Heine-Velox

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Heine-Velox was a large, expensive luxury car made by Gustav Heine. Heine Piano Company was originally Bruenn Piano Company before Heine became owner. All were based in San Francisco.

Gustav Otto Ludolf Heine was the owner of a piano business in San Francisco, which was formerly his boss's. He also manufactured automobiles under the name of Heine-Velox.

Contents

Piano business

Gustav Otto Ludolf Heine was born near Boizenburg, Germany, in 1868, and emigrated to the United States in 1873 with his parents and seven siblings, settling in the Capay Valley. At the age of 16, he moved to San Francisco and went to work for Bruenn Piano Company. Heine became a piano tuner, but did not get along well with the owner of the firm. After much conflict, and a scar from dueling Bruenn with tuning hammers, Heine emerged owner of Bruenn Piano Company, changing the name of the firm to Heine Piano Company. [1]

Capay Valley

Capay Valley is a mostly rural valley northwest of Sacramento in Yolo County, California, United States. It lies east of Blue Ridge and west of the Capay Hills.

Automobile interest

In 1903, Heine became interested in automobiles and had one of the first Ford dealerships in the west coast. The next year, he met Colonel E. J. Hall (of the Hall-Scott Motor Company), who designed engines for Heine with hill climbing units. Starting in 1905, Hall worked for Heine as works driver, repairman, chauffeur, salesman, and general partner for two and a half years.[ citation needed ] Heine built three tourers before the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, which destroyed the Heine Motor Company and Heine Piano Company. [2] Following the earthquake, Heine restarted the piano business, [2] and offered federal troops the use of his tourer for transporting supplies, the wounded, and the dead.[ citation needed ]

Ford Motor Company American automobile manufacturer

Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker that has its main headquarter in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobiles and commercial vehicles under the Ford brand and most luxury cars under the Lincoln brand. Ford also owns Brazilian SUV manufacturer Troller, an 8% stake in Aston Martin of the United Kingdom and a 32% stake in Jiangling Motors. It also has joint-ventures in China, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, and Russia. The company is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is controlled by the Ford family; they have minority ownership but the majority of the voting power.

West Coast of the United States Coastline

The West Coast or Pacific Coast is the coastline along which the continental Western United States meets the North Pacific Ocean. As a region, this term most often refers to the coastal states of California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska. More specifically, it refers to an area defined on the east by the Alaska Range, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, and Mojave Desert, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. The United States Census groups the five states of California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii together as the Pacific States division.

Hall-Scott Motor Car Company was an American manufacturing company based in Berkeley, California. It was among the most significant builders of water-cooled aircraft engines before World War I.

Heine left after the earthquake for Milwaukee, where he arranged a deal to have a large number of vehicles produced under the Heine-Velox name. The new vehicles would then be sold by the Heine Motor Car Company, located on Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco. [3] The vehicles would be manufactured by Mauvais Motor Company, owned by Roy Mauvais. [4] [5] [6] In 1906, the 45 H.P. was produced. Backed by a $5,000 guarantee, the car was advertised as having fewer parts in relation to its size and weight than any other car.[ citation needed ]

Milwaukee Largest city in Wisconsin

Milwaukee is the largest city in the state of Wisconsin and the fifth-largest city in the Midwestern United States. The seat of the eponymous county, it is on Lake Michigan's western shore. Ranked by its estimated 2014 population, Milwaukee was the 31st largest city in the United States. The city's estimated population in 2017 was 595,351. Milwaukee is the main cultural and economic center of the Milwaukee metropolitan area which had a population of 2,043,904 in the 2014 census estimate. It is the second-most densely populated metropolitan area in the Midwest, surpassed only by Chicago. Milwaukee is considered a Gamma global city as categorized by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network with a regional GDP of over $105 billion.

In February 1907, Heine was in negotiations to have one of his vehicles raced against a Fiat vehicle that was one of the fastest being manufactured at that time. The proposed race was cancelled when Fiat officials wanted to add a third vehicle into the race. [5] [6] Heine's planned production of 50 cars per year never came to fruition, and he ended automobile production in 1908.[ citation needed ]

Revitalized

In 1921, after Heine had purchased Economy Steel Manufacturing Company, he had a new car designed and built with resources from the acquired company. The 1921 Heine-Velox, advertised as a custom-built luxury car, was first shown at a San Francisco auto show. The car had hydraulic brakes on all wheels, and a V-12 engine commissioned from Weidely. [7] It was one of only a few vehicles manufactured after 1919 to use a V-12 engine, which was not widely reintroduced until the early 1930s. [2]

