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27-744: Founded by Charles Duryea and his brother Frank , the company built the Duryea Motor Wagon , a one-cylinder four-horsepower car, first demonstrated on September 21, 1893, in Springfield, Massachusetts , on Taylor Street in Metro Center . It is considered the first successful gas-engine vehicle built in the U.S. In 1895, a second Duryea (built in 1894), driven by Frank, won the Chicago Times Herald race in Chicago on

54-484: A devastating flood of the Schuylkill River , Duryea was manufacturing one three-wheel, three-cylinder, gasoline-powered automobile each week. Most buyers were doctors, who enjoyed the power, reliability, and heady 20 mile-an-hour top speed of his vehicles. By 1905, Duryea's fifty workers were manufacturing sixty cars a year, including the four-wheel Phaeton, which soon sold for $ 1,600. Duryea's automobiles were

81-515: A minimum annual payment of US$ 5,000. Whitney and Selden then worked together to collect royalties from other budding automobile manufacturers. He was initially successful, negotiating a 0.75% royalty on all cars sold by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers . He began his own car company in Rochester under the name Selden Motor Vehicle Company . However, Henry Ford , owner of

108-439: A motorcycle. It was also extremely affordable, costing only $ 250 and boasting an impressive 65 miles of driving per gallon of gasoline. Once again, however, lack of funding forced Duryea to drop the project, with only six being thought to have been built. The GEM was the last automobile built by Charles Duryea. Although Charles did discuss with Frank Duryea the building of the first commercially successful American automobile, Frank

135-706: A prominent Republican attorney most noted for defending Susan B. Anthony , moved to Rochester , New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester . He dropped out when the American Civil War started, enlisting in the 6th Cavalry Regiment , Union Army . This was not to the liking of his father who, after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son, managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale . George did not do well at Yale in his law studies , preferring

162-515: A snowy Thanksgiving day. He traveled 54 miles (87 km) at an average speed of 7.5 mph (12 km/h), marking the first U.S. auto race in which any entrants finished. That same year, the brothers began commercial production, with thirteen cars sold by the end of 1896. Their first ten production vehicles were the first automobiles sold in the United States. Banking on the idea that future racing successes would propel their market share,

189-734: A son of George Washington Duryea and Louisa Melvina Turner, and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania , but spent most of his life working in Springfield, Massachusetts . It was in Springfield that Charles and his brother, Frank, produced and road-tested America’s first gasoline-powered car. Charles Duryea was born on December 15, 1861, near Canton, Illinois , to George Washington Duryea and Louisa Melvina Turner. Duryea and his brother Frank (1869–1967) were initially bicycle makers in Washington, D.C. , but later became world-renowned as

216-470: A success, but a dispute among the company's partners led to collapse of the business in 1907. Undaunted, Charles Duryea designed a new automobile with significant design innovations, including a two-cylinder, air-cooled engine, which he named the "Buggyaut." Manufactured in a garage at 32 Carpenter St., the Buggyaut was an inexpensive auto with large wheels designed for rural markets and unpaved roads. To make

243-438: Is now if he had never been born." The case was heavily publicized in the newspapers of the day, and ended in a victory for Selden. In his decision, the judge wrote that the patent covered any automobile propelled by an engine powered by gasoline vapor. Posting a bond of US$ 350,000, Ford appealed, and on January 10, 1911, won his case based on an argument that the engine used in automobiles was not based on George Brayton's engine,

270-682: The Brayton engine which Selden had improved, but on the Otto engine . This stunning defeat, with only one year left to run on the patent, destroyed Selden's income stream. He focused production of his car company on trucks, renaming his company the Selden Truck Sales Corporation . It survived in that form until 1930 when it was purchased by the Bethlehem Motor Truck Corporation . Selden suffered

297-574: The Ford Motor Company , founded in Detroit , Michigan, in 1903, and four other car makers resolved to contest the patent infringement suit filed by Selden and EVC. The legal fight lasted eight years, generating a case record of 14,000 pages. Ford's testimony included the comment, "It is perfectly safe to say that George Selden has never advanced the automobile industry in a single particular...and it would perhaps be further advanced than it

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324-590: The Howard Bemis farm in Chicopee, Massachusetts . The Duryea's "motor wagon" was a used horse drawn buggy that the brothers had purchased for $ 70 and into which they had installed a 4 HP, single cylinder gasoline engine. The car (buggy) had a friction transmission, spray carburetor and low tension ignition. Frank Duryea test drove it again on November 10  — this time in a prominent location: past their garage at 47 Taylor Street in Springfield. The next day it

351-682: The United States who could afford one. His 1913 Duryea is Vanderbilt's only original car kept at his Biltmore Estate . Duryea ceased manufacturing in 1917. Duryea died of a heart attack in Philadelphia on September 28, 1938, and was buried in Ivy Hill Cemetery , West Oak Lane. Duryea was inducted into the Automotive Hall of Fame in 1973. The annual Duryea Hillclimb is named in his honor. The Charles Duryea Residence (located in Peoria's historic West Bluff district )

