In high school, my car was a 1950 2-door Ford painted black, and had dual exhaust. Two of my classmates had ‘49 Chevies with split exhausts (one of which was done in shop class.) This is when the envy started. How could I make my Ford sound like the Chevies? The answer is: you cannot!

Transportation for the next 45 years consisted of a VW, 3 Chevy wagons, a Nova, a Buick, an Omni, two K-cars, two Tauruses, and a Mercury, before we became a two-car family.

One day while getting gas for our return trip home from South Hadley, MA, we saw a really nice 1954 Chevy 210 2-door with the sweetest sounding pipes. I was hooked again. On another visit to South Hadley, my cousin said that “my” car was for sale and did I want to take a look. Of course I did. Off we went. But the owner wanted too much money. The next time we were in South Hadley was for our 45th high school reunion, Thanksgiving weekend, 1994. My cousin said the Chevy owner wanted to see me; he had become more reasonable. A test drive, a handshake and the deal was made.

The following weekend my son and I went to bring the car home along with a box of some 38 trophies, various moldings, speedometer, a bumper, and several boxes of small parts.

Since owning the Inliner I have made some enhancements. Visually, it has been painted black suede, rims painted red, with caps and rings and whitewall tires. The engine was rebuilt some years ago and mildly modified. The transmission, a Power-glide, was replaced with a TH350 with a shift kit. (Boy, does that car love second gear!) We also replaced the rear end with a ‘57 that came with 3.36 gears.

The first show for the Inliner was the last VAE show at the fairgrounds in Essex. There I met Conception Conti, he signed me up, and gave me a handful of old dash plaques. I have been collecting them ever since.

That same year was our first time at Stowe. As I was heading down the hill looking for my registration number, I heard, “What are you doing with Ray Faginski’s car!?” And that is how I met Barry Rickert, apparently a friend of the man I bought the Inliner from.

Marty and I have become good friends with Barry and Ginny Rickert from Wilbraham, MA. Over the years together we have put many miles on our Stovebolts.

We meet great people who share our interest in the old car hobby!

Editor’s notes….Andy tells me there are over 3000 members in the world wide “Inliner Car Club”. For you folks just learning, like me, the term inliner means the cylinders are inline and not like a v8 or v6. Although in Europe the term inliner can include V configurations. An Inliner can be two, four, six or twelve cylinders but the Chevy inline six engine is where the term resides most of the time.
What does stovebolt mean? Well I asked that too and it seems if you want to tear down a Ford you can do most of it with a 9/16 inch wrench…..but when it comes to Chevies they used half inch ‘bolts’ just like they use to build stoves….you know, with quarter inch slotted bolts and the square nuts. Many non-Chevy folks have some fun with that but mostly there are no smiles on the Chevy guy’s face when the term is used.

Many VAE members have seen Bill Erskine’s Sears Motor Buggy. Some have even seen him arrive at a VAE meet with the crated motor buggy just like it arrive by train from Sears, Roebuck in 1910 and watched him assemble the vehicle.
Bill has had this Motor buggy since 1999.

Reprinted from old publications Wheel Tracks found that…..Lincoln Motor Car Works was an automobile company in Chicago, Illinois. It produced cars for Sears Roebuck from 1908 until 1912. Nine models were offered, priced between US$325 and $475. They were sold by mail, out of the Sears catalog. Sears had a very lenient return policy: cars were sold on a ten-day trial basis.

The cars had an air-cooled, two-cylinder, horizontally-opposed engine, similar to that later used on BMW motorcycles. The engine was located under the floorboards, beneath the drivers feet, and started from a hand crank in the front. Early cars were rated at 10 hp, and later models developed 14 hp.

In the interest of simplicity, all models used a friction-drive transmission. A roller (a metal wheel with a rubber surface vulcanized to increase its grip) on the front sprocket shaft was pressed against the machined rear surface of the engine flywheel, thus driving the sprocket shaft, the drive chains and the rear wheels. Moving the shift lever set the drive roller to various positions on the flywheel, either nearer the center or nearer the edge, effectively changing the “gear ratio” for climbing hills or driving on level roads. Moving the roller past the center point spun it backwards to give reverse gear. The “clutch pedal” worked differently from most other cars, in that the operator had to hold their foot on the pedal to keep the roller pressed against the flywheel (the catalog claimed that the weight of the operators foot was sufficient to provide forward motion). Removing the foot from the pedal allowed the roller to spring back from the flywheel, effectively providing “neutral” so the car could be cranked without moving forward.

The engine was lubricated by an “oiler”, essentially a tank mounted under the seat which had several adjustable drip feeds with separate lines to the engine bearings and other areas. All components of the transmission were exposed, so several bearings and pivots had to be oiled or greased manually from time to time.

Despite Sears’ solid financial bases and great marketing ability the Sears Motor Buggy was doomed from the start. Sears competitors were making many advancements and by 1912 Sears automotive division had lost $80,000. After selling around 3500 Motor Buggys in four years Sears decided to stop. Lincoln Motor Works continued into 1913 to make vehicles under their name until they also stopped.

Today we call the vehicles “High Wheelers” but the term very likely will confuse any ‘old timers’. Sears had it’s Motor Buggy and International Harvester had its “Auto Buggys” and “Auto Wagons” like the picture to the left. Auto Buggys had a back seat and Auto Wagons did not. IHC made this type auto wagon from about 1909 through about 1915 when the term motor truck slowly took over. IHC made many models of vehicles during this period: from the auto wagon and auto buggy to the roadster and the touring car, in all over 11,000 vehicles were built.

Have you ever seen a Sears Motor Wagon and an IHC Auto Wagon race?
Watch here, or go to this address on the web, it is a hoot. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qLpBv4qm6A

If somehow we could take ourselves back to visit 1910 when the Sears and IHC were trying to make a buck building motor vehicles you will find a few competitors. No wonder Sears stopped and IHC went to trucks! Here is a partial list of the other car companies.