National was a luxury brand that started with humble beginnings. What rocketed them to their brief stay at the top of the motoring world was their focus on performance and competition. Which, of course, required speedsters!

The second line of speedsters from Oldsmobile catered more to the mining and timber crowd with whom the Smiths (who owned Oldsmobile) hobnobbed. Only, Billy Durant had taken over in 1907 and fired the lot. But Durant continued the sports model line, and out of this effort came a speedster to rival both Mercer and Stutz!

In the first decades of its existence, Olds Motor Works turned out tough little runabouts that set some of America’s first endurance and speed records in an effort to bring attention to this new firm. In doing this, Oldsmobile produced two distinct lines of first-gen speedsters. We’ll cover the first line in this post!

The heyday for Locomobile was pre-WW1. This post looks at that and beyond.

To think that a car company, steeped in 19th century tradition, could produce the most important track speedster of the early 20th—well, that was Locomobile for ya! A company full of talent and a few surprises. Check out part one of its story!

It all began in 1909 with Hudson as a startup—"the car that made good in a year.” That could have been their slogan, as Hudson was that successful. We continue the story of Hudson from a previous post and include the Essex to highlight their speedster years of 1927-1932.

Overland’s special history involved several forceful personalities who tried out their ideas using this brand. John North Willys won out, and in the process, a special speedster was produced, but for one year only. Care to guess what year that was? Read on to find out….

At one time or other, almost 80 automotive firms operated in the state of Indiana in what many believed would become the epicenter of American automobile production. Certainly, there was a ferment of automobiling going on in the Hoosier state, and Marion was right in the middle of Indiana’s early turmoil. In this episode we look at what the engineers at Marion, chiefly Harry Stutz, cooked up!

Mercer was just hitting its stride in 1913 as it transitioned from the Type 35-R to something even racier. We’ll consider that and more events in this episode of the Mercer story. Hang on to your seat!

Few cars captured the mojo of the early speedster movement better than did the Mercer. Although it got a late start in 1910, Mercer quickly grabbed at the ring and rode it to fame and notoriety. In this first of two episodes, we look at the Gen-1 Raceabouts through 1914.