1897 Oldsmobile High Wheeler

Motor Carriage

A fire at the Olds Motor Works in Detroit, Michigan on March 9th of 1901 destroyed three of these four models, leaving only one original vehicle remaining. This particular example is a full-scale reproduction of Ransom E. Olds' first production gasoline-powered motor carriage. This vehicle is now the fifth of this model design to have ever been manufactured, only four models having been built prior to 1899.

In 1915 the only remaining vehicle was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. by the Olds Motor Works, Lansing, MI. It is now on loan for display at the R.E. Olds Transportation Museum in Lansing, just five city blocks from the original 'Olds Gasoline Engine Works' where the car was first manufactured in 1897.

Special permission was granted to create this reproduction to preserve and document the 'only remaining vehicle of its kind.'

August 21, 1897, represents a 100-year turning point for Oldsmobile. On that day, at the first board of directors meeting it was agreed to commission R.E. Olds 'To build one carriage in as nearly perfect a manner as possible.'

Today Oldsmobile represented the first and oldest name of mass-produced automobiles built in America.