In 1907, if you were a busy man in the Midwest and wanted to get to town without harnessing a horse, a few hundred dollars could buy you an Albany.
The Albany Automobile Company of Albany, Indiana, built a small, light runabout that looked like a buggy that had simply lost its horse.
The Albany was built in Albany, Indiana, from 1907 to 1908, so its run was short.
The 1907 Albany Run-a-bout: A $300 Buggy Had a Famously Odd Selling Point
It was marketed as “the busy man’s car”, and its most unusual selling point was the upholstery. The seats were advertised as blue-dyed elephant hide, supposedly guaranteed to last the life of the car. (Take that as sales copy. I’d love to know whether anyone ever tested the guarantee. Anyone have a story to share?)
Production ended in August 1908 when the company went bankrupt, and the Union Automobile Company took over that September.
First Impressions: A Buggy That Skipped the Horse
Picture a two-seat piano-box body sitting high on thin, tall wheels with solid rubber tires. The directory lists a $300 price with a top, and that folding top shows in the sketch. At just 500 pounds, it was a light machine. Solid tires meant no flats, but they also meant you felt every rut. The full elliptic springs did their best to soften the trip.
How It Would Have Driven
The Albany used a friction transmission, which is quite different from the planetary gears in models like the Success Auto-Buggy. A friction disk slid across a drive wheel, and moving it along changed your speed. You’d work a side lever and slide the disk to find the speed you wanted, anywhere in a range of roughly 2 to 10 miles an hour, plus reverse. There were no fixed gears to clunk through, just a smooth, stepless change.
You’d steer with a hand lever or tiller instead of a wheel, which would have felt like steering a small boat. The foot brake acted on the transmission, so, as with most cars of the day, stopping took planning. Power came from a big single-cylinder engine mounted up front, with a pump-circulated water cooling system and a sight-feed pressure lubricator, features you’d expect on a more expensive car.
(Note: This section is an imagined driving experience based on the specs, not a period road test.)
Full Specifications (1907 Model 2, 4–6 H.P.)
- Price: $300; with top
- Body: Piano box
- Seats: 2 persons
- Weight: 500 pounds
- Wheelbase: 62 inches
- Tread: 52 inches
- Tires, front: 30 × 1¼ in., solid
- Tires, rear: 32 × 1¼ in., solid
- Steering: Hand lever or tiller
- Brakes: Foot brake on transmission
- Springs: Full elliptic
- Frame: Angle steel
- Bore and stroke: 4½ in. × 4 in.
- Cylinders: 1, vertical, in front
- Valves: 3-port, side valves
- Motor suspension: From side members of frame
- Cooling: Water; pump
- Ignition: Jump spark
- Current supply: Dry battery
- Carburetor: Universal; automatic mixture regulation
- Lubrication: Sight feed pressure
- Motor control: Spark and throttle
- Transmission: Friction
- Speed change: Slide of friction disk
- Speeds: 2 to 10 miles and reverse
- Speed control: Side lever
- Drive: Center chain on differential sprocket
By my own math, a 4½-inch bore and 4-inch stroke works out to roughly 64 cubic inches, about a liter, from that one big cylinder.
A Note on the Engine
Sources don’t agree on what powered the Albany. The 1907 directory lists the Model 2 with a single water-cooled cylinder rated at 4–6 H.P. A 1908 Albany advertisement, however, promotes a 16–18 H.P. air-cooled motor, and some modern references describe the car as air-cooled. The most likely explanation is that the company changed the design between model years, but I couldn’t confirm that, so the specs above come from the 1907 directory and apply specifically to the 1907 Model 2.
Want to Have Some Interactive Fun With the 1907 Albany Model 2?
Here’s a free printable download Word Find puzzle you can enjoy!
Sources and Further Reading
- Albany (1907 automobile), Wikipedia: company overview, with references pointing to the 1907 directory
- Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942 (affiliate link)
- Standard Catalogue of American Cars, 1805-1942. (THIRD EDITION)(affiliate link)
- The 1907 Motor directory on HathiTrust (“An illustrated directory of the specifications of all domestic and foreign motor-cars…”): the public domain source for these specs and the line drawing
- Wikimedia Commons: search “Albany Automobile Company” for related images, including the 1908 surrey model
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