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

On Tuesday I shared
a search difficulty and composed that you might email me if you wanted the responses to the concerns in the obstacle. I got
a lot more e-mails than I believed I would. And some individuals I emailed the answers to wrote back asking for more information about the procedure of discovering the responses. Yesterday early morning I spent time writing out the procedure of finding the answers to Tuesdays search obstacle. You can if you missed out on the difficulty
find it here. The solution is detailed below..

Use Google Images to find images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge automobiles produced in those years. Compare the pictures closely to those of the photo of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck and youll begin to notice 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). In all three cases, the Dodge examples are constant with what we see in the image of Lyon in his automobile.

A search for “1920s automobiles” or “1910s cars” is a beginning place. Compare the pictures carefully to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck 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 10 hours comparing images of cars to the one of Lyon sitting in his vehicle. To confirm my details about the cars and truck I got the aid of one the leading antique car preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

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

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 consisting of that his parents purchased a house on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Action 2: Identify who flew on the aircraft.
Likewise on that exact same Wikipedia page youll learn that the 4 members of the flight crew were Charles Kingsford Smith, Charles Ulm, Harry Lyon, and James Warner.

Now that weve thought about the points above we can begin rating the manufacturer of the cars and truck and the production year. Keeping in mind that cars and trucks didnt substantially change from one design 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 difficulty. At this moment, relying on Google Image search is our next step. A search for “1920s cars and trucks” or “1910s cars” is a starting location. Nevertheless, those results typically include examples of high-end cars and trucks of the time. Were searching for cars that could have been owned by middle to upper-middle class individuals of the time. At this point at the same time its valuable to have a list of American automobile makers of the 1910s and 1920s. Once again, we may rely on Wikipedia for such a list or to any variety of antique cars and truck websites for such a list.

When youve recognized who the members of the flight team were, the next step 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 discussed in the tips for this challenge.

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

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

At this point the process ends up being a bit of guesswork followed by a process of comparison and elimination. There are some points to consider prior to rating what sort of vehicle is in the image. Heres a list of those indicate think about:.
First, 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 male of exceptional wealth, however probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based on Lyons monetary standing along with looking at the details of the car we can probably remove 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 adjustment. Noteworthy, there are what appears to be 2 wood bench seats behind the motorists seat. The back half of the body appears to be wooden also.

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

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 vehicle, and a little badge on the front of the vehicle.

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

Disclosure: I spent at least 10 hours comparing images of automobiles to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To verify my details about the cars and truck I employed the aid of one the top antique car preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig. Jeff is a friend of mine and the curator of Bob Bahres splendid cars and truck collection housed on Paris Hill in Paris, Maine. You can find out more about the collection here..

Action 1: Identify the airplane and its historic significance.The image itself gives us a huge hint. Do a fast Google look for “southern cross plane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the aircraft. Its important to include “plane” in the search since browsing 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 engine result page for “southern cross” youll discover links to posts about the constellation of the very same name, links to an energy business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry. In fact, you will not see any reference to a plane in the first ten pages of Google search results when searching “southern cross.” “southern cross plane” isnt even a term that Google suggests when you get in “southern cross.”.

Based on the lists of American automobile 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 consider vehicle manufacturers. Some grownups will still think about Studebaker as an American car manufacturer. Dodge is likewise a typical guess as it satisfies both the rate and popularity components of our mission. Now its a matter of comparing images of cars and trucks produced by those producers during the 1910s and early 1920s.

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