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

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 confirm my info about the car I got the help of one the leading antique automobile preservationists in the nation, Jeff Orwig.

Action 1: Identify the aircraft and its historic significance.The image itself offers us a huge hint. Do a fast Google search for “southern cross airplane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the aircraft. Its essential to include “airplane” in the search due to the fact that browsing Google for just “southern cross” will put a music video of the Crosby, Stills, and Nash tune Southern Cross at the top of the outcomes. 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 business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry. In reality, you will not see any referral to a plane in the first 10 pages of Google search engine result when browsing “southern cross.” In addition, “southern cross airplane” isnt even a term that Google recommends when you get in “southern cross.”.

To do this youll desire to enlarge the photo found on the Maine Memory Networks post 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 automobile, and a little badge on the front of the automobile.

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 discover a relatively long post about Lyon and his life consisting of that his moms and dads purchased a house on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Based on the lists of American vehicle producers 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 leading edge of Americans minds today when they think of vehicle manufacturers. Now its a matter of comparing photos of cars and trucks produced by those makers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

On Tuesday I shared
a search obstacle and wrote that you might email me if you wanted the answers to the questions in the difficulty. I got
Yesterday morning I invested time writing out the procedure of discovering the responses to Tuesdays search obstacle. If you missed the obstacle, you can
find it here. The option is detailed listed below..

As soon as youve recognized who the members of the flight crew were, the next step 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 site which is mentioned in the hints for this difficulty.

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

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

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

A search for “1920s automobiles” or “1910s automobiles” is a starting location. Compare the images carefully to those of the image of Lyon sitting in his automobile and youll begin to see 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 invested at least 10 hours comparing images of automobiles to the one of Lyon sitting in his car. To validate my details about the automobile I employed the assistance of one the top antique car preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

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

Usage 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 image of Lyon sitting in his car and youll begin to observe that the shape of the door in his vehicle doesnt match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). In all three cases, the Dodge examples are consistent with what we see in the picture of Lyon in his vehicle.

Now that weve thought about the points above we can begin thinking at the producer of the production and the automobile year. Keeping in mind that vehicles didnt significantly alter from one design year to the next at this time, if they did at all, were thinking the year according to years or half-decade is a viable method to this difficulty. A search for “1920s cars” or “1910s cars and trucks” is a beginning location.

At this moment the procedure becomes a little bit of uncertainty followed by a process of comparison and removal. There are some indicate think about before thinking at what sort of car remains in the picture. Heres a list of those indicate consider:.
Initially, the picture was taken in 1927, a year before the flight of the Southern Cross.
From checking out him, we understand that Lyon was not a man of remarkable wealth, however probably middle to upper-middle class.
Based on Lyons monetary standing as well as taking a look at the details of the vehicle we can probably eliminate high-end brands from our uncertainty.
When we zoom-in on the vehicle we can see that it has some flaws as the outcome of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Significant, there are what appears to be two wooden bench seats behind the chauffeurs seat. The back half of the body seems wood also.

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

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

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