For the current issue of Hemmings Motor News, I wrote up a little introduction to the resilient wheel, a self-sprung technology that enjoyed not very much popularity in the decades before World War II. But for an idea that essentially no one used, quite a few people wrote in to comment.
I’d never actually seen a car equipped with resilient wheels, either, until Jack Shea sent this photo in. The shot was taken in Pendleton, Oregon, in 1912, and the car is rocking a set of Isaac Jay’s wheels.
Aside from the patent (1,009,314), I’ve been able to dig up exactly bupkis on Jay. But Jack is actually more interested in the make and model of the car, and I’m nowhere on that, either. It’s something between one and four years old at the time of the photo, and there were Paige-Detroit, Stoddard-Dayton, Havers, Studebaker/E-M-F, Reo, Buick, Apperson and Franklin dealerships in Pendleton at that time, which is always a good place to start.
Any ideas, either on I. Jay or the car?