Cars that never made it into Production

Old Haulers

Who opened the first drive-in gas station? 




A: Gulf opened up the first station in Pittsburgh in 1913.

Q: What city was the first to use parking meters?

A: Oklahoma City, on July 16, 1935. 

Q: Where was the first drive-in restaurant?

A: Royce Hailey’s Pig Stand opened in Dallas in 1921


Q: True or False? The 1953 Corvette came in white, red and black.

A: False. The 1953 ‘Vett’s were available in one color, Polo White.



Q: What was Ford’s answer to the Chevy Corvette, and other legal street racers of the 1960’s?

A: Carroll Shelby’s Mustang GT350.



Q: What was the first car fitted with an alternator, rather than a direct current dynamo?

A: The 1960 Plymouth Valiant



Q: What was the first car fitted with a replaceable cartridge oil filter?

A: The 1924 Chrysler.




Q: What was the first car to be offered with a “perpetual guarantee”?

A: The 1904 Acme, from Reading, PA. Perpetuity was disturbing in this case, as Acme closed down in 1911.




Q: What American luxury automaker began by making cages for birds and squirrels?

A: The George N. Pierce Co. Of Buffalo, who made the Pierce Arrow, also made iceboxes.




Q: What car first referred to itself as a convertible?

A: The 1904 Thomas Flyer, which had a removable hard top.




Q: What car was the first to have it’s radio antenna embedded in the windshield?

A: The 1969 Pontiac Grand Prix.




Q: What car used the first successful series-production hydraulic valve lifters?

A: The 1930 Cadillac 452, the first production V16




Q: Where was the World’s first three-color traffic lights installed?

A: Detroit, Michigan in 1919.
Two years later they experimented with synchronized lights.


Q: What type of car had the distinction of being GM’s 100 millionth car built in the U.S.?

A: March 16, 1966 saw an Olds Tornado rollout of Lansing, Michigan with that honor.




Q: Where was the first drive-in movie theater opened, and when?

A: Camden, NJ in 1933




Q: What autos were the first to use a standardized production key-start system?

A: The 1949 Chryslers




Q: What did the Olds designation 4-4-2 stand for?

A: 4 barrel carburetor, 4 speed transmission, and dual exhaust.





Q: What car was the first to place the horn button in the center of the steering wheel?

A: The 1915 Scripps-Booth Model C. The car also was the first with electric door latches.




Q: What U.S. Production car had the quickest 0-60 mph time?

A: The 1962 Chevrolet Impala SS 409.





Q: What’s the only car to appear simultaneously on the covers of Time and Newsweek?

A: The Mustang





Q: What was the lowest priced mass produced American car?

A: The 1925 Ford Model T Runabout.
Cost $260, $5 less than 1924.




Q: What is the fastest internal-combustion American production car?

A: The 1998 Dodge Viper GETS-R, tested by Motor Trend magazine at 192.6 mph.





Q: What automaker’s first logo incorporated the Star of David?

A: The Dodge Brothers.




Q: Who wrote to Henry Ford, “I have drove fords exclusively when I could get away with one It has got every other car skinned, and even if my business hasn’t been strictly legal it don’t hurt anything to tell you what a fine car you got in the V-8”?

A: Clyde Barrow (of Bonnie and Clyde) in 1934.




Q: What car was the first production V12, as well as the first production car with aluminum pistons?

A: The 1915 Packard Twin-Six. Used during WWI in Italy, these motors inspired Enzi Ferrari to adopt the V12 himself in 1948.




Q: What was the first car to use power operated seats?

A: They were first used on the 1947 Packard line.




Q: Which of the Chrysler “letter cars” sold the fewest amount?

A: Only 400, 1963, 300J’s were sold




Q: What car company was originallyknown as Swallow Sidecars (aka SS)?

A: Jaguar, which was an SS model first in 1935, and ultimately the whole company by 1945.





Q: What car delivered the first production V12 engine?

A: The cylinder wars were kicked off in 1915 after Packard’s chief engineer, Col. Jesse Vincent, introduced its Twin-Six.





Q: When were seat belts first fitted to a motor vehicle?

A: In 1902, in a Baker Electric streamliner racer which crashed at 100 mph on Staten Island!





Q: In January 1930, Cadillac debuted it’s V16 in a car named for a theatrical version of a 1920’s film seen by Harley Earl while designing the body,
What’s that name?

A: The “Madam X”, a custom coach designed by Earl and built by Fleetwood. The sedan featured a retractable landau top above the rear seat.




