History > Alice Ramsey's 1909 Maxwell DA
The Maxwell-Briscoe Car Company donated the vehicle that Alice drove and acted as a sponsor for their trip. The automobile Alice drove was a green DA model, which featured a four-cylinder engine that produced 30 horsepower. Special features on Alice's Maxwell were a larger gas tank, a rack for two extra tires and a tire repair kit. Like other Maxwells, the car was crank-started and had a top speed of 40 miles per hour.
This right-hand drive vehicle carried a carbide generator on the left running board that supplied power to the headlamps. To turn them on, carbide pellets needed to be dropped into the generator. Then, the covers to the headlamps were opened and the wicks were lit with a match. The tires on Alice's vehicle were about four inches wide and 56-inches apart to match the wagon ruts in the North. Since other parts of the country tended to have different width roads, Alice and her companions sometimes found themselves riding lopsided- with one wheel in a rut and the other on higher ground.
Most of the sales of the Maxwell automobile can be attributed to Cadwallader "Carl" Washburn Kelsey, the company's sales manager. Kelsey, who was known for dreaming up incredible publicity stunts, was the one who proposed the cross-country trip to Alice. This trip brought Maxwell-Briscoe more publicity than they could have imagined, resulting in increased sales of the automobile. In 1910, approximately 20,500 Maxwells were sold, up from 9,460 in 1909.