The Detroit Steam Motors Corporation of Detroit introduced its first steam cars, called Trask-Detroits, in 1922. The Trask-Detroit was an assembled, or built-up car, with its boiler, engine and related parts manufactured by Schlieder Manufacturing Co., a Detroit valve manufacturer. It was intended as a popular-priced steam car, something that had never been done (steam cars' high quality engineering conspiring with low production runs to cause high selling prices). The basic model was to be a touring car with a selling price of $1,000.
For some time the company planned to have Trask-Detroits built in Canada by Windsor Steam Motors in Windsor, Ontario just across the river from Detroit. This would have allowed the cars to be sold in Canada with a minimum of tariffs, and allow favourable import treatment to other parts of the British Empire
A larger model car was announced in late 1923, with a sedan priced at $1,900. A contemporary report in the Wall Street Journal stated that the car bodies "...will be made by the Packard Motor Car Co..". However, Packard quickly issued a denial and the Trask-Detroit soon vanished, reappearing in the form of the Brooks steam car in Canada.
Famous quotes containing the words steam, motors and/or corporation:
“The windows were then closed and the steam turned on. There was a sign up saying that no one could smoke, but you couldn’t help it. You were lucky if you didn’t burst into flames.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“When General Motors has to go to the bathroom ten times a day, the whole country’s ready to let go. You heard of that market crash in ‘29? I predicted that.... I was nursing a director of General Motors. Kidney ailment, they said; nerves, I said. Then I asked myself, “What’s General Motors got to be nervous about?” “Overproduction,” I says. “Collapse.””
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)
“What I am anxious to do is to get the best bill possible with the least amount of friction.... I wish to avoid [splitting our party]. I shall do all in my power to retain the corporation tax as it is now and also force a reduction of the [tariff] schedules. It is only when all other efforts fail that I’ll resort to headlines and force the people into this fight.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)