Seal Cove Auto Museum

Mary and Toby visited Acadia National Park as their five-year anniversary celebration.

Seal Cove Auto Museum is on the edge of Acadia National Park. The museum was enthusiastically recommended in all Acadia travel books but it still exceeded Toby’s already high expectation.

The museum featured cars and coachwork between 1900-1920 (with a couple outliers), including many that participated in Pebble Beach and Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance.

The whole collection can be seen here:

http://www.sealcoveautomuseum.org/collection/vehicle_list.php

Toby’s favorites was (no surprise) its sports cars including:

Stanley Steamer: Street version of 1906 land speed record car that broke two-mile-per minute (i.e. 120mph) barrier
Mercer Touring car: Of Mercer Raceabout fame
F.R.P.: ex-Mercer team manager decided to build a proper successor to the all conquering Raceabout. Its 170 hp was the highest for production cars at the time (170 hp in 1915!)

1908 Stanley Steamer Model K Semi-Racer. Street version of the 1906 land speed record car (which broke the two-mile-a-minute barrier at 121.6 mph.) The car is one of three 1906-1908 remaining and the only one that is in original condition and is thus of exceptional value.

1921 Mercer Touring Car. Mercer was best known for the 1911-1915 “Raceabout” – the premier race car of the era.

1915 F.R.P, built by Finley Robertson Porter, ex-manager of the all conquering Team Mercer. Its 454 cid SOHC engine with hemispherical combustion chambers produced 170 hp, the higher for production cars at the time. Unfortunately the company failed to secured financial backing due to WWI.

And exquisite coachbuilds including:

DeDion Motorette: In addition to the beautiful coachwork, the Motorette was driven by a DeDion Tube suspension (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Dion_tube)
Pierce Great Arrow: Winner of first Glidden Trophy at the 1905 AAA Reliability Tour (and successfully defended it five times), but that aside, look at the coach work including a foldout table in the rear cabin!
White “MM”: Famous for being training pace cars for Jack Johnson and James Jefferies before their 1910 “Fight of the Century” (http://www.pbs.org/unforgivableblackness/)
Peugeot Type 150 Boat-tailed “Skiff”: Just look at it!

1901 DeDion Motorette was innovative for its universal joints / DeDion Tubes suspension which allowed its motor and gearbox to be mounted on the chassis.

1905 Pierce Great Arrow. A Great Arrow was the winner of the first Glidden Trophy at the 1905 AAA Reliability Tour which covered 870 miles from New York to Bretton Woods NH. The Great Arrow defended its Glidden Trophy for five consecutive years.

1910 White “MM” famous for being the training pace car for Jack Johnson and James Jefferies before their “Fight of the Century” championship bout.

1913 Peugeot Type 150 Boat-tailed “Skiff” is an example of the coachbuilder’s art at its finest.

Finally, Toby and Mary’s favorite was the 1910 Stoddard-Dayton 10-F Roadster. Stoddard-Dayton was most famous for winning the first race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the pace car for the inaugural Indy 500.