A new-old-idea keeps popping into my thoughts. Like a Model T Ford pushed into a back corner of the barn for decades, there are project ideas that are shelved until there is more time to transform them into a reality.

The seeds of this project were sown about sixty years ago, and started to sprout in the mid 1990s when my writing career was just starting to pick up steam. Back then, I pitched the concept to Chet Krause of Old Cars Weekly. I was writing for that publication at the time and had a few conversations with Chet that led me to believe that he was a man with a keen eye for stories that blended auto history, entrepreneurial ambition, and technological innovation.

In retrospect I now see that rejection resulted from my inexperience. But Chet was a patient mentor. He liked the concept, but gently nudged me toward other projects as he knew that I needed to hone my skills as a writer before tackling a book like Bathtubs, Birdcages & Chevrolet.

Fast forward a couple decades. Publication of Route 66: 100 Years, a Route 66 centennial anthology, last month was my 23rd book. Since freelancing at Old Cars Weekly I have written several hundred feature articles. And I have written thousands of blogs for Jim Hinckley’s America as well as for associates such as Two Lane America, Route 66 Trip USA, and for clients of Talisman Magic Marketing.

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A Long Road Home: The Heart of the Book

But Bathtubs, Birdcages & Chevrolet was always in the back of my mind. Passion for the project was refreshed with interviews, discoveries made, and museums visited. It followed me from meeting publisher deadlines to two lane highway explorations. Over the years I kept gathering notes, tracking down information, and tucking away every scrap of information like a squirrel stocking up for a long winter.

Every now and then, when I had a few spare minutes, I’d dust it off and refine the concept. I moved the project from typewritten pages to floppy disc to CD and then to text files on OneDrive.

I kept waiting for the right moment. In my humble opinion, that moment is 2026. That is the 250th anniversary of the United States and this book is an American story.

A new-old-idea

At the center of this story is my grandfather, Frederick P. Hinckley, an inventive, mechanically gifted man born in 1865. His legacy was largely unknown outside our family until I began digging into it more than five decades ago.

Frederick was a prolific inventor, a visionary, and a tinkerer in the best sense of the word. He was someone who saw a dynamic future being held back by puzzles waiting for solutions. Among his his many accomplishments was a patent for the coaster brake on the bicycle in 1898. That was my first discovery.

Over the years I have found two connections to rather famous automotive pioneers:

• Henry Ford‘s connection with my grandfather has proven illusive. But for years there was a picture of Ford and Frederick taken on the front porch of the Hinckley House on Hinckley Boulevard in Vandercook Lake, Michigan that sat on my grandmothers mantle. And I have learned that Frederick had several contracts for “special projects” with Ford that were completed at his Francis Street machine shop.
• David Buick was Fredericks employer in the late 1890s. In the decades that followed Buick had several manufacturing enterprises in Jackson. These were the same years that my grandfather was involved with several auto manufacturers in that city. And he owned a machine shop and had offices in Jackson. Is it to much of a stretch to imagine that these men might have worked together on projects?

This book, as envisioned, uses Frederick’s life as a keyhole through which readers can peer into a larger story. The chaotic, brilliant birth of the American automobile industry is a story of innovation, immigrants, a societal and technological paradigm shift, and of fortunes made and lost. It is an American story. And it is a series of new-old-ideas that are relevant today.

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The Bicycle Boom That Paved the Road to Detroit

Not many people know that the cornerstone for the American auto industry is the bicycle. So, that is where this book would begin.

The bicycle mania that swept the nation in the 1880s–1890s was no passing fad. It was a cultural revolution. Cities were reshaped. Clothing changed. Women gained mobility and independence. A tourism industry was born. A movement was launched to improve roads. Dozens of factories and repair shops sprang up like dandelions after a spring rain.

Many of the first car builders were bicycle mechanics and parts suppliers:

• Charles Duryea, a bicycle maker, with his brother launched the first American automobile manufacturing company in 1893.
• Alexander Winton, a Scotch immigrant, built his fortune with the manufacturing of bicycles before founding the Winton Motor Carriage Company. He played a role in the launching of Henry Ford’s automotive endeavors. And in 1901, was one of the first people that attempted to drive across the country.
• The Dodge brothers, Horace and John, started with high-quality machine work, some of which was used by bicycle manufacturers. They also produced gear boxes for Ransom Olds and Henry Ford. And John Dodge was vice president of Ford Motor Company for a time.
• Henry Leland started his career as a precision machinist in an apprenticeship with Samuel Colt. He was involved with several bicycle manufacturers, inadvertently played a role in the founding of Ford Motor Company, was instrumental in the establishment of Cadillac, and was the man behind Lincoln
• Louis Chevrolet repaired bicycles, raced bicycles, and manufactured bicycles before turning to automobile racing and manufacturing.

