The Little Princess was a

cyclecar A cyclecar was a type of small, lightweight and inexpensive motorized 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 c ...

built in

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

, by the Princess Cyclecar Company from 1913–14.

History

The Little Princess was designed by Englishman C. J. Thornwell who had worked for Wolseley-Siddeley before coming to America. The cyclecar was powered by a

four-cylinder The engine configuration describes the fundamental operating principles by which internal combustion engines are categorized. Piston engines are often categorized by their cylinder layout, valves and camshafts. Wankel engines are often categoriz ...

12 hp ''Farmer'' engine. A

planetary transmission An epicyclic gear train (also known as a planetary gearset) is a gear reduction assembly consisting of two gears mounted so that the center of one gear (the "planet") revolves around the center of the other (the "sun"). A carrier connects the ...

was used with a

shaft drive A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power, torque, and rotation, usually used to connect ...

making more substantial than chain driven cyclecars. The cyclecar was only sold in 1914 before the design was used to develop the

Princess Princess is a title used by a female member of a regnant monarch's family or by a female ruler of a principality. The male equivalent is a prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for ...

light car The term light car is used in Great Britain since the early part of the 20th century for an automobile less than 1.5 litres engine capacity. In modern car classification this term would be roughly equivalent to a subcompact car. There are numero ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Little Princess (Automobile) Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States Motor vehicle manufacturers based in Michigan Cyclecars Defunct manufacturing companies based in Detroit Brass Era vehicles 1910s cars Vehicle manufacturing companies established in 1913 Vehicle manufacturing companies disestablished in 1914 Cars introduced in 1913