BOOKTALK

Craig Wilson, Beacon Journal

Famous But Forgotten: The Story of Alexander Winton Automotive Pioneer and Industrialist in a 143-page paperback look at a Clevelander's role in developing the American automobile.

Winton was a Scottish engineer and machinist who came to Ohio and did well manufacturing Bicycles Creating an engine for a horseless carriage fascinated him. His early stripped down "Bullet" machines competed against Henry Fords 999 racer and many others. The book by Thomas F Saal and Bernard J. Golias includes reports of early cross-country races and endurance runs, when bad roads, bad weather, bad luck and automobile frailties made excursions madcap adventures.

The bicycle maker held more than 100 patents for devices to improve the automobile, His factory on Berea Road in Cleveland hand-made quality machines with gleaming paint jobs. But Ford switched to no-frills, low-cost vehicles mass produced on an assembly line. Winton and other carmakers who took the high road were left in Ford's dust. By the mid-1920s, when the Winton Co was failing and Fords were everywhere, the wealthy Clevelander turned to diesel engines Winton's designs became products of General Motors and saw service on Navy submarines.

The Winton mansion overlooking lake Erie in Lakewood gave way to Winton Place, a posh high-rise apartment with Pier W a restaurant out over the lake. Most of Winton's automotive plants were sold for small change or given away. In 1961, one eventually came into the hands of the Golias family, which operates a metal fabricating business.

As a teen ager three decades ago, Bernard J. Golias became intrigued with the history of the old building and the jaunty whiskered Scot who built it . Golias amassed photos, news reports, factory plans, documents, memorabilia and first-person accounts of the man and his car.

Thomas F Saal, editor of The Bulb Horn a publication of the Veteran Motor Car Club of America, also got involved. They assembled a thorough and detailed history that includes a 32-page gallery of family and factory photos.

All 64 models Winton made from the 1897 single seat phaeton that sold for $1,000 to the 1924 Model 40 five-passenger coupe, priced at $4,700 are shown and detailed. You get reins of stats, plus pullout charts of the factory layout and the Winton family tree, Famous But Forgotten ($29.95) was published by Golias Publishing, P.0. Box 392 Twinsburg, OH 44087. You can get a copy by mail by sending $34.67 to the publisher.