Greg O’s Garage; Henry Austin Clark Jr.‘s 1955 Automobile Auction Part 1
A three-part series of the automobiles Henry Austin Clark, Jr. auctioned off after the closing of the Carnival of Cars in New York City in 1955.
Greg O.
PART 1
On July 15th, 1954, Henry Austin Clark opened the 'Carnival of Cars' in Times Square, NYC, as a satellite museum to his Southampton Long Island Automobile Museum. Unfortunately, the Carnival of Cars only lasted a short 7 months of operation and closed in 1955. At closing, H.A. Clark decided to slim down his collection and had an auction of some of the very popular cars within the collection. A list of 53 cars were identified for auction and made their way to the selling block.
This original list has been graciously provided by Walt Gosden, Clark's friend and employee.
Postcards are from the Walt McCarthy collection.
Many of the actual cars on the list were featured in Clark's postcard collection that were available to visitors for purchase at both locations in the city and Southampton. In this three-part post, I have tried to unite the list descriptions with the cars from the museum's postcard collection. Some are the actual auction car on the postcard, but many are near identical which I included as well.
If anyone knows the whereabouts of any of the actual cars on the list today, please feel free to add them in the comments or email to [email protected].
Page 1 was a cover page, so #1-6 of the list starts here on page 2. Cars are listed in a yearly ascending order.
Ideally, a photo of every car would be interesting and possible with outside photos, but this series includes cars, or near identical, available of the L.I.A.M. postcard list.
# 1 1897 Leon Bollee Tricycle
'Unrestored and from the Peck collection. A three wheeled machine with 2 in the front. The passenger rides forward to absorb the shock of collision. One of the earliest quantity produced automobiles...'
This postcard I suspect is not of the auction car as the car on the list is in need of restoration.
#3 1901 Locomobile Steam Stanhope
'Unrestored and rough on the outside, but no plumber's helper has been loose on the one...A good cabinet maker/steam fitter could make a going tea kettle out of her.'
This postcard is not the auction car as this identical car is a 1900.
#4 1901 White Stanhope
'Restored and ready to steam...This is a real creampuff. Bring money.'
Unknown if this postcard is the auction car.
#6 1903 Orient Buckboard
'..early one with the spur gear drive and 1 cylinder engine. The story goes with this one is that it is Ralph DePalma's former putt-putt...usual wheel problem with Orients, wooden rim for a single tube tire of impossible size...How about making wooden tires?'
The postcard displays a 1904 model.
Page 3
#8 1904 Ford Model C Side Entrance Tonneau
'Has a nice coat of green barn paint and no lamps, and has not been run since the war...Hate to part with her as she is nice, but we have a dandy 'A'.'
The postcard is of a 1904 'rear entrance' Model C in red.
#9 1905 Cadillac Touring Car Model F
'We have 2 of these, both unrestored....Here is a car for the man with lots of ambition and limited cash.'
The postcard is a white colored version of the auction car.
#10 1905 Oldsmobile Model N Touring Runabout
'The radiator has an engraving of the bread-and-butter car of the line, the curved dash...An unusual and very nice lawn-mower.'
I believe the postcard to be the exact auction car
#11 1906 Ford Model N Runabout
'You can be the first owner if you consider us to be a dealer, No Bull! We bought the car from a dealer in Wainscott Long island, who never sold it (author note; AMAZING!) ...the model N is the famous $500 Ford that the 'Horseless Age' predicted would be a flop...this is a hot little car.'
The postcard showing the auction car.
Stay tuned for the upcoming parts 2 and 3 for the rest of the list! -Greg O.
Comments
Fascinating!
Can anyone looking at this tell us where the cars mentioned that were auctioned off are now? Austin kept a folder /file on every car he owned - told of who he bought it from, and any history plus also noted if he sold it and to whom. When I was his librarian 50 years ago at his library in Glen Cove, there were occasions to look at that file drawer to get information for then current owners of the cars he had at one time. All of these folders are to the Henry Ford Museum /Library which is where Austin donated his library to.
Walt - we obtained some material from the Henry Ford Museum relating to the LIAM auction which I’ll be reviewing with Greg and if applicable will include in future posts. Here is one example showing the profit made on each car auctioned. And two 1972 invoices (one revised showing Austin’s signature), showing the purchase of some vehicles by Bernard Zipkin. More to come!