The Franklin was a near-luxury car built in Syracuse, N.Y., from the first years of the last century until the Depression.
Though prices were a modest $1,250 at the outset and $1,500 toward the end of the vehicle’s run 30 years later, the air-cooled Franklin was the vehicle of choice for a town’s professional set, especially models with elegant dual-cowl designs and designer bodies. Some were driven by chauffeurs.
So it’s not unrealistic for one to expect an upscale setting for a museum devoted to the preservation of Franklin automobiles and memorabilia.
The H.H. Franklin Foundation Museum here, with 23 Franklins (plus two Lincolns and a Reo) built between 1904 and 1934, ranks as one the largest public collections of Franklins in the world. But the single-story buildings that shelter these automobiles are set amid cactuses off dirt roads.
The format startles the first-time visitor lucky enough to navigate the trail in Tucson. This is not Syracuse
The Franklin Museum’s home reflects the southwest. Its buildings were once the homestead of Tom Hubbard. The house at the H.H. Franklin Foundation Museum was built in 1936 by architect William York Peters for his use. Acquired by the Hubbard family in 1946, it is an example of southwest adobe architecture. It is used as museum curator Bourke Runton’s residence and as the Franklin library, and it is available to scholars by appointment.
Hubbard, who died in 1993, restored and collected Franklins. His enthusiasm and dedication drove him to set up a shop in which he could restore his own Franklins and those of others, including casino magnate Bill Harrah.
“Tom created a collection of the finest classic, custom and unique Franklins in existence,” said Scott Dwyer, editor of the H.H. Franklin Foundation newsletter. “When faced with the likelihood of his death, Tom realized that the value of his collection was greater as a whole than as individual cars.
“Rather than allow the collection he so carefully put together to be dispersed on the auction block, he chose to create a foundation and museum to live beyond his lifetime and into future generations,” Dwyer said.
Runton said the only other major public offering is in a general interest museum in Norwich, N.Y., about 50 miles southeast of Syracuse. That museum often features Franklins but does not have a permanent collection.
The Franklin was the creation of John Wilkinson, a mechanical engineer who built a working prototype of a car in 1901. If the New York Automobile Co. had paid Wilkinson for the car he designed for it, the Franklin motor car might not have become one of America’s great luxury cars and the longest-lived U.S. nameplate powered by an air-cooled engine.
But the company was liquidated without ever producing a vehicle, and Wilkinson was put in touch with Herbert H. Franklin, a former newspaper publisher who made die castings in the Syracuse area.
Franklin was impressed with the car and its air-cooled engine and in 1902 began manufacturing and marketing it under his name. It was built in Syracuse in a high-rise factory until 1934. Total production reached 153,000.
Owners and Franklin admirers gather in Syracuse the second weekend of August each year for social and educational festivities. Organizers of this year’s event, which marks the 100th anniversary of the vehicle, expect about 100 of the cars for a drive in downtown Syracuse. The museum’s Runton said about 1,000 of the cars have been restored, 1,000 are unrestored and 400-800 are useful as parts cars, the total of which is “about average” for a marque that old.
Collector Hubbard reportedly caught the restoration fever from a 1909 Reo in 1954, Runton said. He restored several cars for William Harrah, founder of Harrah’s casinos in Nevada, who owned several dozen Franklins that were eventually sold. Hubbard developed a sizable collection of his own. His stable included the 1909 Reo, 16 Franklins, a 1939 Lincoln Zephyr and a 1957 Porsche coupe.
Using the original factory blueprints , which he bought from a vendor of original Franklin factory memorabilia in Auburn, Ind., Hubbard was able to not only assure the authenticity of his restorations but also create a Franklin that never saw production, Runton said.
The 1932 Series 16 V-12 was to have represented the crowning achievement of the Franklin automobile, incorporating the best of Franklin engineering and design. Shortly before production, the company was forced into receivership and the V-12 as proposed was canceled. The one-of-a-kind V-12 phaeton that Hubbard created from the drawings is as true to original intention as possible, using some extant parts and others manufactured according to blueprint specifications. (Though the original Franklin factory built six or seven copies of the phaeton–which sold for as much as $5,000–none survived intact to serve as a model, Runton said.)
The H. H. Franklin Foundation was begun by Hubbard in 1992 to continue beyond his lifetime the collection of Franklins he had acquired and restored since 1952. The Foundation also develops the comprehensive Franklin Museum, opened the same year the Foundation was begun. The museum is currently trying to collect a Franklin of every model year, Runton said.
Runton also said the foundation is planning a new building with a 17,000-square-foot exhibit hall, although the timing and location are yet to be determined because talks with the city of Tucson have produced little progress on the project.
“It would be room enough for 35 cars,” Runton said. “That’s our goal.”
The H.H. Franklin Foundation Museum, at 3420 N. Vine St., Tucson (about two miles north of the University of Arizona), is open from Sept. 15 through Memorial Day. Admission is free. Call 520-326-8038.
Franklin in time
1893 Herbert H. Franklin forms the H.H. Franklin Manufacturing Co. in Syracuse, N.Y., along with inventor Herbert G. Underwood to produce die castings, a term that Franklin coined.
1901 Franklin and John Wilkinson develop a car with 4-cylinder, air-cooled engine based on Wilkinson’s design.
1902 The first production Franklin is sold; it is now in the Smithsonian Institution. It has a transverse mounted, overhead-valve 4-cylinder engine in the front, with the first float carburetor and the first throttle control.Extensive use of wood and aluminum keeps the cars light.
1904 A Franklin roadster travels coast to coast in 33 days, beating the record of 61 days.
1905 Franklin produces America’s first 6-cylinder car, an inline engine with a cooling fan and overhead valves.
1906 A 6-cylinder Franklin goes coast to coast in a record 15 days.
1907 Franklin is the first to use automatic spark advance.
1908 Franklin introduces hemispherical combustion chambers.
1911 Hood is raked and streamlined, taking advantage of direct-air cooling.
1912 Recirculating pressure feed oil system is first used on a Franklin.
1913 A 1911 Franklin Speed Car sets a world’s fuel economy record of 83.5 m.p.g.
Franklin pioneers the closed-body sedan.
1914 A nationwide test of 94 standard production Franklins achieves an average of 32.8 m.p.g.
1915 A Franklin is driven 860 miles in bottom gear without overheating; Franklins feature aluminum pistons.
1917 Average of 179 cars is now up to 40.3 m.p.g. WWI production includes a 1-cylinder powerplant and aircraft engine parts for Hispano-Suiza and Rolls-Royce.
1921 The hood is made to look more like a radiator on other cars to stimulate sales.
1925 A major body redesign–another attempt to increase sales–brings a conventional radiator look. The Series LL had an electric primer for the carburetor.
1927 Franklin begins phasing out wooden chassis, used on all Franklins. Company also announces 26-h.p. Airman model, which had four-wheel brakes. Aviator Charles Lindbergh had four of this model.
1929 Ernest “Cannon Ball” Baker sets a new coast to coast record of 69 hours in a Franklin. By the late 1920s, leading car designer Ray Dietrich worked on Franklins.
1932 Franklin develops a V-12 engine. The 398-ci plant delivers 150 horsepower and reaches 95 m.p.h. The wooden chassis is now gone.
1933 Carl Doman and Ed Marks, ex-Franklin engineers, start Doman-Marks Engine Co. They produce Domark heavy-duty air-cooled industrial engines.
1934 Car production ends as H.H. Franklin Co. is bankrupted in the Great Depression.
Sources: www.franklincar.org; Encyclopedia of Automobiles by David Burgess Wise