The bicycle provided an entire generation of young inventors with hands on experience in working with lightweight metals, precision bearings, chains, wheels, and mass-production techniques. Many of them made the transition to automobiles.

This book will dive into that pivotal era. I envision the first chapters as a blending of bicycle advertisements, factory photos, catalogues, success stories, spectacular failures, and the transition to automobiles.

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The Manure Crisis of 1895: The Problem No One Wanted to Talk About

It sounds like the setup to a joke: “A city drowning in horse manure….”
But by 1895, it was no laughing matter.

Major cities were being suffocated by the byproduct of the tens of thousands of horses that were crucial for urban transportation. The statistics are astonishing:

• A New York City report noted that horses produced thousands of pounds of manure per day
• Streets became cesspools of disease, odor, and flies
• Urban planners feared city life was becoming unsustainable

Into this crisis stepped innovators and visionaries like Ransom E. Olds. Ironically they saw the automobile as the solution for the pollution.

This book will delve into how the manure crisis launched the age of the automobile, specifically electric vehicles. The EV and its role in the establishment and development of the early auto industry will be another subject of focus.

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Electric Vehicles: The First Ones, Not the New Ones

Long before Teslas and charging stations, electric vehicles ruled American streets.

In the late 19th century:

• Electric taxis and busses operated in major cities
• Socialites favored electric runabouts for their cleanliness and quiet
• The first American pedestrian killed by an automobile was struck by an electric taxi
• Thomas Edison worked with engineers at Studebaker on that company’s first automobile
• Engineers experimented with battery chemistries still recognizable today

For a brief moment, it appeared the automobile would evolve along an electric path. Steam powered vehicles, not internal combustion, were the primary competitors. The book will also look at why that future didn’t happen, and how that past is shaping our transportation evolution today.

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The First American Automakers: Before 1905

The heart of the book will be the people, a richly detailed tapestry of early manufacturers and the wild characters behind them.

From the workshop inventors to the captains of industry, their lives intersected in surprising, complicated, and often dramatic ways. Some names became legendary. Others fizzled. Some were brilliant. Others… spectacularly misguided.

The book profiles the companies and the characters who built them:

Key Figures

• Charles Nash
• David Buick
• Horace & John Dodge
• William Durant
• E.L. Cord
• Henry Leland
• Alexander Winton
• James Ward Packard
• Studebaker Brothers
• Henry Ford
• Ransom E. Olds
• Walter Chrysler
• Jonathan Maxwell
• Benjamin Briscoe
• C. Harold Wills

Each profile will dig into personal rivalries, mechanical breakthroughs, factory innovations, and the unexpected webs of partnership that tied these pioneers together. And I would also dig deep into the story of the overlooked women like Florence Lawrence that contributed mightily to the evolution of the auto industry.

Companies Featured

• Pierce-Arrow
• Packard
• Ford
• Cadillac
• Chevrolet
• Studebaker
• Olds Motor Works
• Nash
• Buick
• Dodge
• Briscoe
• Maxwell
• Duryea
• Winton
• Jackson
• Auburn

And yes — all the stories are interconnected.
Think of it as America’s first automotive soap opera, with engineering melodrama, smoky backroom deals, and hostile corporate takeovers.

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A Teaser: A Sample from the Shelved Manuscript

“David Buick’s machine shop smelled of warm oil and the metallic tang of filed steel. Frederick Hinckley was taking time from his lunch to work on a personal project, a coaster brake hub for the bicycle. Hinckley, like Buick, Chevrolet, and Duryea exuded a quiet confidence, a sense that he was part of something huge that was about to transform the world.”

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What This Book Offers —

This book isn’t just another automotive history. I see it as:

• Narrative nonfiction with characters, conflict, and heart
• A sweeping social history of America’s transformation
• A technical exploration of bikes, early engines, patents, factories, and engineering breakthroughs
• A travel companion, linking historic sites and museums to the stories they represent
• A family history, anchoring national events to one Michigan inventor’s legacy

Stay Tuned

Publication of Bathtubs, Birdcages & Chevrolet will depend on several things. First is the Route 66 centennial, and how busy that keeps me. Then there is the time needed to shop for a publisher, or to learn more about self publishing. I am confident that self publishing has evolved a lot since I tried it several years ago and wrote Jim Hinckley’s America: Kingman, Arizona & 160 Miles of Smiles.

Meanwhile, I will continue gathering information. And in my spare time I will polish the three completed chapters, and begin developers the rest of the story.

So, what are your thoughts about this new old idea?

Stay tuned –