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04/12/2009
By MURRAY HUBBARD
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These days it's pretty simple. To start
a car you simply turn a key or push a button. Anyone can do it. Spare
a thought then for the pioneering motorists who had no such luxury.
Their key was called a crank handle and fitted into the front of the
engine under the radiator.
After all the starter settings were made,
and the car was out of gear, the idea was to turn the crank handle
which turned the engine over to make it `fire'. In modern terms the
bloke at the end of the crank handle was the `starter motor.'
Did I just write `bloke'? Well, it
wasn't just men who performed this onerous task. In fact a magazine
article (The Light Car and Cyclecar) promoting the 1914 Humberette
shows a young woman with one hand on the Humberette's bicycle-like
mudguard and the other on the crank handle. This was innovative
advertising for the times. The message was clear: Humberette was a
car for women and was able to be started by the fairer sex.
The reason for this was the fact the
Humberette, as it's name suggests, was a small two-seater car
suited to female drivers. Other newspaper advertisements from 1913
espouse the Humberette as `The Perfect Car in Miniature.' The
Humberette, history tells us, was a car ahead of its time. It was
possibly the first attempt by the British motor industry to produce a
light car that would sell in volume. As such you could compare the
Humberette to the icons of motoring history: Volkswagen's Beetle,
Morris Minor, Morris Mini and Fiat 500. Unfortunately, it never made
it to these heights in sales terms.
While our featured car is a 1914 model,
the Humberette story started years before and can be traced to the
beginnings of the Humber Cycle Company which began in Sheffield in
1868. Thomas Humber founded the company at a time when the bicycle
was near its peak as a form of transport. This was a world-wide
phenomena and Humber manufactured bikes at
Nottingham, Beeston, Wolverhampton and in 1889, Coventry. By this
time the new fad was powered machines and Humber experimented with
tricycles and quadricycles.
For Humber the route to the first car
was simply evolution through experimentation. The first car came in
1899, a 3.5 hp Phaeton and this was followed in 1901 by the
Voiturette. Then came the first Humberette in 1903 which had a
tubular frame and a 5 hp engine. It was grossly underpowered. The
little car had a De Dion water-cooled, front mounted engine with
power running through a leather-covered cone clutch. Under the
steering wheel were levers that controlled a two speed gearbox, and a
shaft delivered movement to the rear wheels. That front-engine,
rear-wheel drive system is essentially still in use today in cars
such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and in Australia's large cars, GM Holden
Commodore and Ford's Falcon.
It took less than a year for Humber to
give more horses to the Humberette and the engine was enlarged from
611cc to 762cc. However, despite the car being well-built, sales were
thin on the ground. Brits wanted larger cars that could take more
people and hold more luggage. Motoring was also a preserve of the
wealthy. But Humber did not forget the car with the cute name and
around 1912 the Humberette was given a second chance. This time it
was a more substantial vehicle and featured an air-cooled V type
engine.
In late 1913 Humber started advertising
the 1914 model and this time there were two engine options: an
air-cooled V type engine which was priced at $240 and a water-cooled
V type that was water cooled at $270. Our featured car is the
water-cooled variant. Humber advertisements boasted of `automatic
lubrication, automatic carburettor and ignition by High tension
magneto. There was still the leather-faced cone clutch but there were
three forward gears and one reverse. The live back axle was
driven by a bevel gearing. The steering was a fairly direct
rack and pinion and the Humberette had `powerful hand and foot
brakes.'
The car was based on a strong frame of
weld-less steel tubing with a suspension of half-elliptical and
quarter elliptical springs. The car's body is a simple, clean shape
aerodynamic for the era - with the fenders still the bicycle-style.
The car came complete with hood, windscreen, horn, headlights, tool
kit and tail lamp.
The 1914 Humberette's water-cooled two
cylinder 50 degree V-type 998cc engine produced 8.7 hp Bore was 84mm
and stroke 90mm. According to the owners of this car, Kevin and Joyce
Brooks, there are only about 50 of the water-cooled variants left in
the world. Production would probably have been greater, but WWI
(1914-1918) came at an inappropriate time for Humber's little car.
Not a lot is known of this particular
vehicle other than it was in the Jerilderie area, north-west of
Albury, New South Wales in the 1970's at which time the car underwent
restoration. A few years ago Kevin purchased the car from the
Newcastle region, and it is a `work in progress.' His is not happy
with the mudguards for instance as they are different from the
originals and he has had replicas of the originals made in Melbourne
which he is currently fitting to the car.
An experienced restorer of pre WWII
cars including two 1929 A-Model Fords, a 1925 Buick and 1915 Buick,
he was offered a drive of a two cylinder car some years ago in a
Bundaberg classic car event, and `fell in love' with touring at 25
miles per hour (40 km/h). This prompted his purchase of the
Humberette. He was pleasantly surprised by the driving manners of the
car - now almost 100 years old. It actually rides and handles very
well, he said.
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