Monday mystery: an archetypal American of the Brass Era

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This photograph was recently acquired for the PreWarCar.com archive, but before it's any good to us, it would help us to know exactly what we're looking it. The only annotation with the photograph is a date: August, 1913. That sounds about right for the car but besides that, all we can think is that it's clearly something American. It has all the hallmarks of a typical American motor car—wooden artillery wheels, drum headlamps, a painted radiator and an extremely basic touring body. All in all, it seems to embody the American credo of ruggedness and simplicity.

The trouble is, it conforms so much to the archetype that we're struggling to distinguish it positively from among its compeers. Our first thought was that the radiator belonged to a Buick, but there were so many similar radiator shapes in use at the time that it's hard to be certain. Then again, we looked into a bit more, and we started to think we were right all along. By 1913, it was becoming increasingly unusual for cars not to be built with a scuttle panel, but many Buicks of the time simply had a bonnet which sat directly against the dash. We hope now that our experts will tell us if we're right, or correct us if not.

It's a shame there's not much in the background to give us a sense of the location, but sunny skies and palm trees would suggest, perhaps, an affluent part of Los Angeles or Miami. It looks like the picture was taken on a private driveway, anyhow, so the Buick must have been the prized possession of some wealthy individual.

Words: Zack Stiling
Photograph: Stiling Collection

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