Hot-rodding near The White House

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It was the main subject this weekend, the 2020 US election result. Who will be the new resident of The White House for the next few years? Today we would like to tell you more about the PreWarCar in front of this historically important building.

The Cootie seen here parked casually in front of that very presidential residence in 1922 is based on an old Ford T-model and can be regarded as a very early hot-rod we believe. The picture originates from the National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) but when uploaded on the Shorpy website it created a bit of a stir. One reader recognized the car and knew more about it and its builder and driver with that fierce look in his eyes, seen here behind the wheel. The man was known as Captain Frederick Kopper Junior and was the son of a high-placed New York military man and steel manufacturer who himself was a Spanish-American War and World War I veteran also.

What’s more: he had a go in automobile production, too. At least, that must have been the plan. Kopper junior set up the Lewis Power Company in 1906 with the idea to become a motor manufacturer but it is believed that he never built any vehicles. Well, he must have built The Cootie after moving to Washington in 1919 and started his own engineering and auto repair shop. Kopper died under mysterious circumstances in 1927 when his body was found in the river Potomac and his car found later nearby with a flat tyre. The death certificate stated ‘death by drowning, accidental?’ as a verdict. His hot rod Ford survives in Richmond, Virginia – just a nice drive of some 100 miles from The White House in Washington DC.

Words by Jeroen Booij. Pictures National Photo Company Collection / Shorpy.

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