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

Scripps-Booth was a

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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 ...

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based in

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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, ...

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

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

History

The company was founded by artist and engineer James Scripps Booth (of the Scripps

publishing Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

family), who also built the Bi-Autogo. Although the company's first models were cyclecars, 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 Alanson P. Brush designed Ferro V8, to compete with Mercer and Stutz. 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 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 chassis and Northway engines. With the departure of Durant from GM in 1921, Alfred P. Sloan 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 (business), division of the Automotive industry in the United States, American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM). Started by automotive pioneer David Dunbar Buick in 1899, it was among the first American automobil ...

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 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 western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes, Andes Mountains and the Paci ...

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

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

carburetor A carburetor (also spelled carburettor or carburetter) is a device used by a gasoline 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 Ventu ...

and Atwater-Kent automatic spark advance. It featured a 110 in (2794 mm) wheelbase and 30×-inch (76×8.8-cm) Houk detachable wire wheels, 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

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. Origins The first known V8 was the Antoinette, designed by Léon Levavasseur, a ...

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's 1934 novel Appointment in Samarra, 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