Trimoto

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Trimoto is the name of a motorized tricycle that was manufactured in the United States from 1900 to 1901 .

description

The seriously constructed vehicle was designed by the British bicycle developer, cyclist and entrepreneur Henry John "Harry" Lawson (1852–1925); As a pioneer of the British motorcycle and automobile industry, he had previously acquired a rather dubious reputation and is remembered as the organizer of the first London-Brighton car race in 1896.

The Trimoto was manufactured by the Western Wheel Works in Chicago ( Illinois ), and the Crescent Organization was responsible for marketing , which is why the vehicle was occasionally referred to as the Crescent or Crescent Trimoto . The two companies were subsidiaries of American Bicycle Company (ABC) of Coronel Albert Augustus Pope .

The Trimoto had two seats and can be assigned to the Voiturette class. It had an air-cooled single-cylinder engine with a displacement of 611 cm³ (37.3 ci) and an output of (depending on the source) 2¼ or 2½ HP according to an unknown calculation method.

The steering was operated with a long lever, the so-called "cow tail", via the single front wheel. At this wheel respectively. The entire drive technology was attached to its suspension. Seen in this way, the vehicle was a front-wheel drive . The price was a cheap US $ 425, significantly less than Oldsmobile asked for its very popular Curved Dash , introduced in 1901 (US $ 650).

Production ended in 1901 after an unknown number of Trimotos produced. This means that the lightest vehicle in the Pope Group was no longer available. It was not until 1904 that another car appeared in the lower price segment with the Pope Tribune . This was clearly designed as a competitor to the Curved Dash .

A copy is on display in the Museum of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio .

literature

  • Beverly Rae Kimes (Editor), Henry Austin Clark Jr.: The Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805–1942. 2nd Edition. Krause Publications, Iola WI 1985, ISBN 0-87341-111-0 . (English)
  • GN Georgano (Ed.): Complete Encyclopedia of Motorcars, 1885 to the Present. 2nd Edition. Dutton Press, New York 1973, ISBN 0-525-08351-0 . (English)
  • Beverly Rae Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Published by SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Permissions, Warrendale PA 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X . (English)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Kimes (1985), p. 1431
  2. ↑ a b c d e trombinoscar.com: Crescent Trimoto 1900
  3. ↑ trombinoscar.com: Oldsmobile Curved Dash Model R (1901)
  4. ↑ Frank Leslie's: Popular Monthly (January 1904)

Remarks

  1. ↑ The RAC formula was not used until 1903 and was adopted unchanged in the USA from around 1904 as the ALAM formula ( Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers ). The benefit is calculated; Cylinder bore ² × number of cylinders; the result is divided by 2.5. The successor organization NACC ( National Automobile Chamber of Commerce ) used the same formula from which the SAE-PS was later developed.