ELKHORN -- It's always amazing how a big invention will start with many different versions and eventually distill down to just one standardized design.
It was the same with early car makers who couldn't decide basic things like where to put the steering wheel and even headlights.
Manitoba Antique Auto Museum curator Barbara Loffredo on the running board of a 1929 Marmon Coupe.
So some put the steering wheel on the left side, some on the right, and some even used a tiller instead of a steering wheel--imagine trying to steer a car with a tiller!--like the 1902 Holsman.
As for headlights, the 1914 Briscoe was built with one cyclopean headlight in the centre of the radiator.
"There were no standards in the beginning. Everyone was just trying to figure out the best way to go," said Barbara Loffredo, curator of the Manitoba Antique Auto Museum in Elkhorn.
It's one of the fascinations of visiting the Elkhorn museum--the best antique auto museum in Western Canada, and, arguably, all of Canada -- situated along the TransCanada Highway west of Brandon. There were once over 100 car manufacturers in North America, each with its own ideas about the best way to build a car.
The museum includes vehicles you'd expect to see like a row of Ford Model Ts. But there is also a Cadillac First World War truck and Cadillac fire truck.
There are lesser known car makes like Briscoe, Flanders, Marmon, J. I. Case, LeFrance, Metz, Overland and Willys Knight.
Then there's the Hupmobile, or the Down-Set-Hup-Hup-Hupmobile, if it was being described by ESPN football analyst Chris Berman, who recently spoke in Winnipeg. The museum has four Hupmobiles dating from 1909 to 1914.
There's also a row of Studebakers, including one from 1921 in peppermint green. Studebakers were the butt of jokes of an earlier generation. "They were slow cars. They became known as slow and clunky," Loffredo said.
Ransom E. Olds, the entrepreneur behind Oldsmobile, used his initials to name the REO, a rare automobile in the Elkhorn collection. There is an early Eaton's delivery trailer. There are even early makes of wheelchairs.
Another feature of early cars is they were often ostentatious. Every car had leather seats. The early cars all had brass fixtures and chrome moldings. Decorative metal moldings were often soldered into the fenders. They had running boards as a step for getting into and out of cars.
The Elkhorn collection belonged to the late Isaac Clarkson. Clarkson began vintage car restoration in 1946, and indulged his hobby the way country people often do, moreso than city people.
"He spent virtually every hour of his waking life either farming or working on his collection," said Loffredo. He never married, nor did his cousin Marguerite Ablett, who became his benefactor. There is local talk that the two were in love but never took their relationship beyond friendship. She allowed him to store his restored antiques on her farm and was instrumental in the launching of his museum.
Manitoba's current antique car collector extraordinaire, Geordie Heaman of Carman, is a strong supporter of the Elkhorn collection, said Loffredo. There are hopes that some of Heaman's eclectic collection of cars will one day go to Elkhorn.
The museum is planning a fundraising campaign to double its size in five years.
One of the challenges for the museum is its location. You have to almost be driving out of Manitoba, or driving into Manitoba from Saskatchewan, to be in the vicinity, unless you live in WestMan. Yet the museum has been around as long as it has because it's one of the best. It first opened in 1967 and is supported by a small town of just about 400 people.
"Unbelievable," said Roelf Buining, a tractor collector from Alberta while touring the museum."This is top-notch. I've seen a lot of these car museums and I've never seen one like this."
The museum is open daily 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. until Sept. 30.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
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