Barney Oldfield's First Ride... [PIC]

In 1902, Henry Ford, assisted by ES Huff and CH Wills built an oval track race car called the "999" in Dearborn,. Powered by an 18.8 liter (1155.3 cid) 4 cylinder engine that produced 70 hp @700 rpm. It cost a whopping $5000 to build. The '999' moniker was a tribute to a, 1893 speed record of the '999' New York Central train. The plan was to race against the big names of the time like Alexander Winton at a 5 mile race at the Grosse Pointe race track. To drive the car, Ford enlisted award winning bicyclist Barney Oldfield who had never driven a car before. After a bit of practice, Oldfield won the race driving the car wide open in an astonishing 5 min 28 sec. It brought notoriety to both Ford and the cigar chomping Oldfield. (Fun Fact: the reason Oldfield always drove with a cigar between his teeth was to protect them in case of a crash.) Oldfield actually went on from there to drive for Winton and Ford spent the next year or so on his automobile company to outproduce Winton by 1904.

This is a wonderful model by Exoto that reminds me of Revell's "Visible V8" in that the drivetrain is fully functional right up to the pistons. This set of photos include a period driver figure I sculpted to man the controls. I'm kinda sorry I didn't research Oldfield when I made the figure. My guy is without cigar and way too handsome to be Oldfield. I also should have tinted the lenses on his goggles. By the time I thought about it, my transparent acrylics had dried up.