Online Catalogue last updated 10th of November 2008
"...operated by steam, hydro-carbon, electric and pneumatic motors. A practical treatise for automobilists, manufacturers, capitalists, investors and everyone interested in the development, use and care of the automobile including a special chapter on how to build an electric cab, with detail drawings."
This sounds like a very comprehensive book for 1900.
Here you have a quality reprint of this early book. It is a big, heavily illustrated volume that covers a wide range of early auto history and technology. Chapters include: introduction, history, steam automobile appliances, specialities in automobile construction, steam propelled vehicles and automobile carriages, horseless vehicles with explosive motors, electric ignition devices, atomising carburettors, operating devices and speed gears, motive power and running gear, automobile bicycles and tricycle, gasoline motor carriages and vehicles, electric motor power for vehicles, how to build an electric cab, general management of motor vehicles of all kinds, compressed air power for vehicles, miscellaneous, and lists of patents and manufacturers.
You get drawings and photos of early steam carriages, burners, boilers, engines, marine engines, carriages, delivery trucks, Phaetons, Broughams, some of the machine tools to build autos, and much more.
The four page list of manufacturers is interesting, even at this early stage there were hundreds of manufacturers.
The best part is almost 500 pages of history and illustrations. You can build a half scale replica of a Steam Dos-A-Dos. The electric cab drawings occupy only one page, and the instructions are obviously not very detailed.
Code No. 008964