I have an Olds of that age and it doesn't leak much oil. Olds had one of the first slanted windshields to prevent glare from headlights from behind. If you think the office furniture is nice, you should see the interior of that car! Pure class! I say that is a mirror to show off the undercarriage.

[Below: A decidedly non-reflective drip pan. - Dave]

The customer's chairs...the salesmen's desks...and the dreaded windows "I'll just pass this by the Sales Manager...you never know"

English motorcycles and cars don't really leak oil....they just 'mark their territory'!

I had a couple of old Nortons, a Commando and an Atlas, and the comment "Old British bikes had the endearing habit of leaving puddles of oil" reminds me of the old joke:

Q: What does it mean if your English motorcycle isn't leaking oil?

A: It's out of oil.

Many vehicles would drip oil as a normal and intended part of their operation. Metered oil feeds slowly drip oil on various parts that need lubrication. One very renowned comment aimed at Harley Davidson motorcycles was the misconception that they always leaked oil. I guess you could call these drippings "leaks". Intentional ones. Another photo on Shorpy shows a block of oil sight glasses accessible to the driver of an automobile with little thumbscrews on top to adjust the drip rate on each one.

I didn't immediately realise how early this is as far as cars go and how quickly they were developing. Just looking at the front of this car...no front brakes, big scrub radius because the kingpins aren't inclined to bring the contact patch into line with them, no carbon black in the tyres etc. I bet that's ordinary plate glass in the windows as well, not tempered. Also, I can't see any front dampers...were they tucked up under the chassis rails or was it simply undamped? Must have been a bouncy thing if so!

Must be my hausfrau heart, but it seems like floors in the era needed a good waxing.

This reminds me of the time I let a friend roll his 1975 Norton Commando into my living room to escape a rainstorm. The first thing I did was slide a cookie sheet under it to catch the oil drips. Old British bikes had the endearing habit of leaving puddles of oil wherever they were parked.

Looks like a 1920 Model 37A

Things really haven't changed all the much have they? The desks are crammed up real close in the showroom. And instead of PCs on the desks, they have inkwells. They even have the glass offices to run to to get a manager to "approve" a deal.

I guess leaks came with buying a new car in the early 1900s. Can you imagine going into a showroom today and seeing a catch pan underneath it?

Wow! Look at that classic office furniture! Oh, yeah; nice car, too.