1911 Selden Model 40-R Varsity Roadster; Turning heads.(Escape Roads)(restoration of vehicle)(Brief Article)

Byline: Brooks Brierley

Selden was an upper middle-priced car built from 1907 to 1914 in Rochester, New York. The company's guiding force was George Selden, then the legal inventor of the automobile in the United States through the notorious Selden Patent, issued in 1895. For the next 17 years, anyone building a road vehicle powered by an internal-combustion engine was required to obtain Selden's permission-or face a lawsuit. For his own marque, Selden had bought up an existing engine maker, the Buffalo Gasoline Automobile Co., and created a modest line of five open models.

The Varsity roadster was Selden's top-of-the-line model. It rode on a 125-inch-wheelbase chassis and was powered by a four-cylinder engine. The big 356-cid four has a 4.75-inch bore and five-inch stroke, making 36 hp. Curb weight is 2130 pounds. Other specifications are not as impressive: a leather-faced cone clutch, splash lubrication and two-wheel brakes. The 36-inch by four-inch tire size is unusual by today's standards. The price when new was $2,500.

This roadster's original owner was a Rochester shoe manufacturer named Fred Todd. Health problems forced Todd to retire to his orchard farm, where he decided to turn his hobby into a business. He needed a vehicle for hauling, and had the back half of the Selden cut out to make a platform for a pickup bed. The car suffered increasing neglect until the 1950s when a neighbor spotted what was left of it in a hedgerow. By then the body and fenders had rotted off.

When the present owner, Bob Mahoney, bought the roadster 10 years ago, most of it was in boxes. But he was in luck: A photograph of it at a 1913 Todd family picnic encouraged restoration. Mahoney soon found an identical Selden surviving intact in New Hampshire; it was available for measurement to reconstruct missing parts.

Mahoney did much of the restoration work himself. Parts such as brake drums had to be fabricated and the transmission needed to be reworked to replace a worn-out second gear. A lengthy search ensued to locate authentic brass headlights. By comparison, upholstering seats and fabricating the flat racing-style fenders were relatively easy tasks. After the car was completed in 1996, it ...