Staff car, Salisbury Plain, 1914-15

[Moonraker]

I would appreciate an ID of this car, please.  The sign ("Somewhere in France") by the front wheel is facetious, and the photo was probably taken at Bulford (or another nearby camp) in 1914-15. I imagine that the large lamp on the car running board was detachable?

Fairly easy for one of our motoring experts to identify, I think, so what do they make of the lorry behind the car?

(In November 1915 the publisher, Rosener, was charged with being an enemy alien and as such having four cameras without the permission of the registration officer. He had started a photographic business locally in 1913 and when applying for a trading pass to visit local camps had claimed to be a Dane. His pass was withdrawn in August 1914 but he had continued to take photographs at local camps. He admitted to the court that he was a German and said he had tried several times to enlist in the British Army. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour.)

 

 

 

Edited 4 January by Moonraker

[MikeyH]

It's American, could be a Buick, or possibly an Overland.

Mike.

Edited 4 January by MikeyH

[Interested]

The curved bonnet suggests something else, Locomobile?

Only my guess.

[Moonraker]

Ah! Rosener published cards of the First Canadian Contingent which trained on Salisbury Plain in 1914-15 and bought a number of vehicles with them, though these were primitive armoured cars and lorries.  The car's steering wheel is on the right and I gather that Canada didn't switch it to the left until 1924, though it imported many cars from the USA. The Contingent included seven officers and 60 other ranks of the Canadian Army Service Corps, which I presume had much the same badge as the British equivalent.

EDIT: "Shortly after the outbreak of the First World War the First Contingent of the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF) sailed for Britain with a small supply of motorcycles, cars and trucks. Many of these were privately owned and had been impressed into military service by the owners’ Commanding Officer."  (Milart blog)

FURTHER EDIT: "The first recorded wartime purchase of passenger vehicles for the Canadian army was for seven Canadian made Russell touring cars acquired in the first days of the war, for use by the 1^st Canadian Contingent overseas." (Canadian Cars and Armour) Pity that I can't get a match from brief perusal of Google Images.

Edited 4 January by Moonraker
more info came to hand

[CorporalPunishment]

They are not Canadians, they are British ASC as seen by the shoulder titles. The car looks very much like a Dodge to my eyes.       Pete.

[Moonraker]

Googling "Dodge Cars 1914" led me to this Dodge history site: "1916 DODGE: By July 15, 1916, General Pershing’s original request for six Dodges to be used in the Mexican Expedition against Pancho Villa had grown to 150. Lt. George Patton, Jr., took 15 men and three Dodges into the first mechanized cavalry charge of U.S. Army lore." The photo seems a good match with mine, the wheels and the panel  between the two doors being clues.

(My discovery of Russell cars has enabled me to - probably - ID another car featured in my collection of postcards of the First Contingent on Salisbury Plain.)

Thanks for your suggestions.

EDIT: I've just noticed that the Dodge website says that the first Dodge was produced on November 14, 1914, a month after the Contingent and its materiel had arrived in England. Perhaps it was included in a later shipment and left behind when the Contingent left for France in February 1915 - and taken over by the British ASC?

Edited 4 January by Moonraker

[CorporalPunishment]

With regard to the lorry in the background, going by the style of the cab, it is most likely one of the commandeered LGOC B Type  buses, several of which were converted into 30cwt lorries.       Pete.

[Great War Truck]

Super photo. I think the car is  a Studebaker and the lorry behind is a Commer Car. 

[Bob Davies]

On 04/01/2024 at 12:18, Moonraker said:

I imagine that the large lamp on the car running board was detachable?

Definitely  Moonraker, in my opinion at any rate.

It is a Self generating acetylene lamp, usually stirrup mounted on the front of the vehicle as a pair (of headlights)

The handle makes it easily portable, two wing nuts one either side holding it onto the stirrup mount, which is an upside down 'U' shaped bracket, in this instance fixed to the running board.

'Self generating' means the acetylene gas is generated in a tube shaped tank underneath the back of the lamp and is part of the whole assembly.

Water to drip onto the carbide is held in a tank inside the back of the main body of the lamp.

