Abner Doble left Waltham, MA and headed to Detroit where he spent several years. His first effort was under the corporate name, General Engineering Company. Subsequently, he created The Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company before moving to California. He returned to Detroit in the mid 1920s to conduct experiments for the Detroit Motorbus Company.
General Engineering Company
General Engineering Company, Scientific American article, December 23, 1916, pp. 570 - 571.
This General Engineering Company flyer is dated December 1916.
This two page advertisement appeard in Harpers Magazine for January 1917.
This General Engineering Company advertisement appeared in The Automobile on January 4, 1917, page 203.
This General Engineering Company advertisement appeared in Motor Life Including Motor Print in January 1917, page 11.
This General Engineering Company advertisement appeared in Metropolitan magzine in February 1917, p. 3.
The General Engineering Company produced this advertising brochure in 1916. In 1917, Doble replaced the covers with the Doble-Detroit Steam Motors name.
This copy of the General Engineering Company advertising brochure was not printed on the reverse. SOmeone has sketched parts and noted 500 lbs. of Pressure.
The General Engineering Company produced this advertising brochure in 1916. Someone has stamped a Received Date of February 3, 1917 on the back. Later in 1917 it appeared with new covers under the name DOble-Detroit Steam Motors Company. Inside this catalogue is an order form and an advertsiing card.
The Michagan Stamping Company apparenlty thought about purchaseing Doble's General Engineering Company for $10,000,000. Fortunately for Michigan Stamping, they abandoned the plan. John H. Conde Collection.
Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company
Motor Life Including Motor Print carried two photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Abner Doble in the latest Doble-Detroit Steam Car. This issue appeared in 1917.
Floyd Clymer printed this image of a Doble Four Passenger Steam Car. It is identical to the image published in the Motor Life Including Motor Print magazine. Clymer cited the Doble-Detroi Steam Motors Company as the source of the image.
The October 1917 issue of Motor Magazine carried this small advertisement for Doble Laboratiries. It offered to license the Doble steam car technology. The Steamotor Truck Company was likely one of the licensees.
By November 17, 1917 when this Literary Digest advertisement appeared, Doble had changed his company name to Doble-Detroit.
J. H. Staples of Charleston, SC placed this full page advertisement in the News Courier on November 29, 1917.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company advertisement appeared on December 8, 1917 in the Literary Digest on page 77.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company advertisement appeared on December 17, 1917 in the Saturday Evening Post on page 39.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company advertisement appeared on January 24, 1918 in Motor Age on page 233.
This Motor Age article dated April 4, 1918, p_24, documents the sale of the Doble patents from General Engineering to Doble-Detroit. John H. Conde Collection.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company advertising brochure carries the name of Doble's Texas Distributor. Sanders-Duffey Auto Company of Fort Worth, TX.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company trade catalogue carries a 1917 publication date.
This Doble-Detroit Steam Motors Company trade catalogue carries the name of Doble's Pittsburgh, PA sales agency.
Tad Burgess featured the Doble-Detroi in one of his syndicated antique automobile columns, probably in the 1960s.
In January 1923, Motor Magazine ran this one page feature entitled "A Quintette of Steamers." It included the Coats, the MacDonald, the Stanley, the American Steamer, and the "Detroit Steamer," which is the Trask Detroit.[1]
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