Putnam car collector sends latest restoration to Russia
Sunday, January 22, two thousand seventeen
HURRICANE, W.Va. (AP) – A one thousand nine hundred twenty Milburn Light electrified car that had been stored in a flooded Philippi outbuilding before Putnam County antique car collector Carroll Hutton bought it during an estate sale in the 1990s and restored it to its former glory is now headed to Russia, where a Moscow-area company has bought the museum-quality vehicle for an undisclosed price.
“I’d rather have donated it to a local museum,” Hutton said Jan. 13, as he awaited the arrival of a shipping container that will carry the West Virginia car to its fresh owners. “I attempted to generate some interest in getting people in Charleston to build an auto museum that people attending the annual Boulevard Rod Run and Doo Wop festival and other events could take advantage of, but that’s gone nowhere. So I got an agent, he contacted some people, and now the car is going to Moscow. I’m eighty five years old. It’s time to embark thinning out the herd.”
Hutton said his Milburn, one of only about Four,000 vehicles made by the company during its eight years of production and one of fewer than thirty surviving Model 27L Broughams built from one thousand nine hundred nineteen to 1924, required a finish restoration when he bought it.
“It was in pitiful condition when I got it,” he said. “At very first I wasn’t sure I desired to undertake the job, but eventually I witnessed a future for it, and with a lot of help, we got it back in form. I did part of the work at my (Teays Valley) house and farmed out the rest.”
The car came with almost all the original parts needed, but Hutton had to order tires from a specialty shop in India and traveled to North Carolina for the fabric needed to reupholster its seats.
“The motor was totally gone, so we had to rewind it and bake it out,” Hutton said. “When we pulled out the windshield, a one thousand nine hundred twenty three calendar fell out.”
The Milburn is unique in a number of ways, according to Hutton.
“You steer it with a tiller, like a boat,” rather than use a steering wheel, he said. Flower vases at the corners of the car’s cab are made from lignum vitae, the world’s strongest and densest wood, often used as propeller shaft bearings on ships due to its strength and resistance to salt and water. The car’s headlights come tooled with a green-shaded upper lens that effectively serves as a dimmer to oncoming traffic. “They kept horses from panicking,” Hutton said.
“These were the premiere cars of their time,” he said. “They were built in Toledo, but bought mainly by affluent people in the fatter cities of the East. They were particularly attractive to women, because you didn’t have to crank the engine to embark it, or get gas on your frock, and you could pull down the curtains to adjust your makeup. You just plugged the car into an outlet, and then drove it.”
The car had a 50-mile range and could travel at speeds of 25-30 miles per hour with its three-horsepower electrified motor. The Milburn served an upscale market, retailing for almost $1,500 – or about three times as much as a Ford from the same year.
The car was built by British-born entrepreneur George Milburn, who arrived in Indiana in 1835, built a dam to supply water power to mills and factories in the town of Mishawaka, and later moved to Toledo, where his Milburn Wagon Works became the world’s largest wagon-maker. A daughter, Ann, married a Studebaker, a member of another prominent wagon-making and eventually car-building family.
The man who designed the very first Milburn Light Electrical cars was Point Pleasant native Karl Probst, who went on to design the Bantam Jeep, the very first generation of the iconic four-wheel-drive vehicle originally built as a World War II go-anywhere transport for U.S. troops.
Albeit Milburns were considered elegant, reliable vehicles, possessed by the likes of President Woodrow Wilson and used by his Secret Service entourage, they went out of production in 1924, after General Motors bought the company’s manufacturing plant.
The one thousand nine hundred twenty Milburn Hutton is selling to a Russian buyer is not his very first international vintage car sale. Two years ago, he sold a one thousand nine hundred seventy Mercedes 280SL he had shown at the Boulevard Rod Run and Doo Wop showcase to a buyer in Dubai.
Hutton, a Stonewall Jackson High School graduate and Korean War Air Force veteran, turned his hobby of scuba diving into his own business, Underwater Services Limited, which installed and repaired utility sea crossings and inland marine infrastructure, and helped maintain and test dam components. After retiring, he took up antique auto restoration.
“I’ve gone all across the state and into Virginia looking for cars to restore,” he said. “I’m the 85-year-old’s reaction to ‘(American) Pickers.’ I love taking a chunk of junk and making something out of it.”
Hutton said he has already bought what may be the last car he buys for a restoration project.
“I have in my shop now an original one thousand nine hundred twenty seven T-Model Ford roadster,” he said. “It’s painted and ready to assemble.”
But in Hutton’s case, it may be more prudent to never say never to yet another restoration job in the future.
“I get calls from people wanting me to take a look at grandpa’s car, and I’ll tell them ‘no way, I’ve had enough.’?” Hutton said. “But after I think about the car they’re talking about, I usually cave and call them back.”
Information from: The Charleston Gazette-Mail, http://wvgazettemail.com.
Copyright © two thousand seventeen The Washington Times, LLC.
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