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

Disclosure: I spent at least ten hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon sitting in his car. To verify my info about the automobile I got the assistance of one the leading antique automobile preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

On Tuesday I shared
a search difficulty and wrote that you might email me if you wanted the responses to the questions in the obstacle. I got
a lot more emails than I thought I would. And some people I emailed the answers to wrote back requesting for more details about the process of discovering the answers. Yesterday morning I invested time writing out the process of finding the answers to Tuesdays search challenge. If you missed the difficulty, you can
find it here. The solution is detailed listed below..

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

Now that weve considered the points above we can begin thinking at the maker of the production and the car year. Keeping in mind that cars didnt significantly 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 practical approach to this challenge. At this moment, turning to Google Image search is our next step. A search for “1920s cars” or “1910s cars and trucks” is a starting place. Nevertheless, those outcomes typically include examples of high-end vehicles of the time. Were trying to find cars that could have been owned by middle to upper-middle class people of the time. At this moment at the same time its helpful to have a list of American car makers of the 1910s and 1920s. Once again, we may rely on Wikipedia for such a list or to any variety of antique vehicle websites for such a list.

The next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine once youve identified 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 search each page for the word “Maine.” Just the pages for Charles Kingsford Smith and Harry Lyon include a match for “Maine” and the match on Smiths page is just discovered in the context of the word “remained.” Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks site which is pointed out in the hints for this difficulty.

There are a few ways to show up at the responses. What Ive laid out below is the most direct method to get to the answers. (Thanks again to Daniel Russells.
Pleasure of Search for inspiring the development of search difficulties like this one).

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

Usage Google Images to find images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars and trucks produced in those decades. Compare the pictures closely to those of the picture of Lyon sitting in his car and youll begin to observe that the shape of the door in his automobile doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). The front of Lyons car is likewise more rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made at the very same time. A last detail is on the hood of the vehicle when we look at the radiator caps of the cars. In all 3 cases, the Dodge examples follow what we see in the photo of Lyon in his cars and truck. The final answer is a Dodge Touring cars and truck produced around 1919 (give or take a year) that was customized in the back.

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

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

A search for “1920s cars and trucks” or “1910s automobiles” is a starting location. Compare the pictures closely 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). Disclosure: I spent at least ten hours comparing images of cars and trucks to the one of Lyon sitting in his vehicle. To confirm my info about the car I enlisted the aid of one the leading antique vehicle preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

By zooming in on the image you can look at some crucial information consisting of the shape of the front door on the vehicle, the shape of the front of the automobile, and a little badge on the front of the cars and truck.

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 short article about Lyon and his life including that his parents bought a house on Paris Hill and Lyon later on lived there.

At this moment the procedure ends up being a little bit of guesswork followed by a process of comparison and elimination. There are some points to think about prior to rating what sort of cars and truck is in the image. Heres a list of those indicate think about:.
Initially, the picture was taken in 1927, a year prior to the flight of the Southern Cross.
From checking out him, we understand that Lyon was not a guy of extraordinary wealth, however probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based upon Lyons financial standing in addition to looking at the information of the cars and truck we can most likely get rid of high-end brands from our uncertainty.
When we zoom-in on the cars and truck we can see that it has some imperfections as the outcome of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Noteworthy, there are what seems two wooden bench seats behind the drivers seat. The back half of the body appears to be wood too.

Action 1: Identify the airplane and its historical significance.The image itself offers us a huge tip. Do a quick Google look for “southern cross airplane” and the top outcome will be a Wikipedia page about the plane. Its essential to include “aircraft” in the search since browsing Google for just “southern cross” will put a video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song Southern Cross at the top of the outcomes. Even more 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 company, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry. In reality, you will not see any recommendation to an airplane in the very first 10 pages of Google search results when searching “southern cross.” “southern cross airplane” isnt even a term that Google recommends when you go into “southern cross.”.

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 sitting in a car in his driveway in 1927. (The image is copyrighted so youll have to view it there)..

Action 2: Identify who flew on the airplane.
On that same Wikipedia page youll discover that the four members of the flight crew were Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

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