That Time I Sort Of Won A British Car Magazine Contest About An 8-Wheeled Car

Long before I somehow tricked fate into letting me write about cars instead of having a, you know, real job, I was just someone who obsessed over cars on an amateur level. One my favorite ways to do just that was to plunk down what was then an uncomfortably large number of dollars (well, for me, and for what it was) to buy a copy of one of my favorite British car magazines, Classic & Sports Car. Once, I even was the only reader to correctly answer one of their monthly quiz questions, an achievement for which I got my name in print and maybe a little bit of shade? I’m not sure.

This was back in 2005; sure, there were car websites then, but C&SC had so much of what I was interested in, and in a format that, before smart phones, allowed for enjoyment whilst pooping, one of the true joys of life.

Every month they had a little Mystery Car Competition, with a picture of said mysterious car. People would try and figure out what the hell it was, and then send in their answers. Usually there were multiple correct answers, but one entry was usually picked to be a winner. There may have been some sort of prize? I can’t remember. Maybe prizes were just for UK readers? Anyway, this was my triumphant entry, from December, 2005:

It looks like the contest was from October, and featured that deeply strange eight-wheeled car you see inset there.

Here’s a bigger picture of that car:

Now, much like Jeff Opt, who was also mentioned in the article, I thought at first this was a Reeves Octoauto, because how many cars have eight wheels?

The Reeves Octoauto was a pretty fascinating machine, built by Milton Reeves, one of the true early pioneers of American cars, having built his first car, which he called a motocycle, in 1897 or so. He built cars on and off, but was never satisfied by the comfort offered by early cars and the deeply crappy roads of the era.

To solve this problem, Reeves did what trains do: added more wheels, to distribute more of the weight over a larger area. He took a 1911 Overland and added extra axles front and rear; the front two steered, and only the next-to-last axle (the original rear axle) was powered.

The car was very comfortable, as planned, but also expensive as hell, which makes sense considering it as twice as many axles. In today’s money, the Octoauto would have cost well over $100,000.

He tried a less expensive version with a name that catches your horny attention until you remember how numeral-names work, the Sextoauto, which had only six wheels and three axles. This wasn’t exactly a hit, either.

Also, these Reeves cars were not the answer, and unlike Jeff Opt, I knew this. At first, sure, I thought it was a Reeves, but I had a car encyclopedia with the Reeves in it in a tiny picture, and by looking very, very carefully, I could tell that what C&SC was showing was not the same car. It was clearly newer. But what was it?

I can’t exactly recall how I found out it was an Adler, specifically a one-off version of a 1935 Adler Diplomat, and I’m sure I did use Google, as they noted in the blurb there.

Were they throwing some shade about Google-use when they said

“There was a solitary correct answer, from Jason Torchinsky of the US, but he failed to convince us with his story of his grandmother winning one in a bar-room brawl and we suspect he is as much of a Google-wizard as a rarity spotting genius.”

I’m not sure. Maybe not. I hope not. I do vaguely remember writing the letter about my grandmother winning the car in a bar fight, and I remember adding this bit:

“Yes, this one’s an Adler. I know because my grandmother had one that she inexplicably traded in for a conventional four-wheel Adler right about the time I got corrective lenses.”

…implying, of course, I was sort of hallucinating the extra wheels. I was pretty proud of my silly joke.

I believe this octo-Adler was built to experiment with the same basic concepts as the Reeves car: more comfort, and, at least in the case of the Adler, perhaps better handling via more contact area was of interest, too.

Adler seems to have come to the conclusion that, like all four-axle designs, the benefits don’t justify the extra cost and complexity.

Classic & Sports Car is still a great magazine. It’s also not too late for them to send me a hat or t-shirt for my grand accomplishment, too. Just sayin’.