V12 engine piston engine with 12 cylinders in vee configuration

A V12 engine is a V engine with 12 cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of six cylinders each, usually but not always at a 60° angle to each other, with all 12 pistons driving a common crankshaft. Since each cylinder bank is essentially a straight-six which is by itself in both primary and secondary balance, a V12 inherits perfect primary and secondary balance no matter which V angle is used, and therefore it needs no balance shafts. A four-stroke 12 cylinder engine has an even firing order if cylinders fire every 60° of crankshaft rotation, so a V12 with cylinder banks at a multiples of 60° will have even firing intervals without using split crankpins. By using split crankpins or ignoring minor vibrations, any V angle is possible. The 180° configuration is usually referred to as a "flat-twelve engine" or a "boxer" although it is in reality a 180° V since the pistons can and normally do use shared crankpins. It may also be written as "V-12", although this is less common.

It was massive, with a 148-inch (3,800 mm) wheelbase. The price tag of $17,000-$25,000 made it the most expensive American car of the era; a Rolls-Royce sold for less than $10,000, American's highest-price model was US$5250, [8] the Lozier Big Six limousines and landaulettes US$6,500 (tourers and roadsters were US$5,000), and the Lozier Light Six Metropolitan tourer and runabout bottomed at US$3,250. [9] By contrast, the high-volume Oldsmobile Runabout was US$650 [10] and Western's Gale Model A was US$500. [11]

The Heine-Velox V12 had a low-slung appearance because the body was mounted to the frame from the sides, instead of the top, which also provided more structural rigidity and a low center of gravity. The two headlights, mounted high on the fenders (giving a kind of bug-eyed look), [12] contained both high and low beams, operated by a switch. Rather than roll up or down, Heine windows pivoted and could be locked in position. Luggage could be stored in lockable boxes on the running boards, as well as in places on all sides of the car. An easy to spot interior innovation was the tilting of the dashboard to 45 degrees, which was supposed to be more comfortable for the driver and would hide the steering column, as well as positioning of the handbrake and gear selector which did not require leaning. Heine demonstrated his car to Chevrolet and demanded to see the head engineer. He was pointed in his direction, leaving the car unattended, and the car was stolen. The following year Chevrolet released a car with pivoting windows. Heine's car had many other innovations, including an oil level automatically maintained by gravity, and a cold-weather start system operated from the dash. The Blackhawk Collection claims the cars were as powerful as the Duesenbergs of the day.

Post-automobile

In 1923, the company was dissolved after the Economy Steel Manufacturing Company closed. Gustav moved to southern California, where he enjoyed playing and composing for the piano, and purchasing cars for his own amusement, until his death in 1959. He spent his final years at his place in Sunol, California. His last three cars were lent to a local dealer for display, but he was never paid for them, and they disappeared.

Known cars built:

The Victoria, formerly on display at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada, was owned by a New York collector as of 2005. The limousine and one of the sedans were in the Cars of the Stars collection from 1976 to 1980. Another sedan was given to Heine's sister's family in the 1930s, and eventually became a chicken coop, and then was abandoned. In 1978, the sedan was sold to a collector in Colorado, who still owned it as of 2005. Restorations on the limousine began in 1996, after it was sold to new owners. In 2005, the limousine was put on display at The Auto Collections at the Imperial Palace hotel-casino in Paradise, Nevada. [1]

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 "1921 Heine-Velox V-12 Limousine - (one-of-a-kind)". The Auto Collections. Archived from the original on March 12, 2005. Retrieved May 11, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 Burness, Tad (August 19, 2001). "Auto Album". The Reporter . Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  3. ↑ "News of the Auto World". Oakland Tribune . December 22, 1906. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  4. ↑ "Heine-Velox advertisement". Oakland Tribune. February 22, 1907. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  5. 1 2 Fowler, W. H. B. (February 22, 1907). "Prospect For a Great Contest: Heine Challenges Fiat Car to a Test of Speed on the Track". Oakland Tribune. Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  6. 1 2 I'Hommedieu, R. R. (February 25, 1907). "Bantering Results in a Race Between Autos Over Streets in Vicinity of Coliseum". San Francisco Call . Retrieved June 14, 2017.
  7. ↑ Clymer, p.91
  8. ↑ Clymer, Floyd. Treasury of Early American Automobiles, 1877-1925 (New York: Bonanza Books, 1950), p.91.
  9. ↑ Clymer, p.111.
  10. ↑ Clymer, p.32.
  11. ↑ Clymer, p.51.
  12. ↑ Clymer, p.198.

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