American LaFrance 1919

First, sorry about my english, it isnt perfect. Wanted to share the story with you as it was great day and special ride.

We had our local sportcar breakfast club saturday morning and star of the day was 1919 American LeFrance racecar. When it was time to leave I asked for a shotgun ride and got it.

This thing is Huge, size of a small truck what it originally was, a fire truck. 14.6 litre, 6 cylinder engine that pushes about 120-130 hp, 3 speed, chaindrive from diff to wheels, one rearwheel with brakedrum weights hefty 167kg and tyres are size of 37"x7".

I was amazed of its ride quality, slightly bumpy at low speeds but at speed it was smooth, far smoother than new'ish race truck I got shot gun some years ago. And you sit high, you can look down into citybus from it. Wood spoke wheels were wobly but owner said they just need straightening, that is done like a bicycle wheels, loose and tighten on opposide sides until its straight. Steering seemed to need huge effort at low speeds in roundabouts to turn but at speed it got "lighter". Pedals had different position as loudpedal was center, brake on right and clutch on left. Brakes were only in rearwheels and fully mechanical, pedal had huge lever in its action, seemed to do their work on low speeds with lots and lots of free space in front of the truck. Gears worked pretty well, about 1 meter gearstick helped the action and gears found in with bit of straight gear grinding. Sound was chacophony of moving parts and whining with wind in my face. Exhaust note was provided by straight pipe, mellow with huge attitude as what you can expect when one cylinder is over 2.4 litre! And about the litres, fuel tank is +270 litres and it uses about 50 litres to 100 km, engine takes 16 litres of oil and uses it alot. Every now and then plus every start you need to oil it, every thing had own nipple for oil, valvetrain was visible and needed oil, so was everything else from alternator to every thinkable moving bit.

All in all, very usable thing to be almost 100 years old, not easy in modern way but everything worked and did what expected, just needed much more effort. Have to say that the guys who raced or drove these things fast in the past (if I understud correctly, +100mph) had insanely big balls made of titanium.







Cheers
Samuli
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