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1903 Orient Buckboard 1913 Metz 22 Glidden Tour entry. Walter Metz, age 20, at the
wheel
the car. They showed the car at the 1898 Madison Square Auto-
mobile Show. However, Charles chose not to put the electric car introduced more conventional touring cars in 1905 with front
into production because he was convinced that gasoline power mounted, water cooled inline four-cylinder engines of 16 or 20
would be more popular. In late 1901, Charles designed and pro- horsepower and chain drive. Those engines had four single cylin-
duced the Orient Runabout, a gasoline powered, friction drive car. ders on a common crankcase. These would be built until 1908.
About 50 of these runabouts were sold at a price of $875. William H. Little joined Waltham in 1906 and developed a small
runabout with a 10 horsepower V-twin engine and friction drive.
Charles left the Waltham Manufacturing Company in Shortly before production was to start in 1908, Waltham Manufac-
1902 after a heated dispute over the direction of his company; his turing got into financial trouble.
controlling partners were insisting on going into electric vehicles.
Waltham Manufacturing did not delve into electric vehicles after Meanwhile after Charles Metz left Waltham Manufactur-
all but instead would produce the gasoline powered Orient Buck- ing in 1902, he started his own company on Whitney Avenue in
board from 1903 through 1907. They hired engineer Leonard B. Waltham producing motorcycles under his own name. His 80
Gaylor as their new designer to replace Charles and the March pound racing motorcycle would be popular enough in 1903 to be
1903 patent for the new Buckboard was secured in his name, but adopted as the National Cycling Association's designated race
historians have wondered, considering the company's dramatic bike. A Metz motorcycle set the American one-mile record at one
change of direction, if the Buckboard might actually have been minute and 10 seconds. In 1906, the Metz company and the Marsh
based on Charles' design. company of Brockton, Massachusetts, merged. Together they built
the Marsh-Metz motorcycle for 1908, considered one of the best
The Orient Buckboard was a two passenger, very light, machines on the market.
flat board automobile costing just $450, making it the lowest-
priced automobile available in the country. It weighed just 500 When Waltham Manufacturing ran out of money under a
pounds, had a four-horsepower, single-cylinder, vertically mount- heavy debt load in 1908, the owners and the president of Waltham
ed air-cooled engine in the rear of the car with friction drive, tiller National Bank, who personally had underwritten the company's
steering, and wire spoked wheels. It could reach a speed of 30 mortgage, asked Charles to reclaim the company and make it
miles per hour and had a range of 100 miles; it was faster than the whole again. Charles did return as the new owner of Waltham
Ford Model A costing nearly twice as much. The car was adver- Manufacturing; it would be reorganized as the Metz Company in
tised as being "Fast, Practical and Safe." The Orient Buckboard 1909. He inherited a stock of parts intended for Little's runabout.
initially had no suspension, relying exclusively on its wooden floor Charles faced an immediate financial challenge and a weak but
to absorb the shocks of unpaved roads. The floor was made of ash recovering economy coming out of the country's 1907 financial
or other springy wood about an inch thick and attached to the ax- downturn. He devised a winning scheme. It represented the first
les. The spring action of the board substituted for steel springs. instalment plan for a car, ever, at a time when customers customar-
This minimal springing and lack of almost any bodywork made it ily paid 100 percent cash to buy anything, be it groceries, a car, or
less than practical for a long journey. However, 21 year old Vera a house. But his genius lay in how he did it. To raise money fast,
Marie Teape (1885-1967) and her mother Nancy Minerva (Miller) Charles grouped the parts into 14 sets of packaged kits starting
Teape (1859-1933) of Sandpoint, Idaho, made history in 1906 with the frame, followed by the axles and springs, then the hood
when they drove an Orient Buckboard from Denver, Colorado, to and radiator, and so on. The engine came in the 12th container.
Chicago, Illinois. They completed the trip in 15 days, averaged 20 Each kit would sell for $27, which could be put together with the
miles per hour from dawn until dark, and travelled 99 miles on plans and tools supplied, for a total price of $378. A factory as-
their longest day. It was reported, in perhaps a poor choice of sembled version could be bought for $475. This was post-
words, that the car was "so simple, even a woman can drive it." industrial revolution New England populated by skilled workers
During its production run, the Orient Buckboard got an improved looking for a bargain in hard times and ready to make use of sweat
suspension, two chains instead of one belt to transmit the power to equity. Maybe they couldn't afford to buy a whole car, but they
the rear wheels, and an optional 8 horsepower two-cylinder en- could probably buy a piece, put it together, and then save up for
gine; a steering wheel replaced the tiller in 1907. It became the the next kit. Charles named his new two-cylinder, 10 horsepower,
U.S. Post Office's first rural mail delivery vehicle in 1906. A total air cooled, friction drive car on an 81 inch wheelbase the Metz
of about 2,500 Orient Buckboards were produced. Waltham also Plan, and it sold very well. Charles was able to ship enough stock

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