The car was about to take the world by storm, so too in Adelaide....

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While New York City hosted the USA's first motor show, which saw more than 70 manufacturers display exhibits at Madison Square Garden, another grand selection of cars was on display at the Expo Universelle in Paris. All this took place in November 1900, when the motor-car was about to take the world by storm.

Meanwhile, the horseless carriage had reached the other side of the world, too. As a matter of fact this fabulous shot from the South Australian State Library is believed to show the very first combustion-engined motor-car built in South Australia, as pictured in November 1900. The manufacturer was the Lewis Cycle and Motor Works of Gawler Place, Adelaide, of which the full staff is shown here, proud of their new creation. We can even tell that it’s Mr. Vivian Lewis who is shown at the wheel of his first ever car, with T. P. O'Grady beside him and Murray Aunger, the Lewis Cycle Works' star racing cyclist, seated just ahead of the front wheel. Further information adds that the car had a 2hp air-cooled engine. 

With its original motor, the car was reported to have a top speed of 14mph, but it was later upgraded to a 5hp water-cooled engine, again to Mr. Lewis’s own design, making it capable of ‘nearly 20mph’. It turned up at the Adelaide Motor Show in 1920 as a ‘relic’(!), albeit in a much-modified form. Over a century later, it is unknown whether the car survives.

(Words Jeroen Booij, picture State Library of South Australia)

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