From Birdcages to Iceboxes to Cars.(Escape Roads)

Byline: BOB TOMAINE

Pierce-Arrow moved in an enviable circle. Being linked in the public eye with Packard and Peerless as one of the Three Ps placed the company high in the automotive hierarchy; not a bad accomplishment for a car whose ancestry included bicycles, tricycles, birdcages and iceboxes.

The Buffalo, New York-based George N. Pierce Co. offered its first production car, a single-cylinder Pierce, in 1901. Two years later it introduced the Arrow with its 15-hp two-cylinder and in 1904, the Great Arrow. The new car rode a 93-inch wheelbase and carried Pierce's first four-cylinder, a 231-cid engine making 24 to 28 hp. Costing $4,000-more than four times the price of an entry-level Buick and $1,200 more than a Ford Model K-Pierce left no doubt as to the clientele it courted.

Neither did the company leave doubt in another arena, as a Pierce won the inaugural Glidden Tour in 1905. George's son Percy drove a Great Arrow in the 1100-mile event. The performance was no fluke; Pierces repeated the feat for each of the next four years.

Clay Green of Doylestown, Pennsylvania, bought this 1909 Model 40PP Touring in 1991. The car is one of the last of the four-cylinder Pierces, supplanted in 1910 by the success of the company's new sixes. Green says the car was a runner when he got it, but it had been ridden hard and put up muddy. The Pierce has been totally redone, and has about 20,000 miles since the restoration.

Green added an electric starter, converted the acetylene headlights to halogens, and swapped the service and emergency brakes to increase stopping power. Those changes and others improve driveability and safety, important considerations on a car that gets used.

The modifications mostly go unnoticed and could easily be reversed, but they can also be ignored. With 4:1 compression, hand-cranking the 433-cid, 40-hp four isn't too hard to do and once started, it settles down to a loud but smooth idle. The engine is loud and smooth at highway speeds, too, and only a long, steep grade slows it appreciably.