378-651: The brothers entered two vehicles in Britain's London to Brighton Veteran Car Run . Frank placed first and beat out the nearest competition by 75 minutes. The brothers went their separate ways by the end of the century, over a dispute for financing that would have required moving the company to Detroit. Frank helped produce the Stevens-Duryea (at gun maker Stevens ) until 1927, while Charles produced Duryea vehicles as late as 1917. Based in Reading, Pennsylvania , it

405-480: The car affordable, Duryea introduced a simple body design, mounted on the side bars of the chassis, in usual buggy fashion, that made the Buggyaut light and easy riding. The two-passenger model, complete with a top, sold for only $ 700, but the Buggyaut never achieved the success that he had envisioned. In 1914, Duryea closed the garage and left Reading. In 1916, eight years after Henry Ford introduced his Model T , Duryea made another attempt to produce his own "car for

432-536: The early 20th century. Since 1951, the SCCA has sponsored a biannual "Duryea Hillclimb" race in Reading which traces Charles' original test route. Charles Duryea Charles Edgar Duryea (December 15, 1861 – September 28, 1938) was an American engineer. He was the engineer of the first working American gasoline-powered car and co-founder of Duryea Motor Wagon Company . He was born near Canton, Illinois ,

459-562: The early evolution of automobiles, with mention of his own involvement from 1891 and the famous victory of the Duryea Motor Wagon in the first London-to Brighton race (1996). George B. Selden George Baldwin Selden (September 14, 1846 – January 17, 1922) was an American patent lawyer and inventor from New York who was granted a U.S. patent for an automobile in 1895. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden ,

486-525: The first American gasoline-powered car manufacturers, headquartered in Springfield, Massachusetts . Their design was inspired by a Benz gasoline-powered car that Charles saw at a fair in Ohio. Generally speaking, Charles engineered the automobiles, while Frank built, tested and raced them. On September 21, 1893, the Duryea brothers road-tested the first-ever, working American gasoline -powered automobile on

513-513: The mechanical side of the business. A Duryea car was involved in America's first known auto accident . New York City motorist Henry Wells hit a bicyclist with his new Duryea. The rider suffered a broken leg, Wells spent a night in jail and the nation's first traffic accident was recorded in March 1896. In 1913, George Vanderbilt purchased and drove a Stevens-Duryea, but was one of few people in

540-705: The people." With financing from Keyser Fry of Reading, he created the Duryea GEM, a cross between an automobile and a motorcycle, with a newly designed engine and suspension. Advertised as the "Biggest Idea in the History of the Motor Car and the Last Word in Automobile Construction," the Duryea GEM combined the comfort and stability of an automobile with the simplicity, handling, and economy of

567-610: The technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School , but did finish his course of study and pass the New York bar in 1871. He joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had 4 children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine. For a time, Selden represented photography pioneer George Eastman in patent matters. He

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594-536: Was also based in Rochester. He filed for a patent on May 8, 1879 (in a historical cross of people, the witness Selden chose was a local bank-teller, George Eastman , later to become famous for the Kodak camera ). In 1899 he sold his patent rights to William C. Whitney , who proposed manufacturing electric-powered taxicabs as the Electric Vehicle Company , EVC, for a royalty of US$ 15 per car with

621-533: Was named a City of Peoria Historical Landmark in July 2015; automobiles were manufactured in a barn on the property, which is no longer standing. An automobile built in Duryea's barn in 1898 is on permanent display at the Peoria Riverfront Museum . Duryea, Charles; Homans, James E. (1916) The Automobile Book Sturgis & Walton, New York; at Open Library . The first chapter briefly surveys

648-639: Was not uncommon for residents to see him motoring a brand new automobile from City Park out to Mount Penn, using the switchback road as a final test of durability and refinement. Charles Duryea moved to Reading in February 1900. By 1901, Duryea and Sternbergh incorporated the Duryea Power Company "for the manufacture of iron, steel, bath, any metal or wood or both, including automobiles, motors, propellers, and part of either." By March 1902, after overcoming difficulties procuring factory space, and

675-638: Was one of three Benz cars mostly made in Germany . After Frank won, demand grew for the Duryea Motor Wagon . In 1896, the Duryea Brothers produced 13 cars by hand – in their garage at 47 Taylor Street – and thus Duryea became the first-ever commercially produced vehicle, and also the largest automobile factory in the United States. For the history of the company and its cars, see Duryea Motor Wagon Company . Duryea sought out investors and buyers while his brother, Frank Duryea, primarily handled

702-532: Was reported by The Republican newspaper with great fanfare. This particular car was put into storage in 1894 and stayed there until 1920, when it was rescued by a former Duryea engineer Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the United States National Museum . On November 28, 1895, in Chicago , their vehicle, driven by brother Frank, had won America's first car race . It ran to Evanston, Illinois and back. The only other finisher

729-616: Was the actual builder during their collaboration. He did correspond with his brother Charles regarding what did and did not work in the design. Charles left Springfield in 1892 before construction began. This was documented in transcripts during the Selden Patent trial. Boyertown Museum of Historic Vehicles in Boyertown, Pennsylvania hosts an annual Duryea Day Antique and Classic Car Show, which features an extensive collection of automobiles manufactured in southeastern Pennsylvania in

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