Some of the greatest joys in life happen when Motofortuna, the goddess in charge of guiding your path so that you encounter fascinating cars seemingly by happenstance, smiles upon you. That happened to me this past Saturday afternoon, as I was driving through a little town called Liberty and happened to see one of the most amazing things ever to be just taken out for a spin.
That amazing thing was a 1908 Stanley Steamer, and it was a model with a genuinely wonderful name: Model H5 Gentleman’s Speedy Roadster. Now, even in Los Angeles, the city I lived in that had the greatest amount of Motorfortuna attention, seeing anything like this just driving around was almost always because one person, Jay Leno, decided to drive it to the Autobooks store in Burbank.
But in Liberty, North Carolina? There’s far fewer Jay Lenos roaming around here, even feral ones. So seeing someone drive a lovingly-restored 1908 Stanley Steamer is an event with about the same probability of happening as meeting a raccoon that not only saw the one-man show you did about J.Edgar Hoover in college, but also liked it. It’s a beautiful improbability.
Let’s talk a bit about this Stanley, which was being filled with kerosene by the absolute hero driving it. It was idling there majestically, busily breathing steam out front as the owner attended to the fuel for the boiler. These cars take – at best – 20 minutes to get started, so I’m not surprised he left it idling as he filled it up.
The owner told me he hadn’t had it all that long, and I believe he said he bought it from a museum, which makes sense, because it was positively immaculate. I love that he’s just out driving it around now.
The Model H5 Gentleman’s Speedy Roadster was Stanley’s sports car. It made 20 hp, pretty damn good for the time, and could hit speeds of up to 65 or 70 mph. This thing could, by 1908 standards, move.
The process of getting it to move, though, was nontrivial. Steam cars were very competitive in the early years of motoring – they were the only option for essentially the first century of automobiles, starting with Cugnot’s steam drag from 1769 – and one of the features they touted were their comparatively simple engines.
And while this is true, the engines themselves weren’t as complex as a gasoline engine, everything else around those engines – boilers, water tanks, valves, so very many valves – all combined to make a much more complicated driving experience than a gas or electric car.
You can read the whole steaming up process here, from a 1918 Stanley manual, so these instructions represent a whole decade of refinement compared to the car I encountered. But even if you don’t want to sit and read it, let me give you some highlights:
There are at least four separate tanks to fill: the water tank, the boiler, the pilot fuel tank, and the main fuel tank, which is what I saw our friend filling with kerosene. Then there are pressure tanks that must be pumped with onboard pumps, with at least “25 strokes of air.”
This is what it takes to start the main burner; keep in mind, this section is just one of many:
START THE MAIN BURNER
The main burner starting valve stem goes through the dash at the extreme left above the steering post, and has a wheel handle.Do not confuse this with the main burner valve, which goes through the instrument board, and has a lever handle. On earlier cars the starting valve is in front of the dash attached to the steam automatic. This valve admits gasolene from the pilot tank into the main vaporizer.
Open the starting valve one half turn, for one second, close it for three seconds, repeating this until gas comes out of the main nozzles into the mixing tubes, passes up into the combustion chamber and ignited which it will do with a little puff.
Continue opening and closing the valve until the gas, which at first may be wet, becomes dry and almost invisible, then leave the valve open about 2 minutes.
Close the starting valve and open the main burner valve using the same method as with the starting valve until the gas is dry, then leave it open.
Notice the sound of the little puff the burner makes when it starts and the difference in the sound when the vapor is wet and after it becomes dry, so that when you are sitting in the car and turn on the burner, you will be able to tell by the sound when the burner starts, when the vapor is wet, and when it becomes dry.
When steam begins to blow out at the steam chest drip valve, partly close the throttle, so as to keep a small quantity only coming through.
When the pressure on the main fuel falls below 80 Lbs. lift the front toe boards and the air pump should be found attached to the air check valve, a sitting between the two hand air valves at the foot of the dash.
Open the main hand air valve (the one on the right) and pump 25 strokes of air into the main pressure tank and close the valve. If this has the effect of raising the pressure 50 Lbs. or more, wait until the pressure has fallen below 80 lbs. again then open the valve, pump another 25 strokes of air and close the valve again.
Operate the hand fuel pump if more pressure is needed.
When the steam pressure gauge registers 500 Lbs. close the main burner valve.
Close the throttle by pulling back the throttle lever and lock it with the locking screw.
Close the engine steam chest drip valve.
