The 1912 Official Handbook of Automobiles, (wow, stats and views of brasss era cars still licensed under the Selden patent)

the above delivery wagon is cool, but check out the Locomobile Cup Racer, and the price ... $18,000

the Peerless on the right hand side below... if you read the stat sheet, you might be as amused as I am that the body is known as the "King of Belgium"

the Selden Patent issue:

The above tag has a bit of historical perspective... the Selden company patented the automobile. He collected on every car made... 0.75%

Selden was a patent attorney. His dad was a judge, and a prominent Republican attorney most noted for defending Susan B Anthony.

Yeah, it obviously didn't stand up very long, but for a time, they had the patent on the automobile, and if you wanted to sell a car in America, you either paid a licensing fee or fought them in court.

Henry Ford fought them in court and won... he was obviously better prepared to make a success and a fortune that he'd share with the US Govt by way of taxes, so the right people were persuaded to take the patent of the automobile, and make it go away... the reason given was that the Ford and other cars were using an engine based on a different engine than Selden had patented.

http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2007/05/spooky-no-traction-sliding-on-ice-as.html  

see the whole book page by page at http://www.archive.org/stream/officialhandboo04assogoog#page/n12/mode/2up which is just one of 10s of thousands of online books at http://www.archive.org/

The Magnificent Jalopy by John Tomerlin (1967)... about a 1931 Packard Series 8 phaeton. Great book aimed at teens who think about old cars and barnfinds

I read this in 5th grade, and still have it.

3 guys (Wally, Link and Injun) who jut graduated Alhambra high school in LA, and have an endurance run  contest against some classmates with a '54 Ford hot rod, with a Packard that they pull out of a chicken barn in Lancaster.

The rally is from their high school parking lot, through San Francisco, to Portland. A lot of problems for the 3 guys with the Packard, just to get it running, keep it moving, and make the journey with weather, roads, and old car problems. They only get 150 dollars to make the trip, and when money runs out, they have to get jobs along the way, like golf caddying, to make some cash for tires, repairs, gas, and food.

A person who reads alot will whip through this in one or two sittings, because it's riveting and keeps you fixed on what's next.

get your copy http://www.amazon.com/Magnificent-Jalopy-john-tomerlin/dp/B001QLDZDG

John Tomerlin
Disk jockey, sportscaster, race car driver, pilot—John Tomerlin writes from a wide range of experience. While living in the south of France, he wrote Challenge the Wind, a novel of grand prix racing, one of nine he has published, four of which—The Fledgling, Prisoner of the Iroquois, The Nothing Special, and The Magnificent Jalopy—are for younger readers.
He has rafted the Colorado River from Lake Powell, and camped and hiked in Havasu Canyon, the site of his newest novel, The Valley of No Return.
John Tomerlin has published over a hundred short stories and articles in such magazines as Road & Track, Car and Driver, Playboy, Woman’s Day, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Mr. Tomerlin resides in Southern California where he is at work restoring an early model Porsche like the one he drove to a class championship in the 1994 Porsche Club of America regional time trials.

automuseums.info is now available on Kindle

If you are fortunate to be able to travel in France, and want to get to as many auto museums as possible while you see the country, Automuseums.info has now assembled and organized museum info in a Kindle e-book presentation

65 pages with museum addresses, lat and long, website and phone number, along with a description of the museum's collection and the hours of operation.

Find the Kindle book on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005AK0OFQ

My thanks to Pal, and the blog at http://automuseums.info/node/1168 for sharing this and all museum info they gather!