The Pope-Hartford "40" Model 31
Hartford, CT: Pope Manufacturing Co., [1913].
8.75 x 11.75 inches, [7] pp, in illustrated stapled wrappers. Some scratching and light soiling to front wrap, internals clean. Very good. Not located in OCLC. Boston businessman Alfred Pope saw his first bicycle at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. Enchanted by the invention, he studied the manufacturing process and was soon producing bicycles from a plant in Hartford, Connecticut and championing the development of better roads to ride them on. By the 1890s, the Pope Manufacturing Company was making about 250,000 bicycles a year. But Pope recognized that the automobile was the way of the future. “In 1896, he founded the Columbia Electric Vehicle Co. in Hartford and, a year later, demonstrated the world’s first public production model electric-powered car. His production of 2,092 cars (some gas-powered) in 1899 accounted for nearly half the automobiles made in the United States" (connecticuthistory website). This catalogue advertises five different styles (Touring, Roadster, Phaeton, Limousine, Coupe) of the company's 1913 Model 31, a gas-powered vehicle with a powerful engine said to embody "all of those features thus-far perfected and deemed essential to a perfect motor car." Prices ranged from $2,250-$3,750. Today, a restored Model 31 will set you back about $200,000.
Item #20036
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