Close the door in the flue and the left side of hood.
See that the pilot light is burning properly and close the peek hole and door in left running board shield.
Replace the seat board, cushion, hand pump handle and carpet.
Before starting out on the road remember to see that the main fuel, pilot fuel, cylinder oil and water tanks are filled or at least contain sufficient quantity for the distance you are going.
Now keep in mind that a lot of these steps require the use of these small lovely hand-valves that sprout up all over the car, all unlabeled. Here’s two at the front, but I saw at least three more in the cockpit placed with what seems to be the same logic as as patches of crabgrass on a lawn:
Also note that this thing is still rocking acetylene headlamps! Holy crap!
People may complain about the complexity of car controls today with so many things buried in touchscreen menus, but I’m not sure anything comes close to steam car operation.
The interior is full of pedals and valves and levers, byzantine in their complexity. Look at all those gauges and check-glasses, and how many places you have to look to keep an eye on them.
They are lovely, though. And I especially like that oil lamp set up to illuminate the gauges at night. At least some of the gauges; I assume the ones you have to watch to make sure the whole thing doesn’t explode.
It’s such an amazing machine, and the complexity of it all, the way it burbles and steams and operates, just makes it all feel strangely alive. It’s like some mythical, majestic beast, decked out in scarlet and gold finery and ready to parade around town.
That coffin-shaped nose is a Stanley Steamer trademark, and I think that profile is what most people thing of when they think of a steam car – at least the people that think of steam cars at all.
This thing tooling around a little Carolina town was an absolute event, and I salute the daring owner for tackling the substantial engineering required to get this road-locomotive moving at all. So here’s to you, North Carolina Stanley Steamer owner! Thank you so much for exercising your great beast were we can appreciate it!
All photos by author
I do love a Stanley, but if I am going with a steam car, its gotta be a White.
This can happen in my hometown in Maine, as there is a gent who has an original, largely unrestored one that has been in his family from new. A tourer rather than a roadster. I think he’s the 4th or 5th generation owner at this point. It’s not as nice as this one, but runs just fine. Eccentric is a good description of that whole family.
The Stanley Brothers were from Kingfield, Maine, but the cars were built in Massachusetts, all the way to 1924!
Came here to make the Kingfield comment; was not disappointed.
That explains why there was a guy who showed up with a Stanley Steamer semi-regularly to the UMaine alumni events in NJ when I was young! Never realized the Maine connection but that tracks…
Torch, didn’t you have a steam-powered pickup awhile back?
It ran fine until the steam got out.
At the old Castle Hill Concours, a black ’08 Vanderbilt Cup version (longer nose with the seats over the rear axle and I think either 50 or 80hp, I can’t remember) was driven down from a museum in ME. The driver said it made so much torque that it could spin the wheels inside the tires. I watched it launch up a hill to the sound of unhurried chuffing. I love steam cars.
How common is gas stations offering kerosene? Don’t think I’ve ever noticed that.
Pretty common at gas stations out in the country around VA. You won’t see it very often in cities.
Quite common in Maine, where kerosene Monitor heaters are everywhere, including my garage. Bloody expensive stuff these days.
The manual sounds confident that you will learn the difference between wet gas and dry gas. 100 years later it is still a tricky thing to master.
Well, lettuce make an experiment.
If I owned a Stanley Steamer, you know damn well I’d put a custom license plate on there that reads “CLEVLND”. Nothing beats a Cleveland Steamer.
I remember the place I worked at in college had a Cleveland steamer in the kitchen, and my boss didn’t understand what was so funny about that
A case of “I spent an hour getting it started, I better drive it”
I couldn’t get the jingle for the different “Stanley Steemer”, out of my head the entire time reading this.
probably did not take too much energy to get the water to steam level in the heat that was Saturday.
Is the leaf blower on the passenger side for extra thrust?
I’ll beat it is to get the boiler going. Kerosene is famously hard to get lit.
I greatly prefer the Stanley Steamer to its Cleavland counterpart.
take your COTD.
I’ll have you know that raccoon and I remain friends to this day.
I used to work at a museum with a steam tractor collection, and a small number of volunteers dedicated to running steam engines. This brings back a lot of memories. And some mild anxiety… no matter how well-inspected and maintained they are, 100+ year-old pressure vessels make me very nervous.
