Automobile Moyer Model C Runabout 1913 in vendita

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To Be OFFERED AT AUCTION WITHOUT RESERVE at RM Sothebys' The Hershey Auction event, 7 - 8 October 2026.
Offered Without Reserve | $30,000 - $50,000 USD

A beautifully built and engineered New York State-built rarity
One of 10 extant Moyer automobiles; one of two largely original survivors
30-hp four-cylinder engine; innovative, high-quality suspension
Known ownership history back to the 1940s

Harvey A. Moyer’s automobile was unique in many ways—most prominently, in that it really was, in every sense, Harvey A. Moyer’s automobile. He designed the car; hired the employees to staff a Syracuse, New York, factory, designed by his son-in-law; wrote his own advertising copy; and funded the entire operation out of pocket, without investors, a board of directors or, for that matter, an actual incorporated company. No production car built before or since owed so much to one man. When Moyer ran out of capital for the business, in November 1915, he wrapped up production, and that was that.

Unsurprisingly given its creator’s attention to detail, the Moyer was also a fine-quality automobile. Ed Monroe’s article on the marque, published in the March–April 1972 issue of Antique Automobile, recounted that the company built all of the car save for radiator, carburetor, transmission, and electrical system, a rarity in an era of “assembled” automobiles built from mass-produced parts. Beautiful wooden bodywork owed its quality to Moyer’s original business, a well-known manufacturer of fine carriages. Power came from a four- or six-cylinder engine, with pressurized lubrication. Three-quarter-elliptic leaf springs acted as equalizers at each end of the chassis, with spring steel torque rods used to transfer motion from the rear axle to the frame, with the result being that the car remained level under virtually any load. “All Roads Are Level to a Moyer,” as the founder’s advertising read.

Marque historian Gary Smith’s research indicates that only about 401 Moyer cars were built, and 10 are known to have survived. The runabout offered here, a 30-horsepower four-cylinder Model C of 1913, is believed to have been originally sold in Utica. It was discovered in the World War II era by Walter Meyer, founder of a small museum in nearby Bridgewater, New York, and remained in the Bridgewater Auto Museum for decades. Following his passing in 1989, it was acquired by an owner in Connecticut, who sold it to Gerald Shaw of New Canaan. Mr. Shaw, in turn, shortly sold the car to the Johnson family of British Columbia, which reinstalled a correct USL starter and electric lights, as were originally fitted.

Acquired by the present owner from the Johnsons in 2013, the car remains what the owner estimates as about 90 percent original condition, and is believed to be one of only two Moyers that are still largely unrestored. It is a wonderful survivor of Brass Era “obscuriana,” and one of New York State’s finest automobiles of its generation.To view this car and others currently consigned to this auction, please visit the RM website at rmsothebys.com/auctions/hf26/.