A new Scripps-Booth engine in Horseless Age v37 n8 p330

Scripps-Booth was a

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded ...

marque based in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

. Established by

James Scripps Booth James Scripps Booth (May 31, 1888 – September 13, 1954) was an artist and automotive engineer. Biography The eldest of George Gough Booth and Ellen Booth's five children, James was born on May 31, 1888 in Detroit, Michigan. He received his educ ...

in 1913, Scripps-Booth Company produced motor vehicles and was later acquired by

General Motors The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...

, becoming a division of it, until the brand was discontinued in 1923.

History

The company was founded by artist and engineer

(of the Scripps

publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...

family), who also built the

Bi-Autogo The Bi-Autogo was a prototype American cyclecar, built from 1908 to 1912. Designed and built by Detroit artist & engineer James Scripps Booth,Clymer, p.115. it had the usual two wheels (wooden-spoked, ), plus two pairs of smaller, retractable ou ...

. Although the company's first models were

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive car manufactured in Europe and the United States between 1910 and the early 1920s. The purpose of cyclecars was to fill a gap in the market between the motorcycle and the car. A key c ...

s, Scripps-Booth later produced a "luxurious light car" intended for the luxury market. Designed by William B. Stout, the Model C went on sale in 1915. James Booth next developed a sporting version called Vitesse using the Allanson P. Bush designed Ferro V8, to compete with Mercer and

Stutz The Stutz Motor Car Company, was an American producer of high-end sports and luxury cars based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Production began in 1911 and ended in 1935. Stutz was known as a producer of fast cars including America's first spo ...

. The roadster idea was vetoed by company directors and the engine was used in the four-seater Model D instead About one-third of Model C production had been shipped to Europe and Scripps-Booth smaller luxury cars were popular in export markets. Reliability issues with the Sterling engine in early cars caused the engine to be changed to a

Chevrolet Chevrolet ( ), colloquially referred to as Chevy and formally the Chevrolet Motor Division of General Motors Company, is an American automobile division of the American manufacturer General Motors (GM). Louis Chevrolet (1878–1941) and ou ...

490 in the Model G. James Booth believed the company should build their own engines and when company directors declined to do this, Booth resigned. In 1916, Scripps-Booth Company consolidated with the Sterling Motor Company to become the publicly traded Scripps-Booth Corporation. By the end of 1917, Scripps-Booth had been purchased by Chevrolet whose founder William C. Durant was also the founding president of Sterling Motor Company. Billy Durant regained control of

and Scripps-Booth became a division of GM with A. H. Sarver as president. The Scripps-Booth cars were now built with

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay ...

chassis A chassis (, ; plural ''chassis'' from French châssis ) is the load-bearing framework of an artificial object, which structurally supports the object in its construction and function. An example of a chassis is a vehicle frame, the underpar ...

and Northway engines. With the departure of Durant from GM in 1921,

Alfred P. Sloan Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( ; May 23, 1875February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry. He was a long-time president, chairman and CEO of General Motors Corporation. Sloan, first as a senior executive and l ...

could not find a use for Scripps-Booth in the GM line-up and discontinued the brand name in 1922. The factory was converted to build

Buick Buick () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American marques of automobiles, and was the company that established General ...

s. Approximately 60,000 Scripps-Booths had been produced. File:Henry Ford Museum August 2012 46 (1913 Scripps-Booth Rocket cyclecar prototype).jpg, 1913 Scripps-Booth Rocket Cyclecar at the Henry Ford Museum File:1916Scripps-Booth B.jpg, 1916 Scripps-Booth Model C Roadster at

Tallahassee Automobile Museum The Tallahassee Automobile Museum (TACM), also known as the Tallahassee Automobile and Collectibles Museum, is an automobile museum in Tallahassee, Leon County, Florida. The museum is owned by Tallahassee-based businessman DeVoe L. Moore, and prima ...

File:Scripps-Booth Model D Roadster 1918 (9958726175).jpg, 1918 Scripps-Booth Model D roadster in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

File:Scripps Booth interior LCCN2016823558.tif, A 1920s Scripps-Booth showroom File:Scripps Booth sedan, 1921 LCCN2016852407.jpg, 1921 Scripps-Booth sedan in front of a showroom

Vehicles

The Vintage Chevrolet Club of America accepts the following Scripps-Booth models: * Model C Roadster, 1915–17 * Model G Roadster, 1917–19 * Model D 4 Passenger Roadster, 1916–17 * Model H 4 Passenger, 4 Door Touring, 1918 For 1914, Scripps-Booth offered a three-passenger

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, ...

roadster, powered by a 103in³ (1702 cc) (2⅞×4-inch, 3½×102 mm) 18 hp (13 kW) water-cooled four-cylinderClymer, p.149. of valve-in-head design with

