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 challenge. To do this youll wish to expand the image discovered on the Maine Memory Networks article about Lyon. Luckily, they offer a zoomable variation of the image. By focusing on the image you can take a look at some essential information consisting of 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 vehicle.

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

At this moment the procedure becomes a bit of uncertainty followed by a procedure of contrast and elimination. There are some points to think about prior to guessing at what sort of vehicle is in the photo. Heres a list of those points to think about:.
Initially, the photo 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 man of extraordinary wealth, but probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based on Lyons financial standing along with taking a look at the information of the automobile we can probably eliminate luxury brands from our guesswork.
When we zoom-in on the automobile we can see that it has some flaws as the result of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Notable, there are what appears to be two wooden bench seats behind the motorists seat. The back half of the body seems wood as well.

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 in the United States at the time and is still in the leading edge of Americans minds today when they think about auto makers. Some adults will still think about Studebaker as an American cars and truck maker. Dodge is also a common guess as it pleases both the rate and popularity elements of our quest. Now its a matter of comparing images of vehicles produced by those manufacturers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

Use Google Images to find pictures of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge automobiles produced in those decades. Compare the images carefully to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck and youll start to see 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 vehicle is likewise more rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made at the same time. A last detail is on the hood of the automobile when we take a look at the radiator caps of the vehicles. In all three cases, the Dodge examples follow what we see in the picture of Lyon in his car. The last response is a Dodge Touring car produced around 1919 (take a year or give) that was modified in the back.

Once youve recognized who the members of the flight team were, the next action is to figure out which one had a connection to Maine. To do this, open the Wikipedia page for each member of the flight crew then use keyboard commands of CTRL+F (Windows computers) or COMMAND+F (Mac computers) to browse 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 “stayed.” Lyons page consists of “Maine” as part of a link to the Maine Memory Networks website which is discussed in the hints for this challenge.

On Tuesday I shared
a search difficulty and wrote that you could email me if you desired the answers to the concerns in the challenge. I got
a lot more e-mails than I thought I would. And some individuals I emailed the responses to wrote back requesting more details about the process of discovering the answers. So the other day morning I hung out composing out the procedure of finding the answers to Tuesdays search challenge. You can if you missed the challenge
find it here. The option is detailed below..

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 cars and trucks didnt significantly change 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 feasible technique to this obstacle. At this point, turning to Google Image search is our next step. A look for “1920s cars and trucks” or “1910s cars and trucks” is a beginning place. Those results usually include examples of luxury automobiles of the time. Were looking for cars 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 car producers of the 1910s and 1920s. Again, we may rely on Wikipedia for such a list or to any variety of antique vehicle sites for such a list.

Alternatively, you might have followed the hint about using the Maine Memory Networks website then headed there to do a search within the website for references to Harry Lyon.

There are a few ways to reach the answers. What Ive laid out listed below is the most direct way to get to the responses. (Thanks again to Daniel Russells.
Delight of Search for motivating the development of search difficulties like this one).

Do a quick Google search for “southern cross airplane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the airplane. Its essential to include “plane” in the search because browsing Google for just “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash song Southern Cross at the top of the results. Further down the search results page for “southern cross” youll find links to short articles about the constellation of the exact same name, links to an energy company, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

A search for “1920s cars” or “1910s cars” is a starting location. 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 cars and truck does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I invested at least 10 hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To confirm my info about the vehicle I got the assistance of one the leading antique car preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

Step 4: Find the reference to an automobile. At the very bottom of this Maine Memory Network page about Harry Lyon youll see an image of Lyon sitting in a cars and truck in his driveway in 1927. (The image is copyrighted so youll have to view it there)..

Disclosure: I spent at least 10 hours comparing images of automobiles to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To confirm my info about the automobile I employed the aid of one the leading antique vehicle preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

Action 3: Find the recommendation to Paris Hill. If you follow the link to the Maine Memory Network from the Wikipedia page about Harry Lyon, youll find a fairly long short article about Lyon and his life consisting of that his moms and dads purchased a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later on lived there.

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

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

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