A GENTLEMAN'S RIDE.(Escape Roads)

Byline: BOB TOMAINE

Coal dealer Harry Jewett and some Detroit financial backers formed a company in 1909 to produce a car being shopped around by Fred Paige, the president of Reliance Motor Car before General Motors bought it. One of the prototype's features was a three-cylinder, two-cycle engine-an odd powerplant even for the times-and after trying the design in its 1910 Model 1, Paige-Detroit phased in a four-cycle replacement.

Paige's prototype was a 90-inch-wheelbase roadster whose two-cycle, 25-hp engine was touted for its simplicity and power. Jewett-the money guy-soon soured on the Model 1 and on Fred Paige. With a new general manager, Jewett took over the presidency by mid-1910, and Paige was out, as was the two-cycle engine.

Jewett removed "Detroit'' from the car's name (but not the company's), added a 104-inch-wheelbase model for 1911 and then dropped the smaller car for 1912. Starting that year, Paiges no longer would be merely roadsters or coupes but would carry such romantic names as Kenilworth and Pinehurst. By 1913, buyers chose between the 22.5-hp Model 25 on a 110-inch wheelbase and the 116-inch, 25.6-hp Model 36.

"They were calling it 25.6 hp,'' said Bob Kuehn of Haledon, New Jersey, who owns the car featured here. "But it's actually like a 40-horse. Model 36 was the bigger car-four-cylinder, 4-inch bore, 5-inch stroke, electric headlights, generator starter-all top-of-the-line for 1913. It was $1,275. You got a lot for your money.''

Kuehn's Model 36 gentleman's roadster is formally a Westbrook Roadster and was recognized long ago as worthy of preservation. He bought it in 1989 from its second owner, who found it on an estate near Boston.

"This was in '56,'' Kuehn said, "when this was an old jalopy, and the old lady of the house said, `It's a disgrace that this thing is sitting next to the family Rolls. You have to get it out of here.' Her nephew had driven it during ...