easily do most of the repair work on their Mercedes. Back then? Maybe, but doubtful.

Leno also said that steamers in general were hard to start on a cold morning because starting them really involved getting up enough steam pressure which involved warming everything up. Therefore on cold nights it was common to keep a pan of burning coal under the boiler. This also led to more than one garage burning down, and this did little to help steamer sales.

Once the electric starter became common the only folks that bought steamers, like the Franklin, were those that wanted quite and powerful operation.

There is a 1905 Stanley like the one Leno has and in just as good of condition listed for sale on a Stanley Steamer web-site.

It is not as well equipped as Leno's, which has fenders, but it is available with an asking price of $190,000.

The club tours with cars or did. We saw them in Machias, ME when we were living there in 2003 or so. They spent the night next to Helen's, our favorite breakfast joint. Got to see them making early morning repairs and cold starts. At that time a beater was quite reasonable but I don't remember the numbers. Parts were pretty reasonable too.

The story of manufacturing was interesting. I want to say they were kind of a cottage industry and built in multiple locations around the country.

A homebuilt steamer would be doable for someone with entirely too much time on their hands.

I met a 90 year old man in about '79 and we became buddies. His wife had had TB so he had no kids and she'd died 10 years earlier. An uncle of his was a polio survivor and couldn't crank a gas car so had a series of steamers, Stanley and White. He rode in them, said they had amazing torque. Very gentle and steady, would pull out of a mud rut like no gas engine could as there was no clutch - no torque to accidentally dump. Instead just a slow filling of the chamber with steam while the car motored out of the mud. Fast and quiet too. Those pictures look pretty good. Someone is going to pay bank for those.

I'd love to take a ride in a stanley steamer, fantastic cars, dead simple to work on usually and all that shoots out the back of it is some steam and water.

Steamers require no transmission, and they deliver their max torque at stall. Seems almost perfect for automotive use. It would seem that external combustion would be easier to make clean. Surprising that no one seems to be able to overcome the difficulties.

I am sure it could be done, but at what cost?

I used to hear of someone like Malcomb Brickin was working on a modern steam car from time to time but have not heard such lately.

I imagine someone has penciled it out from time to time and do not come up with numbers that justify investing money in a modern one.