Q: Which car company started out German, yet became French after WWI?

A: Bugatti, founded in Molsheim in 1909, became French when Alsace returned to French rule.




Q: In what model year did Cadillac introduce the first electric sunroof?

A: 1969




Q: What U.S. production car had the largest 4 cylinder engine?

A: The 1907 Thomas sported a 571 cu. in. (9.2liter) engine.





Q: What car was reportedly designed on the back of a Northwest Airlines airsickness bag and released on April Fool’s Day, 1970?

A: 1970 Gremlin, (AMC)




Q: What is the Spirit of Ecstasy?

A: The official name of the mascot of Rolls Royce, she is the lady on top of their radiators.
Also known as “Nellie in her nighty”.




Q: What was the inspiration for MG’s famed octagon-shaped badge?

A: The shape of founder Cecil Kimber’s dining table. MG stands for Morris Garages.





Q: In what year did the “double-R” Rolls Royce
badge change from red to black?

A: 1933


Trivia..
Ford, who made the first pick-up trucks, shipped them to dealers in crates that the new owners had to assemble using the crates as the beds of the trucks. The new owners had to go to the dealers to get them, thus they had to “pick-up” the trucks.

Old Montana Vehicle Badges

The emblems and badges which are displayed below with white backgrounds were all taken from vehicles that had been in Montana when they were removed from service.  Only those with a shaded background were taken from other sources.  The Montana emblems were collected by Bill Hartley during the years he lived in Great Falls and was active in automobile  service businesses.  Bill was the father of Shirley Wyckham, who is a member of the Bozeman Antique Auto Club.  This collection is no longer in Montana.  There were surely autos of other makes in Montana as well, but very few of these older  vehicles still survive.

The emblems are all displayed in general alphabetical order regardless of years of production.  The information about a particular make is taken from the Standard Catalog of American Cars published by Krause.

Montana Historic Roadways

Before highways were given numbers, community leaders bestowed names upon roads. Roads were named for the places they connected, for political or military leaders, and for local landmarks or historical figures. A few trails achieved national fame, and helped adventurous people get from coast to coast. Others served at a localized level, showing drivers the way from place to place. Most were promoted for commercial purposes to attract travelers to businesses along the route. Trails made use of colored signs and symbols painted or posted on telephone poles along the route. Most of the designs were simple, but they made following rural cowpaths a little easier for travelers. To complicate matters, several routes often followed the same roads. The United States Congress approved a plan for numbering all major roads in the country in 1926, and the markers soon were replaced by thousands of black and white metal shields, thus closing a colorful chapter in North American transportation history. The routes listed below include almost all of the named routes in Montana before 1926. Only the more important or interesting ones have been plotted above, they are all documented below.  

From Portland Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, New York, Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, N Dakota, Culbertson – Wolf Point – Glasgow – Havre – Shelby – Cut Bank – Columbia Falls – Kalispell – Libby Montana, Idaho, Washington, to Portland OregonThis roadway became US 2

A great circle including, Mount Rainier, Glacier, Yellowstone, Rocky Mountain, Mesa Verde, Grand Canyon, Zion, Sequoia, Gen. Grant, Yosemite, Lassen, Crater Lake

	From Plymouth Rock Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, S Dakota,  Baker – Fallon – Miles CIty – Billings – Livingston – Bozeman – Butte – Deer Lodge – Missoula Montana, Idaho, to Puget Sound WashingtonThis roadway became US 12, now it follows Interstate 94 and 90
	Entirely within Montana:  Connecting West Yellowstone, Ennis, Virginia City, Twin Bridges, Silver Star, Butte
	From Des Moines Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Wyola – Crow – Hardin –  Billings – Lewistown – Great Falls – to Glacier Montana
	From Chicago Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, N Dakota, Glendive – Billings – Livingston – Helena – Missoula Montana, Idaho, to Seattle Washington

	Entirely within Montana: Connecting Glendive, Lindsay, Circle, Jordan, Sand Springs, Mosby, Grass Range, Forest Grove, Lewistown, ArmingtonThis roadway is a major part of the eastern portion of Montana 200
	From Seattle WA, Glacier – Havre – Glasgow – Montana, N Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, to Jacksonville Florida
	Entirely within Montana: Connecting Forsyth, Roundup, Harlowton, White Sulphur Springs
	Entirely within Montana: Connecting Yellowstone Park, Three Forks, Helena, Choteau, Glacier Park

