The article on the Pope-Hartford in the June issue was good. Those interested in the firm’s beginnings and the man who designed all of the firm’s early horseless carriages, and who laboriously convinced old man Pope, the bicycle magnate, to get into the nascent automotive industry, should consult the little monograph: Horseless Carriage Days by Hiram Percy Maxim. Dover Publications, New York, 1962. Maxim was the son of the famous Hiram Maxim, inventor of the eponymous machine gun. Hiram Percy was instrumental in the Pope firm’s early years, c. 1895-1900. He was basically the single person responsible for the firm’s automotive engagement and designs early on. His memoires are great reading, with copious details of the difficulties of figuring out how to construct the little early vehicles, and descriptions of their early “reliability runs” on muddy “roads” in nineteenth-century Massachusetts. Check it out.
I enjoy the columns in Hemmings quite a bit every month. Please find attached my attempt at a humorous scolding of the gaffes in our favorite hobby, gleaned from over 60 years of wrenching and writing.
A Miscellany of Automotive Linguistic Minutiae or Things your English Teacher Failed to Tell You:
® 1. Willys — it’s “Williss,”
