The Compound Motorcar

Thank you for the nice article. The Graham-Fox was named for David Graham and Frank Fox. One minor point is that of the middle name: David Ferguson Graham was my great-great-uncle. I have a number of photos and blueprints from the Graham-Fox and Compound cars including a shot of the G-F engine. The factory still stands as of today in Middletown.

I'd like to add some comment to this story. I was somewhat confused by the information given by several sources (including the Standard Catalog by Beverley Rae Kimes), that the Compound car was shown at the Madison Square Garden show of 1903, while an experimental vehicle would have been tested some months earlier, which would have been during the fall of 1902. Looking at all info I could find, my guess is that this has all happened a year later. What follows here is the time-line according to actual magazine info.
In November 1902, The Motor World gives a complete description of the Graham-Fox engine and in December the same magazine states that a company has been formed to produce engine and cars. In the March 1903 issue The Motor World states, that the Graham-Fox Company is firmly settled and that it has the intention of producing severals models including a 100hp racing car! In June the Cycle & Automobile Trade Journal shows a line-drawing of the first model to be ready, a 35hp model. Apparently the first Graham-Fox is ready during the fall of that year for a test drive, but not yet the 35hp engine. The following description is derived from The Automobile Review of November: “The [16 hp] engine used on this occasion was hardly powerful enough for this car, […] where in reality this type weight of car demanded a 35 hp engine”. Clearly this was the experimental car, mentioned in several sources. In January 1904 this vehicle was shown with the name of Compound at the Madison Square Garden Show by the Eisenhuth Horseless Vehicle Co.. In Motor Age the following description is given: “This company shows the compound gasoline car which was developed and brought out by the Graham-Fox Motor Co.” Eventually this car proved to be far too expensive indeed and during 1904 a smaller model was developed, being the model 3 on the 1905 advertisement, which would remain the basic model during the remaining existence of the EHVC.

perhaps to explain better, the Ford Mustang had a V8 engine, . . . but here is a Midland Railway steam engine from the same era; https://chasewaterstuff.wordpress.com/2013/01/14/steam-locomotives-of-a-more-leisurely-era-1902-4-4-0-compounds-midland-railway/

how clever these engineers were, no computers and nothing to copy. take the first cadillac's NO carbureters twin spark plugs how on earth did they get there. without all these engineers efforts we would not have cars today.

I had wondered whether the car was an EHV as in the advert, not a Compound. Certainly, compound railway and mill steam engines were generally known by the name of their designer rather than the type of engine, which throws the answer to last week's quiz into doubt, doesn't it ?