One Of The First American Gasoline-Powered Cars Was Weirdly Stylish

One thing I don’t think anyone expects out of a pre-1900 car is anything that could be considered “sporty.” Or “sleek” or “stylish” or anything like that, really. And yet, somehow, the first real gasoline-powered car built in America managed to be all of those things. I’m not kidding! Where we normally have come to expect spindly, crude-looking wagon-derived machines for pre-1900 cars, the 1897 Duryea trap somehow managed to be oddly stylish and sleek, like those words I used up there. I mean, just look at it!

Now, I want to qualify, this is by no means the first automobile in America, and certainly not the world. America’s first self-propelled machine that I think we can call an automobile was Oliver Evan’s peculiar stem-powered Oruktur Amphibolos, built in 1804. This was a machine that was designed to be a river dredger, paid for by the city of Philadelphia, but Evans decided he’d really rather build an automobile.

Not just an automobile: an amphibious automobile, because it still had to dredge a river, after all. Look at this thing:

It also was America’s first abandoned automobile, as it was stuck on the streets of Philly for a while. Oliver charged people a nickel or something to gawk at it.

And we’re still not done; there were lots of other steam-powered automobiles built in America. There was a self-propelled fire engine around 1840, and passenger cars, like Richard Dudgeon’s 1855 “Red Devil”:

…and then there’s Sylvester Roper, who was building steam cars and motorcycles from the 1860s:

But we’re talking about gasoline powered cars here today, and for those the Duryea brothers built what is accepted as the first one of those in America in 1893. That one was fairly crude machine, built from a horse wagon the brothers got for $70, and then had a 4 horsepower engine installed in it.

A few years later, in 1897 or so, the brothers built the “trap,” a smaller, sleeker three-wheeler with a 3.5-liter three-cylinder engine making a ravenous six hp. It sat four, back-to-back, and looked sort of like it was built by elves:

Look at the dramatic curve of the bodywork, with that decorative ribbing! And the curlicues of steel that form the front fork! It’s like a little Art Nouveau sportscar!

There were later four-wheeled versions that moved the radiator up front (it was under the seat) but kept the dramatic lines of the earlier vehicle. The Duryea Motor Wagon Company only built 13 cars total, and in 1899 the Brothers decided to no longer work with one another anymore, because you know how siblings are. Charles Duryea (not Frank, his brother), started a new Duryea carmaking concern, and built cars very similar to the 1897-1899 trap well into the early 1900s. Here’s one from 1903, complete with folding roof:

Duryea may be the first automaker with a signature “look,” if you think about it. Supposedly the styling was based on that of a Victoria Carriage, though I think the Duryeas were a good deal more elegant looking. There’s a lot more to the Duryea story, of course, but I just wanted us to consider their strange, almost otherworldly design sense this morning. It’s peculiar and whimsical and very distinctive, all at time when most carmakers were just trying to get all the parts to stay together while their contraptions rolled down the road.

I think they’re very cool, and if the Duryea Brothers were, in fact, elves, I think people should know that. I’ll look into it.