From Regina Saskatchewan, Whitetail – Flaxville – Poplar – Richey? – Circle – Brockway – Terry – Livingston Montana, to Yellowstone Park in WyomingThis is a true back-roads trail, a 1920’s map might help trace it

	From Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, Scobey – Waska – Volt – Wolf Point – Circle – Brockway – Terry – Miles City – Broadus – Moorehead Montana, across Wyoming to Colorado Springs Colorado. This is a true back-roads trail, a 1920’s map might help trace it
	Gallatin Way was an important road from Bozeman to West Yellowstone.  It apparently had no marker, but  the photo is a very early one of the road near Spanish Creek south of Bozeman and is typical of early roadways throughout the US
	Billings – Warren Montana, Powell – Cody WyomingCould this road have gone Billings – Belfry Montana, Cody Wyoming?
	From Banff Canada, St Mary – Choteau – Great Falls – Helena – Butte – Twin Bridges – Dillon Montana, to Grand Canyon Arizona
	From Glacier – Choteau – Great Falls – Ryegate – Billings – Warren Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, on  to Amarillo Texas
	From Calgary Canada – Glacier – Great Falls – Ryegate – Billings – Lovell – Denver – Armarillo –  Brownsville Texas, branch to Galvaston.      Thanks to Rob Easterling, Santa Fe, New Mexico for the photo from a Billings Montana building.

Several additional roadways in Montana were named, some even after 1926, but didn’t evolve as major traveled highways and no particular information is available regarding their paths or markers. These include: Black Trail, Old Forts Trail, Skalkaho Highway, Sunshine Trail, Beartooth Trail, Black and White Trail, and Clarks Fork Highway. There are surely others not mentioned. If anyone has a trail marker design that is not included above please send it to the Webmaster.

Montana Passes

Montana has a lot of mountain ranges and it has a lot of miles of continental divide. These physical features provide a great many scenic locations and there are consequently a large number of passes to allow travel by train or automobile across and through these often formidable barriers. In addition some challenging highway climbs are known as a “hill” rather than being designated a pass. We will arrange our photos by starting at the Montana, Wyoming, Idaho boundary and going northward up the Montana-Idaho border. We will then return to the continental divide near Sula and follow it northward to Glacier Park. Finally, we will visit the more isolated passes and hills that are not located on these well defined continuous elevations.

Targhee Pass el. is 7072 ft on US-20 It is 15mi. west of West Yellowstone.

Raynolds Pass el. is 6760 ft on US-87 It is on the border above Henry’s Lake. A great view of the Teton’s far ahead looking southbound.

Red Rock Pass el. 7120 ft on MT-509 It is one of many passes that are very gentle, leaving the traveler unknowing as to the exact place of crossing.

 

Monida Pass el. 6823 ft on I-15 just south of Monida, population <5

Bannock Pass el. 7681 ft on  MT-324 The Gilmore and Pittsburgh RR had service on the pass from 1912 – 1930

Lemhi Pass el. 7373 ft. Lewis and Clark entered Idaho in  August of 1805, through Lemhi Pass.

 

Chief Joseph and his band of Native Americans fled across Chief Joseph Pass in 1877.

Chief Joseph Pass el. 7264 ft on MT-43 is the most northerly pass over the continental divide and on the Montana-Idaho border.

The next pass on the Montana-Idaho border is Lost Trail Pass el. 7014 ft on US-93 and it is about 1 mile north of Chief Joseph Pass.

 

Horse Creek Pass el. 7305 ft and neighboring Nez Perce Pass el. 6587ft  are in truly remote places that go out into forested recreation  country in Montana and Idaho.  Neither leads one to any city or connecting route.

Lolo Pass el. 5233 ft on US-12 is on the road to the Lochsa River in Idaho. It is the pass that Lewis and Clark used both going west in 1805 and returning in 1806

Lookout Pass el. 4700 ft on I-90 This is the major highway through Montana on the way to Seattle. It follows along the basic path of the Mullan Road built in the 1860’s from Ft. Benton to Mullan Idaho.

 

Thompsons Pass el. 4860 is just north of Lookout Pass in rugged mountains.

Back to Continental Divide Passes (within Montana) Deer Lodge Pass (Champion Pass) el. 5902 ft first used in 1881 by the   Union  Pacific  RR, now I-15 also uses this low pass.

Pipestone Pass el. 6453 ft a major obstacle on the Yellowstone Trail in 1915.  It became US-10, now it is MT-2.

 

Homestake Pass el. 6385 ft on I-90  It was used for railroads starting 1889. It is surrounded by the Boulder Batholith.

