Locomobile Steam Car

The history of the steam car is brief and inexorably associated with the name Stanley. In the earliest days of the automobile it was to successfully challenge the gasoline powered automobile.

American brothers Francis and Freelan Stanley built their first ‘Stanley Steamer’ in 1898. With 200 orders on the books the pair sold their design and factory to Cosmopolitan magazine publisher John Brisben Walker to form the Locomobile Company of America.

More than 4,600 Locomobile steam cars were produced before, in 1902, the company changed direction and started to manufacture cars with internal combustion engines.

The steam car, however, carried on after 1902, the Stanley brothers founding the Stanley Motor Carriage Company; in 1906 a streamlined Stanley set a world speed record for the mile at 127mph.

Most of the Locomobile production was sold in the USA, only a small number being exported to the UK and the rest of Europe.

About this vehicle

Richard Shuttleworth set about re-building this 1900 Locomobile from parts he purchased from various sources, including a complete 1899/1900 model.

In 1936 Richard was contacted by steam car specialist, Brian Stack, who offered to help, and the following year the pair took the re-built car on the London to Brighton Run. Running flat out most of the way (‘singing like a kettle’, according to a press report) Richard and Brian arrived in Brighton too early and so were disqualified.

The Locomobile was again, driven by Richard on the 1938 London to Brighton run, it finished in time, but the boiler was damaged and he set about repairing it until war intervened. Idle for many years the car was stripped down and new parts were manufactured to bring it back into working condition in its original black and red colours, but it was not until 2011 that it was to make its debut, completing the London to Brighton run once more in 2012, but by 2019 the boiler was no longer serviceable and it was decided to undertake a full restoration of the car including a new boiler and petrol fired burner. The car has taken our SVAS Volunteers over 7 years completing the rebuild in September of 2026.

Like other early Locomobiles, the car in the Collection follows the original Stanley design, with a vertical boiler fired by petrol, and a horizontal twin-cylinder, side-valve, engine driving the rear wheels by chain. There is no clutch or gearbox.

Specification