Just a cars guy: Christie

The restoration is remarkable, but the concept used in this construction is astonishing and innovative. Brilliant really, Walter Christie was a gifted engineer, and made the first front wheel drive car, http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/03/first-front-wheel-drive-car-1904.html and raced it in 1905 in the Vanderbilt Cup.

But getting back to the steam pumper... Christie didn't get in over his head and make the existing tech obsolete, he made it better. You may have realized that Microsoft is the world's top software company because it makes it's Windows better, not obsolete, and this made Bill Gates the world's richest man... improvements, not obsolescence.

Like I was saying, Walter looked at what needed to be improved, and took the opportunity to make horse drawn fire steam pumpers self propelled once they were equipped with his front wheel drive units instead of horses. Horses were already 10 years into the age of the car, and the writing was on the wall.

Fire department equipment is really expensive, and Walter focused on the biggest fire departments on the East Coast to contract with to improve the existing equipment to speed up the delivery of equipment to fires. Notice in the below photo that the front and back have little in common

To easily compare this to the horse drawn model, just click on this link and see it from my gallery http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2011/03/san-diego-firehouse-museum_11.html last month of the steam pumper in the San Diego Fire House Museum: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPtXUnbtqFxNWAPPTxJJDf5YnMvK9lA1xyWES0_Mb6P4CK78VTspWcTX7aBhMaJTaFsN8DNequ4B2nP0_pfUAGsvqss6ymFWwBUKFtaV84qgXHDN3KqQYIE7K2grXO4XRGEtwtMltJkvc0/s1600/DSC_0055.JPG

This is just a short gallery, for a better one, and a full write up on the Christie company and it's founder: http://justacargal-s.blogspot.com/2011/03/1913-christie-fire-engine.html

Above photo from http://steampunkvehicles.tumblr.com/

the cylinders were leaned back to take some weight off the front and transfer the weight to the rear a little bit

Walter Christie was involved in the engineering of many other vehicles, steamships, submarines, aircraft and fire engines coincidentally, and this past weekend I and Justacargal were examining the one at the Nethercutt museum just North of Los Angeles in the San Fernando valley: http://justacargal-s.blogspot.com/2011/03/1913-christie-fire-engine.html

the 3 some of race cars at the 1908 Minnesota state fair is from http://steampunkvehicles.tumblr.com/

The machine is known as the “Freak Automobile,” because all its mechanism is built over the two front wheels, where the driving power is also applied. Each of the five cylinders, two of which are to be seen conspicuously over the front right wheel, is capable of developing 60 hp. The front right wheel is double tired and strengthened to withstand the enormous strain when traveling around a curve at a high rate of speed.

The power of the gas engine is so great that it is impossible to run the machine on a city street, and when the mechanism starts working the machine fairly jumps through the air. The inventor is wealthy and follows the sport purely for the joy of rushing along at a speed faster than the flight of a homing pigeon. http://thiscircularparade.com/2012/02/04/speed-demon-roadster-runs-a-mile-in-57-seconds/