Anyone else have ancestors who were attempting to be automotive pioneers?

I was going through my notes for my family ancestry and I'd forgotten about an article in the September 1902 issue of The Car talking about my Great-Grandfather, Clatonia Joaquin Dorticus, he'd planned on building an electric car with AWD and 4 wheel steering. It never went beyond the planning stages (he died within 12 months) and frankly the article gives one the feeling that it was all a bit pie in the sky. The company was going to be called the Eureka Car Company with a factory in Newton NJ.

Naturally this got me thinking that there must be other members of the hive who have similar stories and I thought it might be fun share.

Not my ancestors but I tried to be a pioneer last year...

We've all seen Miata karts and vet karts, right?

My grandfather (Indiana farmer) used to strip the bodies off of model T Ford's for ice racing.

Honestly though, I don't think it made him a pioneer, unless he was the first one to do it. More likely, it was sort of a spec series and he joined in.

I had a great grandfather who was a hat maker back when they used Mercury for some part of the process. I do not know why you need Mercury to make a hat. 

Anyway he went nuts. 

To ensure this tangent fits, he may have thought of cars in his demented moments. But I will never know for sure.

Hence, the "mad hatter".  My Grand Father was also in the same trade when he first emigrated to this country.

Floating Doc said:

We've all seen Miata karts and vet karts, right?

My grandfather (Indiana farmer) used to strip the bodies off of model T Ford's for ice racing.

Honestly though, I don't think it made him a pioneer, unless he was the first one to do it. More likely, it was sort of a spec series and he joined in.

Wow, I can’t imagine trying hold regularly planned ice racing in IN. And I thought the Midwest winters were too cold now...

@bearmtnmartin my great grandad also patented a process for dying shoes (as well as photo embossing and print wash); while I've found pictures / drawings for all of that stuff, I've found nothing on his automotive work beyond some articles and I suspect he was a bit mad in a sort of PT Barnum way.  

The only tangible thing remotely automotive my great grand father did was a patent for hose stop leak..............given my legendary abuse of cooling systems, this seems rather amusing to me.

I had a great grand uncle that did consulting in the teens and twenties for increasing productivity. Much of his work was on automotive production lines. Actually saw his notebook about reducing work station times from 3 minutes to 30 seconds and syncronizing all the stations to work in equal steps. Loved the note on the engine installers 3 man team that kept redesigning their jobs. They had an engine clamp that could be clamped, swung and released in less that 2 seconds. Slight taper added to the bolts to make them easier to install and even the platform was adjustable to accomodate "the short guy". They took thier 30 second (or whatever time they had) set and tried to reduce it to 15 seconds so they could rag on the next station guys or take a 15 second break to smoke or sip a beer! Oh, if anyone takes apart a 1921 Buick, there might be a finger in the front springs.

Bruce

What does a rocket scientist do when they retire? Steam. My maternal grandfather built tricycles and quadracycles. I can't find a photo of his steam bikes but here he is with one of his boats. 

I know my grandpa had a souped up Model T back in the 20's.  He said he changed the carburetor, flathead, put a better magneto into it and changed the rear axle ratio.  It would do 45 mph instead of the standard 30mph.

Then he had a story that he drove someone's Stutz-Bearcat  on a shell road on a bet to go to 80 mph.  The owner was riding with him and got so scared he told grandpa to slow down when they got to 60 mph although the bet was for 80 mph.  Something about the potholes making the car go airborne.

In reply to buzzboy :

I wish I knew him, and I wish I could give you more than one thumbs up!

Mine came over on the Mayflower and the other side was an English explorer who discovered Hudson Bay etc.

However, my grandfather (R.I.P.) used to swear he invented the push button automatic transmission!

Some of the ancestors came over circa 1650 from Holland but most got here in the late 1800s. My "Dutch Girl" Great Grandmother is the one who married my inventor Great Grandfather, which at the time most have caused a stir because you'll find him listed as an African American inventor (he was Afro-Cuban).  My wife is black and my mom's DNA test showed 15% West African ancestry (mine is 6%) so whenever we're watching a show with an interracial couple I look at my wife and say  "oh I don't approve of that". The sense of humor gets even more wrong from there...............my wife makes jokes about my being able to "pass"

My English ancestor was a man named Levi Lord, there is a place in PA named Lord's Valley; they didn't invent anything but apparently they shot up the country side (English soldiers, Indians, deer and pretty much everything else that moved). I have a book that notes they fought in the war of 1812, some skirmishes with local tribes and were avid hunters.

@Buzzboy super cool, you have to love guys who tinker on that level (if tinker is the right word)

My maternal grandfather Henry Richard Joyce (1880-1971) was a machinist in Norwalk Connecticut usually engaged in making boat parts. This facilitated him the ability to be the first person in the city of Norwalk to repair an automobile for business. He never drove one though

Have one that invented the electric motor! Related via his sister.

Bruce

(Michael Faraday!)

I always thought tesla invented the electric motor.  Huh.  Time to study up on electrical inventions!

A bit more modern, my dad invented the CG-Lock.  Several seatbelts and child seats now use similar ideas to make cars safer  Unfortunately the companies figured out a way around the patents. 

In reply to egnorant :

He had some involvement in electrical shielding as well, didn't he:

On my other grandfather's side, the first to emigrate to the USA was a Scottish sea captain. 

He was master of the last wooden hulled sailing ship launched on the Great Lakes.

One of my grandmother's family manufactured wagons and buggies in Atlanta. 

In reply to ShawnG :

I see three pioneers in that photo, Dan Gurney (of course) Len Terry, and Harry Weslake. Cars can have more parents than people

In reply to TurnerX19 :

My last name starts with "G"...

Distant relative, my fathers second cousin or something.

Don't worry, I got none of the talent.

Family Lore states that my grandfather (born 1869) qualified for a very early Indy 500 -- pre-WWI-- but the car broke and he couldn't take the grid. Because of that I cannot verify it. He really liked Eddie Rickenbacker, who lived close by and who was a local point of contact for that sort of thing. A lot of "race car drivers" of that time that were not named Eddie Rickenbacker or Barney Oldfield were just rich guys that didn't have long illustrious careers and that would have described my grandfather.

I have a great grandfather that built an amphibious car that was featured in Popular Science in the early 60s. Google is failing me in a my attempts to find the article. My grandmother still has the issue. 

Similar to this one with LBJ

https://images.app.goo.gl/RWSyVC4KrArmjkN49

Maybe not pioneers, but some of my ancestors, who came to the US in 1683 with William Penn, had probably the longest-running manufacturing company of wooden wheels in the US. Read more about it here. They started in 1868 and finally closed in the mid-1970s. Originally making wheels for horse buggies, they added wooden automobile wheels to their production.