A Divorce Made in Kokomo
The early years of automobile manufacturing were years of tumult, with opportunities forged and broken, fortunes made and lost. When Elwood Haynes contracted with the Apperson brothers, owners of a machine shop in Kokomo, Indiana, he handed them little more than a powerplant and an idea for a self-propelled four-wheeled buggy. The year was 1893, and by July 4, 1894 Edgar Apperson had developed the steering, the brakes, and connected up the Sintz propulsion system to make the Haynes idea work.
1894 Haynes Pioneer. Ironically, totally built by the Appersons. photo courtesy Haynes Museum
Years of development, sales, and improved models flowed out of the Apperson’s machine shop that made Haynes-Apperson automobiles, and the three actually formalized their partnership in 1898.
Riverside Machine Works 1895
Yet by 1901 the Appersons, sensing that they were treated more like the hired help than as partners, broke it off and struck out on their own. Haynes continued to build cars under his name in a new location (also in Kokomo); we will cover the Haynes part of this saga in the next post.
Restart Button
The Apperson Brothers Automobile Company continued with business from the time they broke from Haynes in 1901 until 1926. They were always a smaller operation than Haynes Automobile, but their target market was also more focused on performance.
A press release from the Apperson company stated that it would build “100 cars each year, no more, no less” and that each would be thoroughly road tested before release, a “model of perfection.” Ironically Apperson production was more like 1000 annually, peaking in 1916 at just under 2,000.
Apperson sold to the luxury market and asserted that its cars were well-built and reliable. Apperson stood out from others with its focus on power and performance in order to reach the younger, sportier crowd. Take, for instance, their slogan: Guaranteed Speed 75 Miles an Hour. For this, Apperson needed speedsters and competition.
Rise of the Jack Rabbit Speedster
Appersons produced and sold America’s first sports cars at a time when they could easily convert from a street version to a track model by removing lights, fenders, and trim parts. In competition form Appersons were among the most rugged and competitive speedsters of the early 1900s because they used Krupp nickel steel; American-made steel had yet to catch up in quality. Their star rose before the next era, when the giants of the ‘teens – Stutz, Marmon, and Mercer - dominated the dirt and board tracks arrayed all across America.
Many of these first-decade contests were run on country roads, and in 1904 Jack Frye won the Motor Age Cup road event in a race-adapted Apperson Model A Cup Racer. Its four-cylinder Apperson-made engine displaced 491 cubic inches, produced 60-rated horsepower, and motivated a 100-inch wheelbase.
1907 Cup Racer 50-55 hp engine.
Weighing only 1900 pounds, this little speedster could do 75 miles per hour (hence the slogan!). This performance package almost guaranteed wins on road courses, hillclimbs, and oval tracks!
Acclaimed by a local newspaper as “Frye’s Rabbit Racer” because of its jump-ahead performance (torque!) in the Motor Age race, the name stuck and branded ensuing Apperson Speedsters as “jackrabbits.” The Model A cost a healthy $5,000, was produced until 1907, and was the first known commercially manufactured speedster in street or track trim.
1907 Apperson Jack Rabbit. ad courtesy Horseless Carriage Foundation Library
Bigger and Badder
Along with the Jack Rabbit, a purpose-built monster was also created to dominate the road races and oval tracks of the period. Displacing 577 cubic inches and producing 96 horsepower on a 110-inch wheelbase frame, the exhaust stubs jutted straight out of the engine cowl like those on a warplane. Standing hands taller than the Model A Jack Rabbit and rolling on 34-inch tires, this manly-man kind of speedster was appropriately called “Big Dick” and could travel at speeds close to 100 miles per hour. It looked every bit a menacing handful, and it cost $7,500 F.O.B.
1907 Apperson “Big Dick” Vanderbilt Racer. Image courtesy AACA Library
Campaigned throughout the years 1907-1910, hot shoes such as Herb Lytle, Hugh Harding, and Harris Hanshue won, placed, or crashed hard in several oval and road races while using this race-bred beast.
1907 Apperson “Big Dick” from 1907 Apperson catalog. Image courtesy AACA Library
Edgar Apperson also focused on another type of competition, entering his Big Dick in the 1.1-mile Pasadena Hillclimb in 1909. Barney Oldfield was so confident that he could win this event in his massive Stearns Six that he personally bet $1,000 against Apperson. Suitably challenged, Apperson promptly went out and captured first place by over ten seconds while famously going full-throttle and airborne over a wooden bridge without shattering his (Krupp steel) axles - handily winning the side bet and muzzling the boisterous, fuming Oldfield. Following this event, local sponsors wisely decided to discontinue hillclimb competition, given that this type of balls-out racing was getting too dangerous for city streets. Imagine such an event in Pasadena today!
1909 Pasadena Hillclimb, Apperson “Big Dick.” Illustration courtesy estate of Peter Helck
The Model K Jack Rabbit Speedster of 1908 was a successor to the Model A version, which had been retired after 1907. The Model K, also costing $5,000, would be produced until 1910. Its engine displaced 432 cubic inches but produced the same power on a 105-inch wheelbase.
