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Driving an Automobile Thru The Summer in 1905

A SUMMER OF MOTORING
FOR $159.80
Test Drive a 1905 AutomobileTest Drive a 1905 Automobile
By HENRY V. HORGAN

WHAT is the cost of a summer's knocking about in an automobile, a respectable, sizable, smart-looking machine, with sufficient speed to make time on occasion? Three young undergraduates, with slender pockets, embarked upon the enjoyment of a borrowed touring-car last summer with many misgivings, and at the end of the long vacation found that the price of their three months' motoring was the most inconsiderable of their season's expenses.
Excellent roads contributed no little to the economy of maintenance, but the credit of the low total of expense belongs chiefly to careful handling, thorough cleaning and painstaking care of working parts.
The car was a sixteen - horse, four-cylinder French machine which cost, in 1903, $4,500. It had been in use for a season in New York, but was turned over to the " cooperators " in perfect trim; and they kept it so. Cooperator Number One was master of the mechanics of the machine, which belonged in his family, and was his by right of saving it from storage while his people were abroad. He was able, therefore, to do all the minor tinkering himself and to see that every part was kept in order.
The three friends took the car to a country place on the New Jersey toast, near Long Branch, where the roads are well-nigh perfect, and from the first of July till they went back to college in the last days of September used it without stint, day and night, in all weathers.
The first agreement the cooperators made was that the chauffeur should be dispensed with and the twenty - five - dollar weekly salary he received turned into the common treasury. It was hoped that this sum, $300, for the summer, would cover every expense of running the machine. As it turned out, it did, and almost once over.
After three months of continuous driving, which averaged eighty miles a day, the total cost (of which gasolene was by far the heaviest item) footed $159.80, or a trifle over $53.26 for each cooperator. Here are the charges in detail:

  • Gasolene $67.20
  • Outer shoes for tires $40.00
  • Inner tubes for tires $15.00
  • Minor parts (garage prices)$11.50
  • Spark plugs $5.00
  • New set electric batteries $4.00
  • New chain $7.00
  • Cylinder and lubricating oil $9.60
  • Cementing leak in carburetor $.50
  • TOTAL $159 80
    All three divided equally the irksome and grimy duties of cleaning and tinkering, making it a first principle to be always a little more thorough than necessary. Extra care was taken in watching the cylinder oil-cups, that that sin of novices, dry cylinders, might never demand atonement. The transmission-box, where the gears and cogs of the driving machinery are locked in "dust-proof" security, was taken apart semi-occasionally and cleaned, half a dozen times, perhaps. Another care to which the cooperators credit some measure