1937 Detroit Electric Model 99 Coupe

The Detroit Electric was the United States’ most prominent and longest-lived pioneering electric automobile, manufactured by the Anderson Electric Car Company and its successors over a remarkable 30-year run from 1907 until 1937.

Like Henry Ford’s Model T, the Detroit has a reputation of having been built largely unchanged throughout its lengthy production and also, like the Model T, that reputation is quite incorrect. It received many rolling changes over its life, including very late in production. What had once resembled a horse-drawn brougham, gradually became more like an automobile. The last handful of Detroit Electrics built resembled Willys coupe bodies with Dodge front-end sheet metal, which was apt, as that was exactly what the company used. Underneath, however, was still the same stable, dependable drivetrain used all along—and inside, the driver still steered by tiller bar, with folding jump seats for a pair of passengers ahead of them.

The latest surviving intact Detroit Electric automobile, this Model 99 was built in the final season of production, 1937, and invoiced on 24 September of that year. The first owner, Mrs. Mead, is believed to have been Mrs. George W. Mead, wife of the president of the Consolidated Water Power & Paper Company of Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. In February 1949, the car was sold through Wisconsin Rapids dealer Warsinke Motors to Mary Dennis of Knightstown, Indiana, its second owner. Correspondence in the file between Mrs. Dennis’ husband and the Detroit Electric company notes that at acquisition it had been driven only about 1,200 miles.

Mrs. Dennis drove her Detroit Electric until 1959, then donated it to the Knightstown High School Industrial Education Club, which used it for “electrical instruction.” It is next known to have been sold in 1971 to Olin Dean Roler of New Palestine, from whose estate it was auctioned in 2000. More recently it has been in the care of a longtime enthusiast of pioneer electric cars, from whom it is offered today. Largely original and well-preserved, in particular its interior, it was fitted several years ago with new deep-cycle batteries and is noted by the owner as being fully operational.

Few Detroit Electrics have the wonderful combination of history, patina, and uniqueness offered by this one-time society plaything and high school teaching aid—among the final cars built by a great name of early American motoring.