Zenith The zenith (, ) is an imaginary point directly "above" a particular location, on the celestial sphere. "Above" means in the vertical direction ( plumb line) opposite to the gravity direction at that location ( nadir). The zenith is the "high ...

carburetor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor) is a device used by an internal combustion engine to control and mix air and fuel entering the engine. The primary method of adding fuel to the intake air is through the venturi tube in the main meteri ...

and

Atwater-Kent Arthur Atwater Kent Sr. (December 3, 1873 – March 4, 1949) was an American inventor and prominent radio manufacturer based in Philadelphia. In 1921, he patented the modern form of the automobile ignition coil. Biography Arthur Kent was born ...

automatic spark advance. It featured a 110 in (2794 mm)

wheelbase In both road and rail vehicles, the wheelbase is the horizontal distance between the centers of the front and rear wheels. For road vehicles with more than two axles (e.g. some trucks), the wheelbase is the distance between the steering (fron ...

and 30×3½-inch (76×8.8-cm) Houk detachable

wire wheel Wire wheels, wire-spoked wheels, tension-spoked wheels, or "suspension" wheels are wheels whose rims connect to their hubs by wire spokes. Although these wires are generally stiffer than a typical wire rope, they function mechanically the same ...

s, with three speeds and shaft drive. With complete electrical equipment, from Bijur starter to ignition (on a separate switch from starter) to headlights to Klaxet electric horn (with a button in the steering hub, rather than a bulb) to pushbutton door locks, it sold for US$775, The 1916-17 Model D was powered by an

overhead valve An overhead valve (OHV) engine, sometimes called a ''pushrod engine'', is a piston engine whose valves are located in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. This contrasts with earlier flathead engines, where the valves were located be ...

V8 engine A V8 engine is an eight-cylinder piston engine in which two banks of four cylinders share a common crankshaft and are arranged in a V configuration. The first V8 engine was produced by the French Antoinette company in 1904, developed and u ...

designed by Alanson Brush. File:MHV Scripps-Booth Rocket 1914.jpg, 1914 Scripps-Booth Rocket Cyclecar File:MHV Scripps-Booth Coupe 1915 01.jpg, 1915 Sripps-Booth Coupe File:MHV Scripps-Booth Coupe 1916.jpg, 1916 Scripps-Booth Coupe File:MHV Scripps-Booth Vitesse Roadster 1916.jpg, 1916 Scripps-Booth Vitesse Roadster File:MHV Scripps-Booth Model D 1917.jpg, 1917Scripps-booth Model D File:MHV Scripps-Booth Roadster 1918.jpg, 1918 Scripps-Booth Roadster File:MHV Scripps-Booth Six-39 1919.jpg, 1919 Scripps-Booth Six-39 File:MHV Scripps-Booth B-42 Coupe 1920.jpg, 1920 Scripps Booth Model B-45 Coupe File:MHV Scripps-Booth B-39 1921.jpg, 1921 Scripps-Booth Model B-39 File:MHV Scripps-Booth F-45 1922.jpg, 1922 Scripps-Booth Model F-45

In popular culture

Before marrying the main character in

John O'Hara John Henry O'Hara (January 31, 1905 – April 11, 1970) was one of America's most prolific writers of short stories, credited with helping to invent ''The New Yorker'' magazine short story style.John O'Hara: Stories, Charles McGrath, ed., The ...

's 1934 novel

Appointment in Samarra ''Appointment in Samarra'', published in 1934, is the first novel by American writer John O'Hara (1905–1970). It concerns the self-destruction of the fictional character Julian English, a wealthy car dealer who was once a member of the social ...

, a youthful Caroline Walker drives a Scripps-Booth Model C Roadster. The car's unusual seating arrangement, in which "the driver sat a foot or so forward of the other seat, which made kissing an awkward act," is especially noted. Groucho Marx owned a Scripps-Booth.

References

External links

* Bill Cuthbert, "The Machines of James Scripps-Booth," HCCA Horseless Carriage Gazette, Sept-Oct 2014, pp. 26–29 * Sam Medway, Automobile Quarterly, 13(3), 1975
Scripps-Booth Register - An organization for Scripps-Booth history and preservation of extant cars

Scripps-Booth at ConceptCarz

{{General Motors brands Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Michigan Manufacturing companies based in Detroit Scripps family Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1913 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1923 1913 establishments in Michigan 1923 disestablishments in Michigan Chevrolet General Motors marques Defunct manufacturing companies based in Michigan 1910s cars 1920s cars Cyclecars Brass Era vehicles Vintage vehicles Cars introduced in 1913

History

Vehicles

In popular culture

See also

References

External links