Cavac

Cavac was the automobile marque of the Small Motor Car Company, organized in Detroit, Michigan, in 1910 with offices in room 605 of the David Whitney Building. The company completed a small underslung roadster prototype rather than a documented production series. Its steel chassis had a 100-inch (2,540 mm) wheelbase and carried a water-cooled L-head inline-four rated 24 hp; an unusual reported detail was the use of ball-bearing cages for the crankshaft main bearings. The only advertised body was a two-seat roadster, with a proposed price of $1,050. The prototype was taken to the Detroit, Chicago and New York automobile shows in early 1911 to raise interest and capital. Plans called for production plants in both Detroit and Winnipeg, Canada, but neither documented series output nor another body/model followed. Late in 1911 the organization adopted the Cavac Motor Car Company name and moved or attempted to reorganize in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Production activity ended that same year. Sources differ in wording: some older encyclopedic summaries describe low-volume manufacture beginning in 1910, while the Standard Catalog-derived account states that the project never progressed beyond its show prototype. The catalog therefore preserves the 1910–11 construction/exhibition envelope, explicitly labels it prototype evidence, and records only an at-least-one total. No factory model number survives; 'Roadster' is a transparent body-family label rather than an invented proper name. Cavac is distinct from CAV electrical equipment, modern connected/autonomous-vehicle abbreviations, Small automobiles made by unrelated firms, and similarly named Cavac websites or organizations. One row accounts for the complete defensible vehicle program.

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