1908-10 Jack Rabbit Speedster on a 105 inch wheelbase. Catalog image courtesy AACA Library
The Model K speedster would be superseded by the 116-inch wheelbase version in 1910. This latter model would inform the 1911 Indianapolis Sweepstakes entry, marking the end of Apperson’s open-cockpit cutdown speedster configuration.
1910 Jack Rabbit Roadster has a 116 inch wheelbase. Catalog image courtesy AACA Library
Street versions of the Jack Rabbit had been sold with fenders and lights, but the stripped track versions forged Apperson’s reputation, with 1909 being the peak year for their dominance. Along with the laurels of victory there often followed the horns of defeat, and one week of competitive events highlighted this grueling polarity for one Apperson driver.
High Water Marks
At the 1910 inauguration of the Playa del Rey board track near Los Angeles, an Apperson Jack Rabbit made repeated coverage and headlines in the Los Angeles Examiner.
Playa Del Ray board track , 1909. Period postcard image
In the week prior to the opening race, Harris Hanshue set a track record in Class C Stock Car of 44.6 seconds in the flying mile. The Examiner reported this event in their April 6th edition:
Harris Hanshue came out of the pits to drive the first car – an Apperson Jackrabbit – around the new track… He started… He gained speed… The time seemed impossible, but every official stopwatch showed that he had rounded the track in the marvelous time of 46 seconds flat!
You can almost hear the track announcer barking his excitement while Hanshue skidded around “on the boards.” Challenged by a subsequent qualifier, Hanshue went back out and set a new national track record of 44.6 seconds. This was exciting news at a brand-new race track!
On Sunday, April 10, there were 12,000 spectators at Playa del Rey. During the 50-mile Class C final Hanshue was chasing the leading Isotta entry when he blew a tire and rolled the car, sending his mechanic Cary King soaring into the air. The Examiner graphically described the incident on April 11, 1910 in its headline article:
As the machine rose in the air King was thrown ahead 50 feet. He then rolled along the ground like a log, the car rolling over repeatedly a few yards behind him. The men were unconscious when picked up and taken to the hospital tent, but they soon recovered and an examination did not show any broken bones. The car was wrecked!
Ironically, the victims were carted off the racetrack in, of all things, a horse-drawn ambulance. Unlike others in many similar incidents, Hanshue and King lived to compete another day.
A freak accident at the inaugural Indy 500 in 1911 destroyed Herb Lytle’s Apperson as it refueled because the pits were not safely separated from the track.
1911 Apperson Indianapolis racer. Image courtesy AACA Library
Mechanic C.L. Anderson had been thrown from his Case and was lying on the track. Harry Knight swerved his Westcott racer on the main stretch to avoid hitting Anderson and barreled straight into the unprotected pits at full bore, hitting the Apperson, knocking over open gas containers, and injuring several crew. The accident, witnessed by 100,000 horrified spectators, could have resulted in a fireball catastrophe with scores of fatalities if chance had not allowed those in the crowded pits to escape to safety.
This, along with previous incidents, convinced the Apperson brothers that track racing was just too dangerous. They subsequently withdrew the factory team from this type of competition and retired from racing despite the huge fan base that thronged Indy and other tracks.
1911 Apperson at Indianapolis. Even though they did not finish, they were there, so why not feature it in an ad?! Ad courtesy AACA Library
Nevertheless, Apperson still featured their 1911 entry in a subsequent ad pitch stressing proven performance! Apperson Jack Rabbit speedsters would continue into the nineteen-teens to be raced in the hands of capable privateers, but they would soon be bettered by other brands that were relentlessly improving their cars through factory involvement and support. For Apperson, their glory time had passed, and the retail model was dropped.
Last Dash
Conover Silver, a New York City-based auto dealer, designer, and speedster fanatic proposed a Silver-Appperson Speedster design in 1917. Although it did not get beyond the drawing board, Silver’s influence was apparent in the 1918 “Speed Boy” model, as well as the two-passenger “Ace” offered in 1920. Both lines were unfortunately rolled out during World War I and the subsequent depression that followed; no sales figures exist on these sport-bodied speedsters.
1920 Apperson roadster body styles on offer. Note the sport body look, similar to that of other period speedsters. Catalog image courtesy AACA Museum Library
Apperson the company continued on into the 1920s, but the unexpected death of Elmer Apperson in 1920 ended a life-long partnership and mortally hobbled the firm’s vision and direction. Sales were already dwindling during the post-war depression, and the company struggled like many other small independents did at this time. Elmer’s death took the joy out of running the company for Edgar.
By 1926, Apperson could no longer meet its obligations and the company bankrupted, ceasing production. Edgar Apperson bought a cabin in Wyoming and spent the rest of his days hunting, fishing, and tinkering. Yet despite the demise of their company, the Appersons had helped birth the American automobile industry, and the Jack Rabbit speedsters became their signature piece as America’s first sports car!
1913 Apperson at the Kokomo Auto Museum. photo personal collection
Next episode will examine the Haynes part of this story; a different path, but just as interesting!
The Haynes-Apperson story, an ill-fated marriage of contrary minds, is more fully covered in my book, Classic Speedsters: The Cars, The Times, and The Characters Who Drove Them. Stay tuned for news on that!