The Lad's Car was an American

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 ...

automobile A car, or an automobile, is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of cars state that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, peopl ...

built between 1912 and 1914.

History

The Niagara Motor Car Corporation of

Niagara Falls, New York Niagara Falls is a City (New York), city in Niagara County, New York, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a total population of 48,671. It is adjacent to the Niagara River, across from the city of Niagar ...

, built a 4

horsepower Horsepower (hp) is a unit of measurement of power, or the rate at which work is done, usually in reference to the output of engines or motors. There are many different standards and types of horsepower. Two common definitions used today are t ...

air-cooled Air-cooled engines rely on the circulation of air directly over heat dissipation fins or hot areas of the engine to cool them in order to keep the engine within operating temperatures. Air-cooled designs are far simpler than their liquid-cooled ...

single-seater An open-wheel car is a car with the wheels outside the car's main body, and usually having only one seat. Open-wheel cars contrast with street cars, sports cars, stock cars, and touring cars, which have their wheels below the body or inside fend ...

juvenile car with

belt drive A belt is a loop of flexible material used to link two or more rotating shafts mechanically, most often parallel. Belts may be used as a source of motion, to transmit power efficiently or to track relative movement. Belts are looped over pull ...

. Marketed as the Lad's Car, it was advertised as "providing mechanically minded children a 'sure-enough' motor vehicle, with a 'sure-enough' engine". The car was priced at US$160 ($5,000 in 2023). The 72-inch

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 (front ...

cyclecar had a choice of hood, and a kit version was available. File:1912 Lad's Car ad from the Literary Digest.jpg, alt=, 1912 Lad's Car Advertising File:1913 Lad's Car ad from Popular Mechanics Magazine.jpg, alt=, 1913 Lad's Car advertising with new Renault hood A working Lad’s Car exists in the Pierce-Arrow museum in

Buffalo, NY Buffalo is a city in the U.S. state of New York and county seat of Erie County. It lies in Western New York at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River on the Canadian border. With a population of 278,349 according to ...

References

*{{Cite book , last = Burgess-Wise , first = David , authorlink = David Burgess-Wise , title = The New Illustrated Encyclopedia of Automobiles , year = 2000 , publisher = BookSales Inc; Rev Upd edition (May 2000) , pages = 559 , isbn = 0-7858-1106-0 Defunct motor vehicle manufacturers of the United States Kit car manufacturers Cars introduced in 1912 Cyclecars Brass Era vehicles 1910s cars Motor vehicle manufacturers based in New York (state)