If you’re a student of automotive history, you’ll recognize this familiar image. Naturally, there’s quite a story behind it.
The famed photo above shows Charles B. King driving the first automobile on the streets of Detroit, on Woodward Avenue, March 7, 1896. As The Detroit Free Press described the scene, “The connecting rods fly like lightning, and the machine is capable of running seven or eight miles per hour.” Right. Anyway, bonus points for you if you can name the young man seated to King’s right in the photo. He’s Oliver Barthel, King’s draftsman and assistant. One interesting fact about this moment in time: When this photo was taken, Barthel was only 18 years old, but he was already an accomplished mechanic and engineer.
So below, here’s another well-known photo in automotive lore, depicting Henry Ford at the wheel of Sweepstakes, his first racecar circa 1901. The young man seated next to him? Once again, Oliver Barthel. He was a co-designer and co-builder of this car as well. Small world, isn’t it. In the early history of the Detroit auto industry, Bethel appears with surprising frequency, like Woody Allen’s Zelig or an expository character in a TV miniseries.
Oliver Edward Barthel was born in Detroit on October 3, 1877 to Albrecht and Elizabeth Barthel, who had emigrated to America from Augsberg, Germany in 1870. Comfortable middle-classers, the Barthels sent young Oliver to public and private schools in Detroit until 1894, when the gear-headed 16 year-old took a job as draftsman and assistant at King’s machine shop in the Lauer Building on St. Antoine Street (a few blocks from today’s Renaissance Center, GM’s world headquarters). Fluent in German, Barthel proved useful in directing the machinists and mechanics, many of whom could not understand English.
King had developed the pneumatic jackhammer, a stroke of fortune that earned him the funding to pursue his true interest, the automobile. King, Barthel, and Ford were well known to each other in these years as members of a small circle of inventors, speculators, and crackpots in Detroit, all of them obsessed with motor vehicles. When Barthel took a night class in machine tool operation, Ford was the instructor.
Barthel stayed with King until 1901 when the inventor sold out to Chicago Pneumatic, whereupon Ford hired him to design and build the Sweepstakes racer, alongside Ed “Spider” Huff and C. Harold Wills. When Sweepstakes famously beat the Winton in the match race at Grosse Pointe, Ford won the backing to incorporate his own car company. For his part, Barthel was also a principal in several automotive start-ups but unfortunately, they didn’t survive. (A 1912 automobile of Barthel’s design is shown below.) However, he did go on to a long and successful career as a consulting engineer, mainly to the auto industry, retiring in 1955 with 30 patents to his credit.
Barthel is also remembered for an observation made years after these events. In an interview he once remarked that “Henry Ford was a cut-and-try mechanic without any particular genius,” an assessment that several prominent automotive historians, including John B. Rae, have had a hard time digesting. However, MCG has no trouble with the evaluation. As we see it, that was not where Ford’s genius lay. And that’s exactly what Barthel was thinking too, we bet.
Interesting story. Barthels remark about Ford wasn’t necessarily disparaging, it just shows what can be achieved through sheer hard work, stubborness and business sense. I think the same remark could be applied to some extent to Smokey Yunick (yes I know that’s blasphemy) – after reading his autobiog I couldn’t help but feel most of his success was due relentless hard work rather than any technical genius.
That’s it exactly, as I see it. Ford had a single vision — low-priced car for the masses — and he focused on it like a laser. Thanks for your thoughts. mcg
What a remarkable period of time to be alive and involved in the birth of the industry.
As the story goes, when King and Barthel took their first drive in March 1896, a man on a bicycle followed along at a discrete distance, trying not to look too interested. It is said that the man on the bicycle was Henry Ford.
If King’s vehicle looks like a wagon, there’s a good reason: Essentially, it was. His own chassis was eating up construction time, but meanwhile a CIncinatti wagon maker, eager to get into the automobile business on the ground floor, offered a vehicle. Eager to get his project rolling, King accepted.
“I nevertheless possess that secret joy of the thinker and know that long after I am dead and forgotten, people will still be moving to the measure of my thought and effort…….
That is why an engineer’s achievement is not valued or measured for it’s size, cost or fame, but rather for what it means to those who use it…..”
Oliver Barthel
Oliver Barthel provoked thought and change to an industrial society, Without his genius Detroit may not have become the leader in the automotive industry. How does one know? This quite man who’s intelligence ranks up there with Edison, Ford, the Wright Brothers and so many other incredible historians of the twentieth century changed our lives forever.
Thank you Oliver, I think of you often and wish I could have known you. Trust in knowing your ingenuity still runs deep.
Pardon the error, I meant quiet man…..
Thank you for your thoughts, Lisa. It’s good to meet another Oliver Barthel fan.
You as we’ll. Oliver Barthel was my great great uncle. Although I grew up not knowing too much about him, my brother has done some incredible family research. I feel that the contributions he made are so richly important to our history and yet he is anonymous to so many….I had to post something. So really, thank you for feeling the same way. I know I am honored to be a Barthel.
If you or your brother would like to share more about Oliver Barthel, this website is at your disposal. -mcg
I knew Oliver Barthel in his later years when he lived with his son (My Uncle Ollie). My Aunt Doris (who passed away only a few years ago) would have her side of the family over for Christmas. The 20 some cousins would all call him Grandpa Barthel. He was a kind and lively person. I remember him in his 80’s dancing with all my 30 something Aunts. He was a little bit of a health nut even back in the late 50’s. He wouldn’t eat any fats and had a bowl of oatmeal with hot water every morning. I remember seeing an auto biography at my Aunts House and there was also one in the Ford Museum. I wish I could read it again today.
Hello Lisa…My name is Vicki, and my husband’s name is, Jeff. We are honored to be able to correspond with a descendant of Oliver’s. My husband & I, have 2 letters. One of Oliver’s, to a well-known auto maker, and a response letter from this auto maker. We have had the letters for a year and a half, and for a year and a half, we have researched Oliver. We had the letter authenticated by a renoun expert. Oliver was such an amazing man…we admire and respect him, deeply, and wish we could have met him! We would very much like to share with the Barthel family, first, what we have; the two men involved, and the content of the letters, before we proceed to make it public.Our respect is for the Barthel family. We have a couple of questions, we are hoping you, Lisa, and your brother may be able to answer for us. We believe we have been thorough with our research, and the historical content will be undeniably recognized. What you, or other family members may be able to tell us, willl only add to the full story we are trying to bring together, that being Oliver’s incredible contribution in this world and the passion for the build! What a great mind and soul!…Thank you, Lisa. I look forward to hearing from you. Vicki
Oliver was an avid Gardner as well. Well before it was acknowledge about how plants impacted our enviornment he was researching it and doing scientific studies on it. I believe it was the1950’s. He was a passionate man who was fueled by finding what his purpose in life was. He studied metaphysics, poetry, literature, and so much more. Hey…..we wouldn’t be enjoying the summers without his invention of the outboard motor either.
Mac, I think that the win with the Sweepstakes Car provided Henry Ford with the reputation and funding to start his second car company the Henry Ford Company, not FoMoCo, his third, which wouldn’t be founded until 1903. The failure of the Detroit Automobile Co., Ford’s first venture, affected his credibility with investors and he needed the win against Winton to gain the confidence of the Detroit business community.