1903 Searchmont Touring Type VII
edited by David Barth, 10 January 2009.
Courtesy The Forney Museum of Transportation at 4303 Brighton Blvd., Denver,
Colorado. Photos were taken in January 2009.
In 1900 a group of high-powered businessmen, Theodore C. Search, head of the Stetson Hat Company, and Spencer Trask, a
capitalist, bought the Keystone Motor Company of Philadelphia, creating the Searchmont Motor Company.
Searchmont was thinking more grandly than producing only their two-seater buggy with a rear-mounted engine. This vehicle
was called the Wagonette. Lee Sherman Chadwick, a gifted American Engineer, used many Wagonette parts to design a
two-cylinder, front-engine touring car with double chain drive called the Searchmont.
The 1903 model is a five-passenger Deluxe Type VII. It has a ten brake-horsepower (bhp) engine with four forward speeds
and one reverse. The frame is second-growth hickory reinforced with steel. It was sold by Wanamaker Department Store.
This is one of only two known to exist.
