{"id":2620,"date":"2005-01-19T04:13:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-19T09:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2005\/01\/magnetic-personality\/"},"modified":"2010-12-30T12:02:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-30T17:02:06","slug":"magnetic-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/2005\/01\/magnetic-personality\/","title":{"rendered":"Magnetic Personality"},"content":{"rendered":"

For all its popularity as an automobile powerplant, the internal combustion engine has one basic flaw: it develops its maximum power and torque in a relatively narrow band<\/a> of engine speeds – and no power at all when it’s not rotating. Making the engine useful in a car requires multiple ratios of gears, belts or disks, each of which has drawbacks. Thus the automobile did not become a true consumer good until the advent of the modern automatic transmission<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Justus B. Entz had a solution to this problem as long ago as 1897. In that year he invented an electromagnetic transmission, in some ways similar to the drive mechanism used on today’s diesel-electric locomotives<\/a>. An internal combustion engine drives a generator, and the electricity generated powers an electric motor to drive the wheels. Entz’s transmission was put into production in the Owen Magnetic, “The Car of a Thousand Speeds,”<\/a> introduced at the New York Auto Show in January 1915. Built by the Baker, Rauch & Lang Co. from 1915-21, it was produced in factories at New York, Cleveland, Ohio, and Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\"Owen<\/a><\/p>\n

The late Edwin Jameson, Sr., apparently thought this was a good idea, for in 1918 he purchased a new Owen Magnetic touring car<\/a>. In fact, he thought it was such a good idea that he bought two: the tourer, seen here with Dale Wells (left) and Leroy Cole, both past presidents of the Society of Automotive Historians<\/a>, and also a roadster<\/a>. Dale and Leroy were entranced with the Floyd Clymer-style through-the-windshield spotlight<\/a> with which this car is fitted. Driving an Owen was truly a one-foot adventure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both cars, which had remained in the Jameson family, were sold at a Bonhams and Butterfields<\/a> auction at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum<\/a> in Brookline, Massachusetts, in May 2003. The tourer, knocked down at $36,000 (plus buyer’s premium), is now being restored by a British owner. The roadster, which sold for $24,000 plus-premium, went to an undisclosed location. Interestingly, the Entz transmission itself ended up in England after the demise of the Owen Magnetic. Ensign Motors, Ltd. of London adopted it for a model of their British Ensign car, sold as the Crown Magnetic<\/a> (later Crown Ensign) from 1921-23 (photo thanks to Mike Worthington-Williams).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For all its popularity as an automobile powerplant, the internal combustion engine has one basic flaw: it develops its maximum power and torque in a relatively narrow band of engine speeds – and no power at all when it’s not rotating. Making the engine useful in a car requires multiple ratios of gears, belts or….<\/span>
Read full article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3454,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2620\/revisions\/3454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kitfoster.com\/carport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}