What Car Did Harry Lyon Drive? – The Answer to Tuesday’s Search Challenge

Do a quick Google search for “southern cross airplane” and the leading result will be a Wikipedia page about the aircraft. Its important to include “aircraft” in the search since browsing Google for just “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tune Southern Cross at the top of the outcomes. Further down the search results page for “southern cross” youll discover links to short articles about the constellation of the very same name, links to an energy business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

As pointed out above, the leading Google search outcome for “southern cross plane” is the Wikipedia page about the plane. Review that page and youll learn that it was the very first aircraft to be flown from the United States to Australia.

On Tuesday I shared
a search difficulty and composed that you might email me if you wanted the responses to the concerns in the difficulty. I got
The other day morning I spent time writing out the process of finding the responses to Tuesdays search challenge. If you missed the difficulty, you can
discover it here. The solution is detailed listed below..

Use Google Images to find images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge vehicles produced in those years. Compare the images carefully to those of the picture of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck and youll begin to discover that the shape of the door in his cars and truck doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). The front of Lyons car is also more rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made at the very same time. A final information is on the hood of the automobile when we take a look at the radiator caps of the lorries. In all three cases, the Dodge examples are consistent with what we see in the photo of Lyon in his vehicle. The last response is a Dodge Touring vehicle produced around 1919 (provide or take a year) that was customized in the back.

Alternatively, you could have followed the hint about utilizing the Maine Memory Networks site then headed there to do a search within the site for referrals to Harry Lyon.

Step 2: Identify who flew on the plane.
On that very same Wikipedia page youll find out that the four members of the flight team were Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

A search for “1920s automobiles” or “1910s vehicles” is a beginning location. Compare the pictures closely to those of the picture of Lyon sitting in his car and youll begin to see that the shape of the door in his automobile doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I invested at least ten hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To verify my info about the vehicle I got the aid of one the leading antique cars and truck preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

To do this youll desire to expand the image found on the Maine Memory Networks article about Lyon. By zooming in on the image you can look at some crucial details including the shape of the front door on the automobile, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the vehicle.

Now that weve considered the points above we can begin guessing at the maker of the production and the vehicle year. Keeping in mind that vehicles didnt substantially alter from one model year to the next at this time, if they did at all, were guessing the year according to years or half-decade is a practical approach to this obstacle. A search for “1920s vehicles” or “1910s cars” is a beginning place.

At this point the process becomes a little bit of uncertainty followed by a process of contrast and elimination. There are some points to think about before guessing at what type of cars and truck is in the image. Heres a list of those points to think about:.
Initially, the image was taken in 1927, a year before the flight of the Southern Cross.
From checking out him, we know that Lyon was not a guy of extraordinary wealth, however most likely middle to upper-middle class.
Based on Lyons monetary standing as well as taking a look at the information of the car we can most likely get rid of high-end brands from our guesswork.
When we zoom-in on the automobile we can see that it has some flaws as the outcome of driving and or post-manufacturing adjustment. Notable, there are what appears to be two wooden bench seats behind the chauffeurs seat. The back half of the body seems wooden also.

There are a couple of ways to come to the answers. What Ive outlined listed below is the most direct way to get to the responses. (Thanks once again to Daniel Russells.
Delight of Search for inspiring the advancement of search challenges like this one).

Step 4: Find the recommendation to a vehicle. At the extremely bottom of this Maine Memory Network page about Harry Lyon youll see an image of Lyon being in an automobile in his driveway in 1927. (The image is copyrighted so youll have to view it there)..

Disclosure: I invested at least 10 hours comparing images of automobiles to the one of Lyon sitting in his vehicle. To verify my information about the automobile I employed the assistance of one the top antique vehicle preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

By zooming in on the image you can look at some important details including the shape of the front door on the cars and truck, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the automobile.

Based on the lists of American car manufacturers and what we understand about Lyon, Ford is the most typical guess as it was the most popular brand in the United States at the time and is still in the forefront of Americans minds today when they believe of auto manufacturers. Now its a matter of comparing pictures of vehicles produced by those makers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

The next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine as soon as youve determined who the members of the flight team were. To do this, open the Wikipedia page for each member of the flight team then utilize keyboard commands of CTRL+F (Windows computer systems) or COMMAND+F (Mac computers) to browse each page for the word “Maine.” Only the pages for Charles Kingsford Smith and Harry Lyon consist of a match for “Maine” and the match on Smiths page is just discovered in the context of the word “stayed.” Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks site which is discussed in the tips for this difficulty.

Action 3: Find the referral to Paris Hill. If you follow the link to the Maine Memory Network from the Wikipedia page about Harry Lyon, youll discover a relatively long short article about Lyon and his life consisting of that his parents bought a house on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

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