Moline Automobile Company

Moline Automobile Company
Automobile Manufacturing
Industry Automotive
Genre Roadsters, touring cars
Founded 1904
Defunct 1919
Headquarters Moline, Rock Island County, Illinois, United States
Area served
 United States
Products Automobiles
Automotive parts

The Moline Automobile Company (1904 - 1919) was an American brass era automobile manufacturer in Moline, Illinois known for the Moline-Knight.

History

Moline-Knight

Moline-Knight Touring L

The Moline-Knight was an American automobile manufactured by the Moline Automobile Company located at 74 Keokuk Street in East Moline, Illinois, from 1904 to 1919. The car used a Knight engine.[1]

In 1911, the Moline 35 was a two-seat roadster with a 4×6-inch (114×152-mm) gasoline engine and self starter,[1] still a rarity then. It came complete with folding top, windshield, and Prest-O-Lite acetylene tank (for the headlights), all for US$1700.[1] By contrast, a Brush Runabout was US$485, the Gale Model A roadster US$500.[1] the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout US$650, a Colt Runabout US$1500, an Enger 40 US$2000, and American's base model was US$4250.[1]

The 35 was joined in Moline's 1911 lineup by a four and a five passenger tourer and a four-passenger "toy tonneau", "all with self-starting", the ads bragged.[1]

Moline Automobile Company - 1906

Features found in a Moline-Knight included sleeve valves and a quiet engine.[2] Some drawbacks were its large oil consumption and its carburetor's sensitivity to altitude.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925. New York: Bonanza Books, 1950, pp.32-128.
  2. 1 2 Mayall, Nicholas Ulrich (1970). "Nicholas U. Mayall". In Stone, Irving. There was light: Autobiography of a university: Berkeley, 1868-1968. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. p. 108. My first ascent of Mount Hamilton was made in a Moline Knight, a car that my father fancied because it had sleeve valves and was the envy of his colleagues because it ran so quietly. What was not publicized was the engine's voracity for oil, and its carburetor's sensitivity to altitude.
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Sources


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