Owner: Richard C. Paine, Jr. Automobile Charitable Trust
Manufacturer: Stanley Motor Carriage Company (Newton, Massachusetts)
Model: K Semi-Racer
Bodystyle: Two-passenger
Cost New: $1800
Engine: 2-Cylinder Double-Acting Steam Engine. Water tank- 26 gallons
Horsepower: 30
Transmission: 66:54 gearing
Wheelbase: 108
Brakes: 2-Wheel Mechanical
Suspension: 4-Wheel Leaf Spring
Provenance: The Stanley Model K Semi-Racer is one of three remaining of the 25 built by Stanley from 1906-1908. While the other two have been restored, this one is in original condition. It is thus of exceptional value, quite likely the most valuable Stanley in the world.
Additional info: Friday, January 26, 1906, at Ormond Beach, Florida, a rocket-shaped, canoe-bodied Stanley broke the two-miles-in-one-minute barrier in the morning at 121.6 mph. In the one-mile trials that followed, the car did the mile in 28 1/5 seconds, or 127.66 mph. That record so devastated the gas-car world that they boycotted the races the following year, and effectively banned Stanleys from ever competing again at Ormond-Daytona. The Rocket held the record as “The Fastest Car in the World’ from 1906 to 1910, when Barney Oldfield broke the record in a Mercedes by barely four mph. Speed trials were held on the sands of Ormaond and Daytona Beach, Florida, from 1903 to 1911, when the Brickyard at Indianapolis took away the spot light of racing – until the origins of NASCAR started up again in Daytona. Model Ks cruise at today’s top highway speeds, and have been timed at 90 mph uphill as recently as the 1990s re-enactment of the Dead Horse Hill Climb races in Worcester, Massachusetts.
