F.E. and F.O. Stanley were twins born in Kingsland, Maine, on June 1, 1849. They operated a dry-plate photographic business in Massachusetts until 1896 when a steam-powered automobile built by George Whitney sparked their interest; and soon after they both encountered a French-designed gasoline auto at a fair in Brockton, Massachusetts. Within months they had designed a steam engine destined for their first car that was built for them by the Mason Regulator Company of Milton, Massachusetts.
The reasons for the steam engine, including flexibility of fuels that can be burnt, the design of the actual engine is simplicity itself (often with less than 25 moving parts), steam power provides nearly instantaneous torque that precludes the need for multi-speed transmissions/gearboxes or hand crank starting, and steam power has a long record of reliability in the railroad industry.
This 1913 Stanley-Steamer Model 76 is a right-hand drive vehicle. The company did not switch to the left hand drive configuration until 1915. The boiler is carefully concealed under the 'coffin nose' hood. This was the classic look of the Stanley automobiles. The cars are reported to get about a mile to one gallon of water with comfortable cruising speeds being achieved at around 35 mph.
