Mobile Company of America
Automobiles | |
Production output | 600 approx (1900-1903) |
---|
The Mobile Company of America was an American steam automobile manufacturer founded in 1899 by John Brisben Walker with production in Tarrytown, New York.[1]
History
John Brisben Walker arranged the purchase of
Brisben Walker purchased a factory site near Tarrytown, New York and hired McKim, Mead & White to design a purpose-built automobile factory. Manufacturing machinery was purchased and the new factory at Kingsland Point produced its first Mobile Steam carriage on March 7, 1900. Advertising claimed it to be the largest automobile factory in the world.[3][1]
Mobile's version of the steam carriage had a 5 to 12
The Automobile Races held at Newport, Rhode Island in September 1900 featured a steam vehicle race won by Joseph H. McDuffee driving the Mobile. Earlier in 1900, Brisben Walker with his wife, drove a Mobile steam carriage up Pikes Peak to the timberline or approximately 10,000 feet.[4][3]
Advertising for the Mobile Company was taken out in most major magazines and as Brisben Walker was the publisher of Cosmopolitan Magazine, the Mobile Company of America featured prominently in it. Mobile's new factory was expected to produce 20 steam carriages weekly. By the fall of 1901, production was averaging 5 steam carriages a week.[4][3] Locomobile built approximately 5,000 steam runabouts over three years. Mobile, being slower to market, built an estimated 600. In early 1903, the Mobile Company of America stopped production. Later in 1903, the equipped automobile plant at Kingsland Point was leased to Maxwell-Briscoe.[2][4]
Gallery
-
1900 Mobile steam runabout
-
1900 Mobile steam runabout advertisement
-
1900 Mobile steam runabout at the D&SNG Museum in Durango, Colorado
-
1901 Mobile Steam Carriage advertisement
-
1902 Advertising for a Mobile coupe steam carriage
-
1902 advertising for Mobile Touring Carriage
-
1902 advertising 24 styles of Mobile steam cars
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-87341-428-9.
- ^ ISBN 1-57958-293-1.
- ^ a b c Miller, Richard (May 16, 2008). "Steam Starts the 1899 Auto Industry". River Journal North. Retrieved July 22, 2022.
- ^ a b c Steam Cars, 1770-1970, Copyright 1971 St. Martin's Press, New York