Here's an article about the autoshowrooms on 14th Street, with a picture of the Taylor building.

[Illustrated with five jpegs from Shorpy, I see. - Dave]

A friend of mine directed me to this site. What an AMAZING place. I cant stop looking. Dr Q, thanks so much for what you add. BTW, remember that an electrical device is a motor and an internal combustion device is an engine. I love watching racing and it burns my behind to hear those guys talking about their "motors". LOL!

[What does the M in GM, BMW and DMV stand for? What's the middle name of Ford Motor Co.? What's another name for those two-wheeled contraptions made by Harley-Davidson? What is the name on the outside of this very building? Etc., etc. - Dave]

Well, OK, maybe triplets.

The vehicle being wrenched on by "Trained Ford Repairmen" illustrates the brilliantly minimalist design of the Model T. Not only does the single cross-spring replace two fore-and-aft springs as used on other cars, but such a spring has more yield in a vertical direction, relative to the force required to pull one side down and the other up, thus providing "anti-roll" action that modern cars obtain from "roll bars" or "anti-sway" bars, yet another part to install. A rear suspension is visible on the left, and follows the same concept by arching the center of the spring to clear the differential. Triangular "radius rods" stretched from each wheel to center pivots under the car, locating the wheels while providing the tremendous flexibility to "crab walk" over obstacles. As roads improved and lowering the car became desirable, Ford kept most of these benefits by locating the springs fore/aft of the axles and using "drop axles" with doglegs to reduce the height.

Another interesting feature is the famously tilted or cambered front wheels. The kingpins, on which the wheels turn to steer, are clearly visible and go straight up and down. With vertically mounted front wheels, hitting a rock would deflect the wheel backwards, "kicking back" through the steering wheel. By tilting the bottom of the wheel in, the contact point was more in line with the kingpins, so the wheel would roll over the rock with less kickback. Someone later thought of tilting the kingpins instead, so its axis of rotation passed through the point of tire contact with the wheels mounted vertically, giving better tire wear and traction as tires got bigger.

The Pep Boys!