Famous Racing Trophies to be Displayed at Garden Auto Show

Famous Racing Trophies to be Displayed at Garden Auto Show

Famous Racing Trophies to be Displayed at Garden Auto Show

The New York Times
December 19, 1909

Vanderbilt Cup Will Head Dazzling Exhibition, Which Will Be One of the Features—Many Firms Loan Valuable Prizes.

For five years past the interior of Madison Square Garden has been made more magnificent for the exhibit of motor cars than for any other of the varied events which hold forth in New York's famous exposition building. The efforts of the committee in charge of these exhibitions appear to be to conceal all the familiar lines of the interior of the structure. A praiseworthy fact in connection with this dressing of the amphitheatre is that year since the Show Committee of the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers took charge of the decorating progress has been made from the merely elaborate toward the elegant and simple. At the Garden Show, Jan. 8 to 15, there will be elaborateness and magnificence and less profusion in plaster casts and color and more richness in the general decorative scheme.

Even a partial investigation of the preparatory work now being done in order to decorate the Garden is astonishing. An illustration of how much work is involved in but one branch of the decorating is shown by the fact that for the past three months a number of men have been zealously working on the lamp signposts which are to mark the car exhibits. Over 12,000 square feet of boards are being cut into various sizes for the uniform signs of the accessory exhibits, the motor cycle display, and the commercial vehicle, exhibit which will be located in the basement. Already the floor upon which the exhibitors in the basement will display their product is being laid, and in many unoccupied places are stored tons of material which is part of the show property. In less than two weeks the big Garden will be given over entirely to decorators, designers, carpenters, electricians, and painters. In various sections of this city crafty tradesmen are putting the finishing touches to many of the decorative creations.

Racing trophies, great and minor, naturally increase in number each year, but 1909 has been an unusually active one in automobile contests, and the aggregate of cups and things now in the hands of motor car manufacturers and agents is enough to make a solid silver monument of heroic size to William J. Bryan, or some other man deserving such a fate. A fine display of these automobile trophies will be made at the show, and the public will then have the first good opportunity to see the prizes of which it has heard a great deal assembled all under one roof and in a group. The Show Committee has arranged to make this display of cups, placques, medallions and emblems a feature and special department of the show. A big case will be provided for the trophies, and they will all be ticketed and a pamphlet furnished telling the details of each trophy, its cost, history, &c., and by whom it was won. Big and little, there will be scores of prizes in this loan collection. Prominent will be the classic Vanderbilt Cup that was won by Harry F. Grant in the six-cylinder Alco. This will be loaned by the American Locomotive Company.

The Glidden and Hower trophies, both awarded to the Pierce-Arrow Motor Car Company, are objects of perennial interest also, and these will figure conspicuously. The Lozier Motor Company will contribute the handsome trophies won in twenty-four-hour races by their six-cylinder car and the splendid statuette won in the Long Island Motor Hunt. The Indiana trophy, the Massapequa Cup, the Merrimac Valley prize, and the Detroit trophy, won in the Glidden tour, will be among the many exhibits made by the Chalmers-Detroit Motor Company. The Dewar Cup, awarded by the Royal Automobile Club of London in its standardization test, will be loaned by the Cadillac Motor Car Company. The Knox Automobile Company and several others, also, have declared their intention of participating, and it is quite possible that some of the recently admitted members of the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers who will not have any cars on exhibition will be represented at the show in this display of trophies.