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 desire to increase the size of the picture discovered on the Maine Memory Networks article about Lyon. Thankfully, they supply a zoomable version of the image. By zooming in on the image you can look at some important details consisting of the shape of the front door on the vehicle, the shape of the front of the car, and a little badge on the front of the car.

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

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

On Tuesday I shared
a search challenge and composed that you might email me if you desired the answers to the questions in the challenge. I got
Yesterday morning I invested time composing out the process of discovering the responses to Tuesdays search obstacle. If you missed out on the difficulty, you can
find it here. The solution is detailed listed below..

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 relatively long post about Lyon and his life including that his moms and dads purchased a home on Paris Hill and Lyon later lived there.

Step 4: Find the reference to an automobile. 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 need to view it there)..

As soon as youve determined 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 pointed out in the hints for this difficulty.

Now that weve considered the points above we can start thinking at the maker of the vehicle and the production year. Keeping in mind that cars didnt considerably 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 difficulty. A search for “1920s automobiles” or “1910s cars” is a beginning place.

A search for “1920s vehicles” or “1910s cars and trucks” is a beginning location. Compare the images carefully to those of the photo of Lyon sitting in his car and youll begin to observe that the shape of the door in his automobile does not match those of Ford and Studebaker (theyre not as rounded at the bottom). Disclosure: I invested at least ten hours comparing images of vehicles to the one of Lyon sitting in his cars and truck. To validate my info about the vehicle I employed the help of one the leading antique vehicle preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

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

Disclosure: I invested at least 10 hours comparing images of cars and trucks to the one of Lyon sitting in his automobile. To confirm my information about the car I enlisted the help of one the top antique automobile preservationists in the country, Jeff Orwig.

Based upon the lists of American cars and truck 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 forefront of Americans minds today when they think about auto makers. Some adults will still consider Studebaker as an American automobile manufacturer. Dodge is likewise a common guess as it pleases both the price and appeal parts of our mission. So now its a matter of comparing photos of cars produced by those manufacturers throughout the 1910s and early 1920s.

Do a quick Google search for “southern cross plane” and the top result will be a Wikipedia page about the airplane. Its important to consist of “airplane” 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 outcomes. Further 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 business, and links to a Brazilian award for chivalry.

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

Usage Google Images to discover images of Ford, Studebaker, and Dodge cars produced in those years. Compare the photos carefully to those of the photo of Lyon sitting in his car and youll start 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). The front of Lyons automobile is also more rounded than that of the Fords and Studebakers made at the same time. A last information is on the hood of the car when we look at the radiator caps of the vehicles. In all three cases, the Dodge examples are constant with what we see in the photo of Lyon in his car. The final answer is a Dodge Touring car produced around 1919 (take a year or offer) that was customized in the back.

At this moment the procedure becomes a little bit of guesswork followed by a process of contrast and elimination. There are some points to consider before rating what type of vehicle remains in the photo. Heres a list of those points to consider:.
Initially, the photo was taken in 1927, a year prior to the flight of the Southern Cross.
From reading about him, we understand that Lyon was not a male of extraordinary wealth, however most likely middle to upper-middle class.
Based upon Lyons financial standing along with looking at the details of the car we can most likely remove high-end brands from our uncertainty.
When we zoom-in on the car we can see that it has some imperfections as the result of driving and or post-manufacturing modification. Notable, there are what appears to be two wood bench seats behind the chauffeurs seat. The back half of the body appears to be wood also.

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

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