Besides Jeep, Butler also home to some other great old cars
Cars that reach the century mark are a rarity. Antiques that are still being driven regularly are rarer still — especially ones that were made right here in Western Pennsylvania.
Through April 11, you can see “5 Great Old Cars Made in Butler PA” on display in Harmony at an indoor auto show organized by Historic Harmony and the Butler Old Stone House section of the Antique Automobile Club of America. The show is at Harmony Museum’s Stewart Hall, which was once a Kaiser-Frazer dealership. Admission is $3 per person. Face masks are required, and room capacity is limited by state guidelines.
Two of the cars are right around the century mark. A 1909 Huselton and a 1922 Standard 8, both touring cars, are parked alongside a 1930 American Austin, a 1939 Bantam Speedster and a 1941 BRC 40, or
Bantam Reconnaissance Car, the original jeep.
Although the cars will be behind ropes, they don’t spend their lives riding on trailers. The Huselton and Standard 8 travel around the region for parades and other events.
“One summer we burned about 13 tanks of gas in the Huselton,” said John Pro, past president of the AACA chapter, which maintains the cars and shows them.
The 1909 Huselton is a soft-top touring car featuring a row of bucket seats, side-facing jump seats in the middle and a bench in the rear. Pro says its caramel-colored leather seats can fit seven to nine passengers.
Up front, a driver is not troubled by gauges — there’s not even a speedometer or clock. The Huselton has an oil-flow gauge on the wooden dashboard and that’s it. But that’s a pretty important gauge, Pro said. The engine has open valves that allow oil to escape while the car is running, so it needs a couple quarts of oil every 100 miles or so. (And we complain if we lose a little between 5,000-mile oil changes.)
“If it’s not leaking, you put oil in it,” he said.
But isn’t that a mess to clean up? Most of it drips out, Pro said, but what lands on the engine compartment is a bonus. “It actually stops things from rusting.”
Despite its stodgy appearance, the Huselton began its life at the racetrack. Company founder Edgar Huselton, a 20-something auto enthusiast, built the car as a twoseat racer in 1909. Pro says that in a photo he’d seen, “it looks like he’s sitting on a crate.”
Club vice president Bill Salvatora explained that the Huselton had the same engine as a Stutz Bearcat, a well-known racing car of the day.
“The Huselton was like a kit car,” he said, noting that Huselton bought parts out of a magazine and
put it together himself, like many cars of the day.
When Huselton started a family, he decided he needed a more practical ride. He reconstructed the car in 1911, lengthening the frame and building a new body. It was not a big-time operation; total Huselton production was just 13 vehicles.
The car was donated to the city of Butler in the early 1990s, Salvatora said. “It needed a complete restoration, upholstery, engine, everything.”
Rodney Gasch, president and CEO of Historic Harmony, remembers watching club members fire up the Huselton. That requires pouring in some fuel, advancing the spark, reducing the compression, turning a crank — and saying a little prayer.
Once started, the Huselton is a joy to drive, Pro said, adding that it moves quickly and is comfortable to ride in. The only other downside is the brakes, which are basically bands that tighten on drums on the rear wheels only. The wheels are 37 inches high, and Pro estimates the car sits almost 2 feet off the ground, so it’s actually easier to enter and exit backward.
Still, the 40-horsepower engine run through a fourspeed manual — with a brass shifter lever — takes the vehicle to 70 mph with ease, and even at that high speed “it was ready for more,” Pro said.
The fun stops when the sun goes down, however. Powered by acetylene, the headlights must be lit by hand.
“There’s really no projection,” Pro said. “It’s more for people to see you than you to see them.”
Gasch said few people get to see a Huselton or a Standard 8 up close, though the latter was more of a production car of its time. About 14,000 Standards were made from 1912 to 1923, according to the Butler County Tourism Bureau.
Historic Harmony, which operates the Harmony Museum, had planned this exhibit for this time last year. Then COVID-19 put the brakes on all such events.
“We’re excited to get back into the history business,” Gasch said.
The 1922 Standard 8 was built by Standard Steel, better known for making railcars. This one is owned by the club outright; members purchased it in pretty good shape in the early 2000s from a seller in North Carolina, Salvatora said.
This car is closer to what 21st-century drivers expect from an automobile. It has more modern headlights, interior and exterior lighting, a closed compartment with side windows that open and close and charcoal corduroytype cloth seats arranged almost like those in the family minivan.
The driver also enjoys some modern amenities: a speedometer, oil gauge and clock.
The V-8 engine makes 80 horsepower, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. The Standard 8 tips the scales at 4,400 pounds. Pro estimates that the steel wheels alone weigh 150 pounds each. The Standard 8 might hit 40 mph — going down a steep hill, with the clutch engaged, with a tailwind.
“It’s kind of a plain car but back then it was a very showy car,” Pro said.