Elk Park Pass el. 6388 ft is on I-15 about 10 miles north of Butte.  The Great- Northern RR crossed this pass in 1888, one of 31 original crossings of the continental divide for that RR, not all in Montana, only 10 of which are still in use.

MacDonald Pass el. 6299 ft just 15 miles west of Helena.  Named after Alexander MacDonald who built first road across in 1870, now US-12.

 

Stemple Pass el. 6376 ft a dirt road kept open all year for mail delivery.

Flesher Pass el. 6131 ft is on MT – 279, a very scenic drive over the continental divide.

The Rogers Pass road in 1920. Rogers Pass is only 5 miles from Lewis and Clark Pass used by Meriwether Lewis on his return trip in 1806.

 

Rogers Pass el. 5610 ft on MT-200 as it appears today, note tree growth. Rogers Pass area is the site where the coldest temperature in the US (outside Alaska) was recorded at -70o in 1954.

Lewis and Clark Pass el. 6000 ft was also known as Indian Fort Pass.

There is no road over the Lewis and Clark Pass, but the sign above marks highways which closely follow the Lewis and Clark Trail within Montana.

 

The photo above is an aerial view of Lewis & Clark Pass.  Look at the view toward the northeast in the photo above, – think Buffalo on the prairie.

The Teddy Roosevelt Monument at Marias Pass el. 5213 ft on highway US – 2,  originally Theodore Roosevelt Highway.

Logan Pass el. 6646 ft is in Glacier National Park on Going to the Sun Highway.

 

General Passes/Hills within Montana follow. We will start with the southwest part of Montana and move northward and eastward.

Norris Hill el. 5400 ft is on US – 287 between Norris and Ennis.  At least 3 former roadbeds are visible from the present highway.

Cardwell Hill el. 5000 ft is on I – 90 between Three Forks and Whitehall. A very gentle and long smooth climb westbound from Three Forks, but a steep climb eastbound with curves from Whitehall.

 

Bozeman Pass el. 5819 ft was on the Yellowstone Trail, then US – 10, now I-90.  My great-aunt crossed it 3 times in the1800’s, twice in a wagon, once in a Model T, it was always muddy.

Kings Hill Pass el. 7393 ft is on US – 89 right at the Kings Hill Ski Area. The remains of the Kings Hill Silver mine also called the Neihart Star mine are shown above.

Seiben Hill el. 4040 ft north of Helena about 25 miles on I – 15

 

Montana Oil

Oil might be considered the life-blood of our society, in fact, of civilization as we know it. The first oil field in Montana was the in the Cat Creek area. The discovery well was showing oil in February 1920 and by May production from one well was up to 200 barrels a day. The Cat Creek area is 75 miles east of Lewistown and soon was heavily populated as were all exciting oil discoveries, with as many as 300 men living in tar paper shacks, a school, a post office, a church and cemetery. An interesting reference to this is on the internet at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mtpcpl  see Chapter 4, photos are included. The magnificent sign on the right indicates the pride of the operators at some point after the discovery and before it shut down in 1975. The Cat Creek area had about 150 wells at its peak production and has been estimated to have produced 23 million barrels of oil.This was and still is quite isolated and in rough country where all the required supplies had to be hauled to the site. Winnett,some 20 miles west, became the supply depot and pumped oil was piped to the railhead there and shipped by rail to Wyoming refineries. Since the 1920’s there have been other oil fields in Montana and of course, this led to the development of refineries that were locally owned and that marketed their  own unique brands of gasoline and oil. The following material will provide an introduction to many of these very important gasoline refineries and brands. The information on this page is not easily available and certainly not on internet sites, and for this reason there may be errors that are unknown to the persons who prepared the site even though every precaution has been taken to have complete accuracy. There were certainly other brands marketed in Montana that are not represented here. The webmaster welcomes the submission of additional brand photos and history. Most refineries had 3 grades of gasoline not long after going into operation much as is the case today, which is why many of the companies shown below marketed a lower quality fuel with its own name and a higher one which was called “ethyl”. While it was usual for a new oil field to be followed very quickly by the construction of a refinery, over the years all of the smaller refineries have been dismantled leaving only 4 that are still active in Montana. Great Falls has the Montana Refining Company, Laurel has the Cenex Refinery, and Billings has both the Mobil-Exxon and the Conoco refineries. Special thanks go to Mike Tyler from Moore Montana, and to Joe Ashley from Bozeman Montana, who furnished the photos used for this display. Some of the globes are very rare and even having a photo is considered a prize. The material on this page is copyrighted © , and may only be used for personal pleasure and may not be reproduced for any purpose or placed in any retrieval system either electronic or otherwise. References: Montana Magazine of Western History, Spring 1998 – Montana Refining Industry part I, 1920-1942 and Summer 1998 – Montana Refining Industry part II 1942-1996. J. M. Ashley  

The ARRO refinery at Lewistown began in 1921 and lasted until about 1942.

