Clipper (steam automobile)

Clipper (steam automobile) was the road-vehicle marque of the Clipper Autocar Company in Grand Rapids, Michigan, during 1902. The qualifier is essential because Clipper later became a famous Packard model name and was reused by unrelated manufacturers and products. Its origin lies in Byron C. Carter's first marketed automobile, the Michigan steam car. Carter designed that compact steam stanhope for Michigan Automobile Company at 45 Monroe Street, Grand Rapids, and the company built it during 1901. The Michigan—also called the Carter Steam Stanhope—had a small open body with victoria top, tufted leather seat, grained-leather dash, lever steering and 32-inch wire wheels; it sold complete for $1,000. Carter returned to Jackson in 1902 to develop the Jaxon steam car and gasoline Jackson automobile, leaving the Grand Rapids operation. Elmer Pratt renamed or reorganized it as Clipper Autocar Company and moved manufacture to the Clipper Bicycle factory. The resulting Clipper steam car was nearly identical to Carter's Michigan. Only a few were built before the company failed later in 1902. No evidence establishes multiple Clipper chassis, formal model numbers or separately marketed bodies, so one Steam Stanhope row accounts for the complete range. The predecessor Michigan remains a separate marque despite the design continuity and should receive its own history/model record when its Wikidata entity is reconciled. No dependable Clipper boiler construction, steam pressure, burner fuel, cylinder arrangement, horsepower, water/fuel capacity, range, speed, wheelbase, weight, exact price, serial numbers or survivor register has been recovered. Clipper is unrelated to Packard Clipper, Studebaker-Packard's later stand-alone Clipper division, British kit or commercial vehicles, marine craft and aircraft bearing the name. The company and marque both begin and end in 1902; Byron Carter's later enterprises are successors in engineering biography, not Clipper production.

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