Having re-juvenated the charge contained within the AMC Time Command unit, we are off once more for a potentially perilous flight through the ages…
Retrieving the settings for our previous journey, we find that Thomas B. Jeffery had announced his intentions not to pay license fees on the Selden Patent,
as had Henry Ford and a handful of other makers. The rights to the patent were held by the Nefarious Ne’er Do Wells at the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, or A.L.A.M., led by their diabolical prophet, Colonel Albert Augustus Pope. For some reason, Pope and his cohorts chose not to pursue a suit against Thomas B. Jeffery & Co., for reasons lost to present time…
However, the Association chose to mount a rather vigourous prosecution of the Ford Motor Company in relation to the Selden Patent. Thomas B. Jeffery contributed huge sums of money to the Ford Motor Company defense… This patent war took us up to 1904 and beyond.
For now we shall re-track our unit back to 1904, and move forward from there, chiefly following the developments surrounding Thomas B. Jeffery & Company, and its founder…
As we peer through the scope(it has finally warmed up), we can see that…
Additional developments in 1904 included an explosion at the Standard Wheel Company, and they removed their backing from the Overland venture. 
Claude Cox, the founder, was able to buy Overland outright for $8,000.
Steering wheels became standard equipment on Ramblers for 1904. The line-up expanded from two to six models…
The single-cylinder, 8 HP entry models were now called the Model J Runabout, and the Model L Touring. The other, Model K-based cars were two-lungers of 14 horsepower.There was a new Model I Delivery Wagon–>
based on the Model K…A 1904 Rambler Model J one-cylinder car took a trip
from Laramie, Wyoming to New York City and back, around 5,000 miles, bringing total mileage on the vehicle to 26,000 miles. Also, a two-cylinder model made a circuit of the Western United States and Canada, for a total run of over 4,000 miles. Ramblers were proving their durabiity and value at every opportunity…Frank Leslies’ Popular monthly featured a special on
“The Automobiles of 1904“.
Included in this book are the car by E.R. Thomas, and two models of Rambler, the Model K and the Model L.
In 1905, one of the most important developments at Thomas B. Jeffery and Company was the arrival of Edward S. “Ned” Jordan.
He quickly rose to become Secretary and General Sales Manager. Ned Jordan was one of the earliest of the spin-meisters to appear on the automobile advertising scene, and he had a profound influence on the way Madison Avenue has done business ever since. He was among the first to embrace the idea of marketing an image, rather than a detailed explanation of the product.
One famous Rambler Ad from 1905 boasts of the car’s ease of operation, allowing even one-armed operators to drive the car…. 
Also the perfect car for kids…(?)
In the technical arena, Rambler dropped the one-cylinder engine and went strictly to the opposed twin in 1905. Another interesting shift was a decided leaning to the larger cars. The previous Model K was developed into a complete two-series line, with the 1905 Surrey Type One and Surrey Type Two..
The Surrey Type One 
was a retractable-canopy touring version of the car, while the Surrey Type Two 
had a fixed windshield and firewall, along with a mounted frame for the roof of the car, and side curtains.
This is the type of Rambler which President Theodore Roosevelt rode in…
The smaller car was designated the 14 Series and came in several models, with model numbering running through the 27, but these Model Numbers now only referred to body variations on a single platform, rather than separate and distinct cars, all built on the same Model K-derived chassis, and with only the twin opposed engine now available… 
The Delivery Truck, now based on the Model 14,
made another appearance in 1905, here seen in use by the Moxie company, whose product was a soda-based cure-all tonic similar to Coca-Cola..
The New York Auto Show was well-attended in 1905, including the gang at Rambler:
If you look closely, towards the center of the picture you can see the Rambler exhibit, just behind the AutoCar booth…A guy in Sheboygan, Wisconsin,
produced a home-made coupe model of the 1903 Rambler F…A 1905 Rambler participated in and completed the original 1905 Glidden Tour out of Boston.
Also in 1905, Overland’s founder, Claude Cox, and David Parry, president of Standard Wheel, partnered up and moved Overland to Indianapolis, Indiana.
By March of 1906, the Overland Motor Company was incorporated in Indianapolis…
Meanwhile, back in Kenosha during 1906, Thomas B. Jeffery and Company were establishing what would become a long-held tradition in the history of AMC, almost to the end…
That of blind-siding the automotive press, competitors and the public with something totally unexpected. For 1906, there were a number of surprises. For one, Rambler had built a strong reputation, and become one of the largest and most modern car companies in the world, on the strength of the wildly popular little Rambler runabouts.
Previously, the press had raved about the smoothness and power of the big Rambler twin opposed engine, saying there was no need for a four-cylinder because of vibration issues with the fours.
Nobody saw it coming when Jeffery produced a very advanced Overhead Valve four-cylinder for 1906, 
with the additional surprise of the more expensive sliding-gear transmission replacing the more-common planetary gearset, which was still used on the twins.
The big series had four-cylinder engines, 20 to 40 HP, and were arranged in Model 14 for the medium touring, 
while Model 15 was the heavy touring. 
Surrey Type Three 
and the Surrey Type Four, 
now primarily differing only in trim and seat styling like today’s cars, were based on the Model 16.
The Model 16 included a Limousine 
and a large delivery.
The small cars were the Model 19, 
with the new four, and several optional bodies, the Model 21, a five-passenger touring with the twin powerplant, and a runabout variant, the Model 27, called a Tourabout. The runabout and the touring car were both the same in this case. Optional bodywork added to the rear deck gave an open touring coach when mounted to the runabout. Additional items could be added to completely close the car or mount utility bodywork on the back, 
like this Moxie delivery truck from 1906, seen brand new in front of the New Orleans Rambler dealer…
Roy D. Chapin
left Oldsmobile for good in 1906, 
to start a Thomas assembly company in Detroit, called E. R. Thomas-Detroit, selling essentially the same products as the Buffalo concern.
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Sunday November 26, 2006 - 09:42am (MST)
