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The King car was a short-lived make which used a 12hp vertical twin-engine and single chain-drive. The radiator on the King car bore some resemblance to that of the Daimler.
Charles B. King built the first King car in Detroit in 1896, with a 4-cylinder horizontal engine, and later designed 2- and 4-cylinder cars for Northern. He formed his own King car company in 1909 and its first product was a 4-cylinder 35hp car with central gear change.This and a companion King 30hp model were made up to 1915 when a small V8 of under 4-litres was introduced. From 1916 onwards only 8-cylinder King cars were made, there being two models, of 26 and 29hp. Prices for King car ranged from $1.400 for a 1917 King tourer to $4.235 for a 1921 sedan. This inflation, although general in the industry, hit King car sales, which slumped from a maximum of 3.000 per year in 1916 to only 240 King car in 1923, the year that King moved to a smaller plant at Buffalo. A number of King cars were sold in England before and after the war. They were handled by Salmons of Newport Pagnell who fitted some of the King cars with their own coupé bodies.
Source: Georgano, encyclopedia of motorcar; GNG, DF
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