But the entire vehicle still shivers and oscillates around its crankshaft. The single cylinder hammers up and down at idle: Bang! Bangbang! Bangbangbang! It picks up in pace and sounds more certain of itself as Shaw reaches over and advances the timing. And you turn it counterclockwise, opposite to most other cars. The brass crank handle lacks a free-turning wooden sleeve, so you need to wrap a cloth around it to turn it comfortably. A switch on the dashboard-in fact, the only switch on the dashboard-activates the Brush’s dry-cell ignition. True “bucket” seats are firm, gently contoured, and not uncomfortable. The car is a Runabout, but Shaw finished its fenders and hood in Roadster Blue and left its wooden body unpainted. has owned this Model F since 1962, and has taken it on at least two dozen Glidden and Reliability tours, totaling some 12,000 miles. Brush himself had already departed, to work as a consultant for General Motors.Īlfred E. But in 1910 Frank Briscoe merged Brush with brother Benjamin Briscoe’s United States Motor Car Co., which was bankrupt by the end of 1912. (Runabouts were painted green, Roadsters were blue.) Brush also manufactured a small delivery truck and cataloged a coupe, for $850.īriscoe’s Woodward Avenue factory may have assembled as many as 2000 Brushes per year. In addition to the standard Runabout, Brush now offered a Roadster, with the seat moved rearward, a longer hood and a rakishly angled steering column.
WOOD RUNABOUT FENDERS FULL
By the time the Model F seen here was built in 1911, the engine had been stroked to a full liter, horsepower was up to 10 and the wheelbase had been stretched from 74 to 80 inches-while the price fell to $450. Backed by early auto financier Frank Briscoe, the Brush Runabout debuted at the Detroit Auto Show in February 1907. A friction transmission used on the first few examples was quickly replaced by a two-speed planetary. Its single-cylinder engine displaced 0.8 liter and developed 6 hp at 1000 rpm. Brush’s “Everyman’s Car” rode on a wooden frame, with solid wooden axles suspended by coil springs in tension. Brush contributed mightily to the design of the first Cadillacs, but he left that firm in 1905 to build an innovative, inexpensive car of his own. Not a very effective sales promotion, perhaps, but an oddly appropriate epitaph for a simple, yet enigmatic automobile.Īlanson P. THE ADVERTISEMENT SHOWED ONLY a brush-like you might use to polish your shoes-and a price of $500.
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