Talk:Lincoln Motor Car Works

This article is written mainly on a source published in 1950. While it contains fine information about the car's technics and handling, there are doubts about the company's history. More modern sources - in fact all other I found - say that the Lincoln Motor Car Works were not the manufacturer of the automobile, but a supplier of parts and components. Following these sources (Kimes/Clark, Georgano, and Mroz for commercial vehicles), the Sears Motor Buggy was designed by Alvaro S. Krotz (who manufactured an electric earlier and a gas electric hybrid afterwards), and built by the Hercules Buggy Company in Evansville, Indiana, in 1908 and 1909 (which became Hercules Corp. in 1920, later builder of the Hercules woody wagons on several chassis). For the 1910 MY, production switched to the Sears Motor Car Works in Chicago, established in 1909 to meet strong demand. Coachwork still came from Hercules. When Sears found out in 1912 that production costs were higher than the list price, the motor buggy was dropped from the catalog. Machines and tools were sold to the Lincoln Motor Car Works who built the vehicle as the Lincoln Model 24 until 1913 at a substantially higher price of $585. There was also a light touring for four passengers at $680, probably the same car with two seat benches. Neither was a Sears catalog car. Wheelbase always was 72 in, and wheel size 36 in. The Hercules-built vehicles got a 10 bhp 103.7 c.i. (4.0625 × 4) flat twin, the Sears and Lincoln-built cars had 14 bhp 106.9 c.i. (4.125 × 4) engines.

Technical data from Robert D. Dluhy: American Automobiles of the Brass Era: Essential Specifications of 4,000+ Gasoline Powered Passenger Cars, 1906–1915, with a Statistical and Historical Overview. McFarland & Co Inc. publishers, Jefferson NC, 2013; ISBN 0-78647-136-0 (p. 116 and 63).

A.L.A.M. Rating would be ca. 13 for the smaller and 13.62 HP for the bigger engine.

There are two Sears highwheelers dated 1906 in commons. Both are shown in museums, so a wrong year of manufacture is unlikely, but there are no informations if these were of Krotz' design, and who built them. Sears offered the vehicle for the first time in its 1908 Fall catalog, No 118.--Chief tin cloud (talk) 12:36, 24 October 2018 (UTC)