If you want to see a 1910 Franklin up close and personal, you would usually have to look in a museum.
‘Dave Cruickshank doesn’t believe 100-year-old cars belong in museums.’
They belong on the street because as Dave says; “If you own them you should drive them”.
So Dave’s 1910 Franklin is still a street machine. He spends as much time behind the wheel of his centenarian as time will allow him.
Typically a mild summer night becomes an open invitation for Dave to crank up his air-cooled Franklin and hit the Thursday night show and shine in his home town.
Dave’s home town has been a multi- generational home town for his family. His grandfather owned and operated a livery stable in Dave’s town before the 1910 Franklin was even built. Maybe one of the early Franklins replaced horses in that livery stable.
But Dave would rather drive history than discuss it, and the Franklin is a perfect vehicle for that experience.
There are very few 100-year-old Franklins left in the world and even less on the street. Dave is a fairly young owner of the car-roughly half the age of his ride. So he has plenty of time to run up more miles every summer when the weather is good and the top comes down on the old codger.
The Franklin is called a brass car, for obvious reasons, and the brass era ended in 1912 for the Franklins.
The car draws an enormous amount of attention at car shows, so Dave often finds himself in the middle of a crowd of curious on-lookers. Dave is a quiet-spoken guy, but he will answer any and all questions about his unique 100 year old four-wheeled companion.
The Franklin car was produced from 1902 to 1934. Dave’s car is a hand-crank start car that runs like a Swiss watch when he fires it up. All of this begs one question: How did a company that produced a car that runs this well at 100 years old ever go out of business?
‘He was too busy looking for another reason to hit the road in his 100 year old classic to answer that question, because summer is a short season in Dave’s region.’
Jim Sutherland @mystarcollectorcar.com