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

On Tuesday I shared
a search challenge and wrote that you could email me if you wanted the responses to the concerns in the challenge. I got
a lot more e-mails than I thought I would. And some people I emailed the responses to composed back requesting more details about the process of finding the responses. Yesterday morning I invested time composing out the process of finding the responses to Tuesdays search challenge. You can if you missed the difficulty
find it here. The option is detailed below..

Based on the lists of American vehicle manufacturers and what we understand about Lyon, Ford is the most common 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 makers. Now its a matter of comparing photos of cars and trucks produced by those manufacturers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

A search for “1920s cars” or “1910s cars and trucks” is a starting place. Compare the images closely to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll start to discover that the shape of the door in his automobile does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I spent at least ten hours comparing images of cars and trucks to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To validate my information about the vehicle I got the help of one the top antique vehicle preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

At this point the procedure ends up being a bit of guesswork followed by a process of contrast and elimination. There are some indicate think about before guessing at what kind of cars and truck remains in the picture. Heres a list of those indicate consider:.
The picture was taken in 1927, a year before the flight of the Southern Cross.
From reading about him, we know that Lyon was not a man of extraordinary wealth, but probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based on Lyons financial standing along with taking a look at the details of the automobile we can most likely eliminate luxury brands from our guesswork.
When we zoom-in on the cars and truck we can see that it has some flaws as the result of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Notable, there are what seems 2 wood bench seats behind the chauffeurs seat. The back half of the body appears to be wood.

To do this youll desire to enlarge the image found on the Maine Memory Networks article about Lyon. By zooming in on the image you can look at some important information consisting of the shape of the front door on the cars and truck, the shape of the front of the cars and truck, and a little badge on the front of the car.

You might have followed the hint about utilizing the Maine Memory Networks website then headed there to do a search within the site for references to Harry Lyon.

Do a quick Google search for “southern cross aircraft” and the top outcome will be a Wikipedia page about the airplane. Its crucial to consist of “airplane” in the search since searching Google for just “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song Southern Cross at the top of the outcomes. Further down the search results page for “southern cross” youll find links to articles about the constellation of the very same name, links to an energy business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

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 fairly long article about Lyon and his life consisting of that his parents purchased a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later on lived there.

There are a couple of methods to get to the responses. What Ive outlined below is the most direct method to get to the answers. (Thanks again to Daniel Russells.
Happiness of Search for motivating the advancement of search obstacles like this one).

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 automobile, and a little badge on the front of the car.

Usage Google Images to find pictures of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars produced in those years. Compare the images carefully to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll begin to notice that the shape of the door in his car does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). The front of Lyons lorry is also more rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made at the very same time. When we look at the radiator caps of the automobiles, a final information is on the hood of the cars and truck. In all three cases, the Dodge examples are constant with what we see in the image of Lyon in his cars and truck. The final response is a Dodge Touring cars and truck produced around 1919 (give or take a year) that was customized in the back.

Disclosure: I spent at least 10 hours comparing images of cars and trucks to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To verify my details about the automobile I got the help of one the top antique vehicle preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

As discussed above, the leading Google search results page for “southern cross aircraft” is the Wikipedia page about the aircraft. Check out that page and youll discover that it was the first aircraft to be flown from the United States to Australia.

Step 2: Identify who flew on the airplane.
On that 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.

Now that weve considered the points above we can begin thinking at the producer of the production and the automobile 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 thinking the year according to years or half-decade is a feasible approach to this difficulty. A search for “1920s cars and trucks” or “1910s automobiles” is a starting place.

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

As soon as youve recognized who the members of the flight crew were, the next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine. Lyons page includes “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks site which is mentioned in the tips for this obstacle.

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