The firm became Crane-Simplex after purchase of the Crane Motor Car Company of Bayonne, New Jersey, which had been founded by Henry Middleton Crane, in 1915. Herman Broesel, passionate about racing, purchased the company and redesigned the "Simplex" so it could reach speeds of 90 mph (140 km/h). The company went bankrupt in 1906 and in 1907 the firm's assets were absorbed into the Simplex Automobile Co. They built their first car in 1904, which was called the S&M Simplex, largely from imported Mercedes parts. of New York City was founded by Carleton Raymond Mabley (1878-1963) and his brother-in-law Albert Proctor Smith to import European cars for sale in America. To quote from Wikipedia."The Smith and Mabley Manufacturing Co. The name that hasn't yet appeared in this thread is Simplex, which is the missing link between Mercedes and La France. I am always keen to learn - and maybe these cars should get better appreciation ?Įdited by Ralf Pickel, 29 November 2010 - 16:12.
If anybody knows any answers, I would appreciate if they could be posted here. LaFrance owners always tell that the company built cars too, which,of course, is true.īut- here are my questions- have theh few cars had the same sized frames as the "racers" built today as conversions from period fire trucks ? Have the originals ever been raced and would the modern rebuilds really be at least a bit correct ?Īlso, I have heared that supposedly a few of the Mercedes Edwardians that should have Mercedes built Simplex engines run indeed with LaFrance engines with the LaFrance simply ground off. To me they always semm out of proportion, simply too big even for Edwardian racers. Quite a few of them are senn at events, they are especially popular on the continent over here.
Since there are quite a few experts on early American race history around here, I would like to have some questions about above mentioned cars, actually the ones running around as racers converted from fire trucks.
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