A friend has the wreckage of a steam tractor in his woods. He thinks that the proximity to a pond and the wide distribution of heavy bunks of cast iron indicate that the boiler had been run dry and the person operating it tried to put water into it. Of course nobody involved survived, so that’s merely conjecture. One of his cousins up the river was Fultons backer in building the first steamship, the whole place has sort of a Toad Hall feel to it.
Even that old wreckage sounds horrifying. We used to do harvest demonstrations for school kids, with steam and gas tractors running threshing machines. We would do a demonstration of whistle codes, and whenever they got to the emergency signal – a rapid series of short blasts – my stomach would twist up thinking about the poor bastard who’d be on that tractor signaling for everyone else to get the hell away.
About 30 years ago some local farmers had restored an 1890s California combine.
This is a machine so big that the standard practice was to harvest in one direction in the morning, then, after a mile of harvesting, the five man crew and the horses would take a break while another group of workers would break the harvester into three parts, then move and reassemble the parts to harvest in the other direction for the afternoon, this is about 50 feet wide and the body of the machine is about the size of a small three story house.
These would be pulled by about 30-40 horses or mules. For this occasion 4 teams of 10 draft horses were used. The problem of course is that there were 4 horses that all wanted to be in front, so suddenly there was this 30 foot tall by 50 foot wide machine being pulled at about 20 mph towards the horse trailers which were on the other side of the crowd. Keep in mind the whirling reels and blades which were driven directly by the wheels.
Afterward someone asked why 40 horses and the replies was that someone had a 40 go lawn mower , and it didn’t even like that much.
Probably about the scariest thing I’ve seen on a farm.
30 years ago I wrote an article on Stanleys for Classic Auto Restorer magazine (RIP). In prep I finangled a ride in a Stanley roadster through LA traffic, and later visited the Stanley museum in Maine.
The roadster was easily capable of keeping up with modern traffic, smoothly hissing its way up to 40-50mph as quick as any Camry. Braking was okay-ish, as the steam engine could be used to slow the car too. However, doing all this while perched in a little bucket seat about three feet off the ground, no seatbelt and no bodywork, was mildly terrifying.
That 20 horsepower rating was only a vague approximation. The torque is the thing with steam engines, and I remember reading a UCLA professor’s report who tested a “20hp” Stanley engine at, IIRC, 600lbs of steam and found it developed several hundred foot-pounds of torque. Butt dyno confirmed by my ride – the roadster was QUICK.
The two-cylinder engine is double acting, which means four power impulses per crankshaft rotation, same as a V8 gas engine. Smooth, with peak torque right from zero rpm.
While all the boiler hocus pocus sounds complicated, remember that Stanleys had no transmission (early clutches and non-synchro trannies were beastly), and also didn’t have to be hand-started with a potentially arm-breaking crank. So in some ways they were simpler than gas cars of the era, and many people knew and had experience with steam tech.
Stanley’s big innovation on the cars was a safe, small, high pressure boiler. It was wrapped with piano wire to help safely hold the pressure, and the fire tubes were crimped into place. In case of an excess of pressure, the tubes would lose their seal and the steam leak would put out the fire before things went “BOOM.” Even when the land speed record car crashed spectacularly at 120mph, the boiler didn’t explode. Stanley developed more and more power by continually upping the boiler pressure over the years.
The whole Stanley family were polymath geniuses. Their big innovation museum in Kingfield, Maine is well worth a visit. Before the cars, twin brothers F.E. and F.O. developed a photographic dry plate business they eventually sold to Eastman Kodak. Their sister Chandonetta was a talented and famous photographer. They built and played violins.
A car with a coffin hood, its own broody mist generator, and an ever-present threat of death. Horror fans rejoice!
I got a ride in a Stanley Steamer a long time ago. My Dad repaired antique clocks in his retirement and one of his customer’s showed up at our house in one. A lot of his customers were eccentric. I remember him working all the valves and not wanting to distract him, lest we blow the thing up!
Bravo to the owner for having the chops to even consider driving that thing. I would struggle to remember all the steps and would probably blow myself up.
I’ve had some old cars that required “tricks” to get them to operate. But nothing like that. Super cool.
Jason: do you want an owners manual to a 1920’s Rolls Royce? I have one and the startup and operation instructions are comical. It states that most issues with the vehicle are due to people not reading and following the manual properly. I can mail it to the Autopian.
hell yeah! Thank you! email me and I’ll give an address!
Classic Rolls-Royce, if the car doesn’t work, its your fault because you’re too stupid to operate it properly, the car is always perfect at all times
That is exactly the tone and words.
