View our eBay StoreSign up for our Email Newsletter 1913 Carter Car Touring offered with a reserve This very nice Touring Car is finished in a striking Cream/Red livery with nice pinstriping throughout. The car is a great runner. it starts easily. runs smoothly. and the friction drive works well producing a very fast car for its age. The top could use some attention. but otherwise this car is good to go touring immediately. The car is perfect for parades since it holds a good number of people comfortably. Be the fastest one on your next brass and gas tour. These are very rare cars so you wont see yourself coming and going either. as you would in a model T. We have many more photographs of this car. please click on any image to be taken to our full-size image list! The Cartercar was an American automobile manufactured in 1905 in Jackson. Michigan. in 1906 in Detroit. and from 1907 to 1915 in Pontiac. Michigan. After leaving the Jackson Automobile Company due to a disagreement with his business partners over the choice of transmissions in 1905. Byron J. Carter formed the Motorcar Company in Jackson. The firm relocated to Detroit by the end of the year. due to having financing there. Starting in 1907. the company was named Cartercar Company and was relocated to Pontiac. thereupon merging with the makers of the Pontiac High wheeler. The Cartercar was given a warm reception in the press. largely due to the friction drive transmission. which was a sort of forerunner of the CVT of today. as both offered an infinite number of engine speeds. At 4000 miles. the paper fiber rims that were part of the friction-drive could be replaced for no more than $5. which was less than half the price that would be expended on grease packing in a regular geared transmission. Sales more than doubled between the first and second full years of production. from 101 in 1906 to 264 in 1907. The next year sales were up again. now at 325. On October 26. 1909 Cartercar was bought by General Motors in the acquisition spree that William Durant went on after founding GM. In explaining the reason he purchased Cartercar. Durant said: "They say I shouldn't have bought Cartercar. Well. how was anyone to know that Carter wasn't to be the thing? It had the friction drive and no other car had it. How could I tell what these engineers would say next?" Durant lost control of GM in 1910. and by the time he had regained control in 1915. the GM board had already decided to discontinue the Cartercar. largely because sales never approached the 1000-2000 annually that Durant had predicted. The GM board decided to use the factory instead to produce the Oakland. The company began with a flat-twin engine; this was used alongside vertical fours in the 1909 range of cars. By 1910. four-cylinder engines were the sole motor available. Two models. both pair-cast fours. appeared in 1912; the Model R was 4160 cc. while the Model S was 5437 cc. Each had a single chain drive. Even though there were other friction-drive cars on the market at the time. such as Lambert. Metz. and Petrel. none of them lasted as long or were as famous as the Cartercar. Tragedy struck when Byron Carter died in 1908 as a result of trying to start a stalled car; the crank kicked back and hit him in the jaw. causing gangrene which ultimately proved fatal. Carter was a personal friend of Cadillac founder Henry Leland. and his unfortunate death prompted development of the Self-Starter (introduced in 1912). the first successful motor vehicle electric starting system. eliminating the dangerous crank. Our Ebay Policies: Significant Cars is one of the largest Collector Car Brokers and Dealers in the Country. Since 2003 we have worked hard to "change the way collector cars find new homes" by providing unparralleled web presentation of the cars we are representing. Most of our cars have over 30 photographs. and these can be viewed by visiting our website (our eBay handle dot com). or by clicking on any of the photographs in the black background area of our EBay listings. We welcome your call with any questions about any of our listings at anytime at 800-837-9902 and certainly encourage your personal inspection of any of the cars we are selling-just call us and we will be happy to set up an appointment for your to see and test drive the car. We realize that eBay is a difficult venue to properly evaluate an item as complex as an automobile. You can feel secure bidding with confidence on any of our cars since we guarantee your satisfaction! Should you win the auction and come to see the car and decide you do not want it for any reason. no negative feedback will result. any deposit you may have paid will be cheerfully refunded. Description images and copy © 2004-2014 Significant Cars. Inc.