1909 Maxwell Roadster A
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.
This is a 2-cylinder, 10 hp car. The Maxwell Company was started because Benjamin Briscoe, owner of a sheet metal
manufacturing plant in Detroit, Michigan, believed that the car David Buick was trying to build would never be
successful.
In 1903 he met Jonathon D. Maxwell, an engineer with experience from working for Olds and Northern. In order to
launch the Maxwell-Briscoe Motor Company, he convinced J. P. Morgan, the famous financier, to provide two-thirds
of the $150,000 investment.
Maxwell designed a little two-passenger car called the Tourabout that featured the following:
- a two-cylinder, front-mounted, water-cooled engine
- honeycomb radiator with thermo-syphon cooling
- two-speed planetary gearset
- shaft drive
- right-hand steering wheel
The car cost $750. By 1924 Walter Percy Chrysler had become president of the company, then called Maxwell-Chalmers.
The last Maxwell was built in 1925. Maxwell died in 1928 at age 68.