Does it recommend how many lashes to give the chauffeur for failing to follow instructions?
That’s in the appendices in the back.
Fun Fact: F.O Stanley built the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO which has 2 Stanley Steamers in the Lobby. The hotel was also the inspiration for Steven King’s The Shinning
And the filming location for the low budget 1990s miniseries remake
(King had tried to convince Stanley Kubrick to film the original movie there, but Kubrick hated location work and also didnt want to leave the UK, so he made up some excuse about the hotel’s electrical service not being able to handle all the filming equipment to drop the matter. Which, might have also been true in the late 1970s)
and the hotel was used in Dumb and Dumber as the Aspen Hotel when they got out of the Lambo after the shopping spree. So it’s got that going for it. (also Saab 900 in the same scene)
Where I grew up, and where we had our high school proms. I was able to get a photo of my wife with the Steamer many years later.
In 1996 we went back to Estes for vacation and I was fortunate enough to have complete and full access to the entire Stanley Hotel.
All was good until I took her to room 217.
She could not get out of that room fast enough though.
BTW I believe one of the two Steamers now lives in the Museum of Estes Park.
The other still resides at the hotel.
F.O. Stanley also built an electric power plant in the Big Thompson River and used it to bring power to the town of Estes.
If the story I read was true, there was no charge to the townspeople for power for a good number of years either.
Husband: I said the car will be ready to go in 20 minutes! I don’t want it to blow up and kill us.
Wife: Fine. I’ll just start walking to the store. If you get the car ready, you can catch up to me.
Husband: But honey…
Wife: Don’t “But honey” me! You’re the one who sold the horse for this thing!
You have to really want to drive.
As someone that spent years in the engine room of an aircraft carrier as a machinist mate (I did nuke but still had to study conventional boiler systems), this brings back some memories.
Where do you get kerosene? At a Shell station I guess, amazing there is enough demand for a whole pump of it. What else uses it?
I remember by dad using it for some Coleman lanterns while camping, but that was the last time I had even thought of the stuff
The Meijer gas station near my house has a pump, I have a heater I use in the garage sometimes. I got yelled at once for using a regular red jug instead of a blue one.
So did the yelling stop because you bought the proper jug or because that was the only time you got caught?
Only time I got caught. Can’t remember if it was the final time or not, I haven’t needed it in awhile.
I would say more ruralish areas. There is a Speedway out by me that has both kerosene and also racing fuel.
Apparently you have to drive all the way to North Carolina.
With these sort of instructions, it’s no wonder that the early electrics were serious competition for urban driving – assuming you had access to electricity, which was not a given.
Yeah, electrics. I permitted myself to get caught in a doom-loop of Munro vids about EV’s just yesterday. Those engineers get very psyched about fine points of motor design (and inverters! Oh! Inverters!), but they become quite grim on the topic of EV thermal management systems, the compromises, the tangled tubes. I like to picture EVs as simple and tidy but the thermal systems give the lie to that. They resemble the Stanley’s gas/water plumbing.
I would think the sort of tech-savy rich people who were buying almost all the cars at the time also tended to be the first ones in town with electricity
They were also popular among doctors, whose transportation needed to be ready at a moment’s notice for obvious reasons.
Intercity range wasn’t seen as the all-important thing it is now because the early electrics were birthed into a world where traveling between cities by train had been the norm for half a century, and (of course) well before we spent a hundred years building out sprawling suburbs that took “everyone will drive their car everywhere” as a given.
It was when roads outside of cities were essentially mud bogs where wagons sank to their axles, so driving anything out of the city wasn’t really going to happen regardless of how far your car could theoretically go, so the range limitation of electrics wasn’t a practical issue
Suburbs were mostly developed along sprawling streetcar lines, along with most of the early amusement parks
To help with getting going, people who drove these everyday would often leave the pilot light lit all the time. Which did cause more than one garage to burn down overnight, but, what price convenience?
Or, you just had a chauffeur handle all that
Yes. Chauffeur! You triggered a memory. French for “stoker,” the coal-stained wretch managing your steam engine ! Perfect!
Thanks for that! I speak French near-fluently, and I’ve always wondered why the French word for driver translated as ‘warmer’ or ‘heater’. I never made the stoker connection, and it now makes perfect sense.
I’m proud to have eighth-grade French but I felt that “chauf ” had to do with heat, so searched “chauffeur etymology “. Bingo.