Other types of acetylene car lamps had an independent generator to produce the gas, with pipes to get the gas from the generator (fitted elsewhere on the vehicle) to the lamps usually fitted to the front of the vehicle.

This assembly would be a handy inspection lamp or just a handy portable lamp, though do bear in mind,they burn very hot!

Usually made from brass with a silver plated reflector inside, to project the beam of light produced by the 'burner' inside the front part of the lamp. Edit here; I just remembered there is silvered mirror reflector behind the burner in each lamp. (It has been 25 years since I worked on these)

A domed glass lens to protect and help project the beam of light on the front, which swings open when you need to light the burner.

Picture courtesy of https://www.lskauctioncentre.co.uk/auction/lot/14-an-early-20th-century-brass-cased-car-

lamp/?lot=527491&sd=1

Lucas was a big maker of car lamps but there were others.

One more picture courtesy of https://cars.bonhams.com/auction/22201/lot/774/a-pair-of-lucas-self-generating-acetylene-lorilite-lamps/

 

 

 

 

Edited 5 January by Bob Davies
to add a picture.

[Gunner Bailey]

If this was an ASC vehicle would there normally be a serial number painted on the bonnet (hood)?

[Moonraker]

Assuming that the car was bought over for the Canadians: the cars used by the First Canadian Contingent in my other postcards show no serial numbers, but then it didn't have many. If the four men are British ASC, as Corporal Punishment says, they might have been allowed to pose in it by their Canadian allies, or they might be proudly showing it off just after they'd acquired it on the departure of the Contingent and before it could be given a British serial number.

BTW I'm happy for my claim that the car is a Russell to be challenged. I've since discovered a Cadillac that looks a likely contender:

[Interested]

The Cadillac chassis rail covers curve the opposite way to your original vehicle, so it isn't exactly that model.  However I'd guess it is a Canadian/US design rather than European.

[Gunner Bailey]

12 hours ago, Moonraker said:

Assuming that the car was bought over for the Canadians: the cars used by the First Canadian Contingent in my other postcards show no serial numbers, but then it didn't have many. If the four men are British ASC, as Corporal Punishment says, they might have been allowed to pose in it by their Canadian allies, or they might be proudly showing it off just after they'd acquired it on the departure of the Contingent and before it could be given a British serial number.

BTW I'm happy for my claim that the car is a Russell to be challenged. I've since discovered a Cadillac that looks a likely contender:

I think that might be right.

[Moonraker]

I think that this thread has now all but run its course, so I'm posting scans of three more cards of Contingent cars - in trouble at Shrewton. Thanks to this discussion, I shall be embellishing some of my captions.

There are a number of other cards showing Canadian horse-drawn transport, a traction engine and a car splashing through floods on the road that became lost under the Amesbury bypass.

The winter of 1914-15 saw 24 inches of rain fall on Salisbury Plain.

 

Edited 8 January by Moonraker

[Andrew Upton]

6 hours ago, Moonraker said:

I think that this thread has now all but run its course, so I'm posting scans of three more cards of Contingent cars - in trouble at Shrewton. Thanks to this discussion, I shall be embellishing some of my captions....

 

It looks like the cottage is still there today, albeit rather modernized:

[Great War Truck]

Yes, that looks like the same place.

I am certain that the car is a Studebaker EC6.

 

[Moonraker]

Ah! two welcome bonus posts! Thanks. Some years ago I did wander down Elston Lane, cards in hand, for then & now comparisons. It looks as if some flood prevention work has been done since 1915.

And that's an excellent match for the car. Happily (or sadly, perhaps) I have a list of cars registered in Wiltshire from 1903 to December 1914 and twenty or so Studebakers had military connections: to Sir John Jackson Ltd (the major camp constructor) at Bulford, ASC Bulford, the War Department at Salisbury and, on December 11, Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Stephen Meighan, 14th Royal Montreal Regiment, West Down South Camp.  (As far as I can gather, these would have been imports and there was no UK production.) Perhaps it could be that one of the earlier models looked very much like the EC Six?

Edited 10 January by Moonraker