Oldsmobile Curved Dash

This is one of the cars taking part in the Manchester to Blackpool Veteran and Vintage Car Run organised by the Lancashire Automobile Club in June 1991. It was photographed at the start of the run in the Exchange Station car park in Manchester.

It's a 1903 Oldsmobile Curved Dash, and the programme of the event says this about it:

4     1903 Oldsmobile Curved Dash

       Reg: T 260  1 cylinder  5hp

       (Martin Dawson, Oldham)

Originally delivered at a cost of $650 to Mrs Reigel of the Reigel Paper Company, Reigelsville, New Jersey on the banks of the Delaware, she subsequently gave it to her chauffeur (shades of Miss Daisy!). Eventually it passed to a local farmer. Restoration was carried out in the States before the car came to this country in 1989, the T 260 registration was originally allocated in 1903 to an identical Curved Dash Olds by the Devon licensing authority. Light, easy to drive,mechanically quite simple, the high ground clearance of the Curved Dash and its unique suspension made it ideal for poor rutted country roads. With tiller steering and a single cylinder engine developing 4.5bhp at 600 rpm it was said to give "one chug per telegraph pole."

NB: Because I have a son who lives in New Jersey I was curious to know just where Reigelsville was situated, so I looked it up on Google Earth. It turns out that the correct spelling is Riegelsville  (and it's Mrs Riegel and the Riegel Paper Company) and it's actually in Pennsylvania, though it is on the banks of the Delaware River and New Jersey is on the opposite bank.