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

Step 5: Identify the car.This is the hardest part of the entire difficulty. To do this youll want to expand the image found on the Maine Memory Networks short article about Lyon. Luckily, they provide a zoomable variation of the image. By focusing on the image you can look at some essential information including the shape of the front door on the automobile, the shape of the front of the vehicle, and a little badge on the front of the vehicle.

Do a fast Google search for “southern cross airplane” and the top outcome will be a Wikipedia page about the plane. Its important to consist of “plane” in the search since searching Google for simply “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tune Southern Cross at the top of the results. Even more down the search results page for “southern cross” youll find links to posts about the constellation of the exact same name, links to an energy company, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

On Tuesday I shared
a search obstacle and composed that you might email me if you desired the answers to the concerns in the challenge. I got
The other day morning I invested time writing out the procedure of discovering the responses to Tuesdays search challenge. If you missed out on the obstacle, you can
find it here. The service is detailed listed below..

Use Google Images to discover images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars and trucks produced in those decades. Compare the pictures carefully to those of the picture of Lyon being in his car and youll begin to discover 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 vehicle 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 last detail is on the hood of the cars and truck. In all three cases, the Dodge examples are consistent with what we see in the image of Lyon in his cars and truck. The last response is a Dodge Touring car produced around 1919 (take a year or give) that was modified in the back.

As soon as youve determined who the members of the flight team were, the next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine. Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks website which is discussed in the tips for this difficulty.

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

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

Now that weve considered the points above we can begin rating the manufacturer of the production and the automobile year. Keeping in mind that cars didnt substantially alter from one model year to the next at this time, if they did at all, were guessing the year according to decade or half-decade is a feasible technique to this challenge. At this point, relying on Google Image search is our next step. A search for “1920s cars” or “1910s automobiles” is a starting place. Those results generally feature examples of luxury cars of the time. Were looking for vehicles that might have been owned by middle to upper-middle class individuals of the time. At this moment at the same time its valuable to have a list of American vehicle manufacturers of the 1910s and 1920s. Once again, we might turn to Wikipedia for such a list or to any variety of antique car websites for such a list.

Action 3: Find the reference to Paris Hill. If you follow the link to the Maine Memory Network from the Wikipedia page about Harry Lyon, youll find a relatively long post about Lyon and his life including that his parents bought a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later on lived there.

Disclosure: I spent a minimum of ten hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon being in his cars and truck. To verify my information about the cars and truck I enlisted the help of one the top antique car preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig. Jeff is a good friend of mine and the curator of Bob Bahres charming automobile collection housed on Paris Hill in Paris, Maine. You can find out more about the collection here..

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

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

There are a few ways to get here at the answers. What Ive detailed listed below is the most direct way to get to the responses. (Thanks once again to Daniel Russells.
Pleasure of Search for motivating the advancement of search challenges like this one).

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

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

At this moment the process ends up being a bit of guesswork followed by a procedure of contrast and elimination. There are some points to consider prior to rating what sort of automobile is in the picture. 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 reading about him, we understand that Lyon was not a male of extraordinary wealth, however probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based upon Lyons monetary standing in addition to looking at the details of the car we can most likely get rid of luxury brand names from our uncertainty.
When we zoom-in on the vehicle we can see that it has some imperfections as the result of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Noteworthy, there are what appears to be two wood bench seats behind the chauffeurs seat. The back half of the body appears to be wood.

Based on the lists of American automobile producers and what we understand about Lyon, Ford is the most common 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 vehicle manufacturers. Some adults will still believe of Studebaker as an American cars and truck maker. Dodge is likewise a typical guess as it satisfies both the rate and appeal components of our quest. So now its a matter of comparing images of cars produced by those manufacturers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

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