This was probably not a Montana globe, but Farmers Union has been marketed in Montana for many years.In 1986 the Farmers Union Exchange name in Billings was changed to Cenex.

HI-POWER gasoline was a product of the H Earl Clack distributor in Havre that began in about 1919.  Clack was a distributor who stayed in business until 1954, expanding to some 200 stations in 4 states before selling to Husky Oil, a Wyoming company.  He had other brands as well.

Husky Oil Co. is a Cody Wyoming company that was well known throughout Montana and even though the facilities have changed brands or uses the Husky dog is still often visible.

Litening was the main brand of Yale Oil Corp. that started in Miles CIty in 1928, expanded to Billings in 1930, closed Miles City in 1933.  Yale sold out to Carter in 1943.

Carter is a Rocky Mountain subsidiary of Standard Oil / Exxon of New Jersey .  Wildfire was Yale’s lower grade brand.

Glacier was a lower grade gas marketed in the late 30’s by Glacier Production Co. in Cut Bank MT.  This was a subsidiary  of Montana Power created to avoid a law prohibiting electric companies from selling gasoline if they sold natural gas.   Montana Power was primarily in the natural gas business and needed to get rid of the gasoline that came from their natural gas wells in the Cut Bank fields.

Power gas was the mid grade, and Power ethyl was the high grade of Montana Power Co. gasoline. Montana Power was forced by the Federal Government to sell there gasoline business to Union Oil in 1944.

A Rocky Mountain Co. brand from Cheyenne Wyoming.  It may not have been marketed in Montana.

The Shelby Promoter, 1938  –  The Northwest Refining Company from Cut Bank opened a new bulk plant in Shelby Montana, featuring Grizzly gasoline, which is widely accepted by motorists in northern Montana, and is made entirely from Montana crude oil.  Location of the new plant is south of the railroad tracks, directly across from the Sullivan Hotel. A. J. Wilcox is the distributor of the gasoline. This company was sold to Carter Oil a subsidiary of Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey in 1944.

Conoco became one of the  main gasoline brands in Montana and had a refinery in Lewistown, built by Lewistown Oil and Refining Co. in 1921, it was the oldest or first real operating refinery in Montana.   The refinery was acquired by Conoco in 1930, and was known as  Continental Oil Co. from 1931-1943.

There is some debate about this likely being an economy gas from Conoco, this globe and gas was probably never marketed in Montana.

White Eagle was marketed in Montana, acquired by Mobil in the1930’s.  The White Eagle brand vanished before 1950.The white eagles were signs, roof ornaments, & globes.

Hi-Line gas was marketed by Northwest Stellarene Co.  They had a refinery in Shelby in the early 1930’s.

Powerized gas was from the Great Falls Refinery which was known as Sunburst Refinery from 1923 – 1933.

Monto gas was the low grade gas of the 1930’s Home Oil and Refining in Great Falls  1931-1947.  It was then sold to Wasach Oil, a subsidiary of Phillips Oil.The refinery started in 1922 as American refining then changed hands numerous times.

Silver gas was the middle grade gas of the 1930’s Home Oil and Refining in Great Falls 1931-1947.  Silver ethyl was the high grade.

Big West Oil Co. of Kevin started in 1925 and was originally marketed as brand “Big West”.   In the late 1950s the name was changed to Thunderbird.  Thunderbird lasted until 1977.

Spur gasoline was likely another Big West Oil Co. brand. in earlier years sold by the Kevin Montana company.

Marketed by the Independent Oil and Refining Co. in Laurel Montana. from 1933 until 1943.  Montana law prohibited selling gasoline with more than 2/10% sulphur content.  Elevated sulphur was due to heavy crude oil from WY used in the refining with earlier equipment which would not remove it.  The solution was to rename the product as “autofuel”.  The globe on the right is prior to that law.In the mid 30’s they improved the refinery and called it gasoliine.  In 1943 the name changed to Farmers Union Central Exchange Refinery, now known as Cenex after 1986.