If you’ve never heard of Abner Doble you’re not alone. Certain names stand out among great engineers of the last century: Marc Birkigt, Ettore Bugatti, Ferdinand Porsche, WO Bentley, to name a few. Born in the last decade of the 1800s to a wealthy, mechanically minded family, Doble grew up in the age of steam and was determined to make a better steam-powered car, but by the time he’d finished his masterpiece the world had moved on.
In the early days the steam car had an advantage over internal combustion. First of all, it was a known commodity – steam had powered everything from ships to factories. It was also easier to deal with than a gas car. With a steam car you went out to the barn, lit the pilot, waited for the vaporiser to get hot and heat up the boiler and you were ready to go. Really no different than heating the kettle on the stove.
Don’t forget, with early gas cars there was no self-starter; you had to set the choke, retard the timing, adjust the carburettor, then violently swing that starter handle, which could kick back and easily break your arm. Also, the noise of the internal combustion engine would frighten the horses and raise the ire of neighbours, not to mention magistrates.
Steam car people would argue that the gas cars were dangerous because any one of those internal explosions could go awry at any minute and injure people. Alas, steam was your grandfather’s mode of transportation. The gas car was new and exciting, and progress moved at lightning speed. The invention of the self-starter and interchangeability of precision parts saw to the death of steam. People could just get in the car and go.
Being a true believer in steam, Abner had to figure a way around this, which he did. He was the only one to build a steam car that you just get into, turn the key and go. I owned two of the 40 or so cars he built, and one of those, E-20, was originally owned by Howard Hughes, who set a 132.5mph record with it in 1925. I bought it from the Nethercutt Collection, which had restored the car and won numerous prizes with it, including Pebble Beach. It was surely one of the hardest vehicles to restore because Abner never built two alike. In his endless quest for perfection, every car was a prototype. I owned E-18 and E-20 and, even though they a
