The Roebling Museum has published the first complete history of the Mercer automobile, made a century ago.
“Mercer Magic: Roeblings, Kusers, The Mercer Automobile Company” is the first complete history of the Mercer automobile, made a century ago by the bridge-building Roebling family, and the Mercer Raceabout, called “America’s first sports car,” now a million-dollar antique.
Author Clifford W. Zink will have the book launch at the Roebling Museum at 100 Second Ave., Roebling, on Sunday, Nov. 15, from 3 to 5 p.m. The program will be repeated at the Ellarslie Museum in Trenton on Sunday, Dec. 13, at 2 p.m.
A book signing is planned to be held at Hopewell Motors, 49 East Broad St., Hopewell, on Saturday, Nov. 21, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Weather permitting, one or more Mercer automobiles will be at each of these events.
The hardcover, full-color book has 208 pages and 335 illustrations. It is written with input from Mercer collectors, restorers, and descendants of the Kuser and Roebling families.
For information contact Varissa McMickens-Blair at the Roebling Museum, 609-499-7200.
Mr. Zink tells the story of the Mercer automobile, built in New Jersey at the beginning of the 20th century and triumphantly raced in competitions across the country in the era when car design and manufacturing were at the center of American technological innovation.
At the height of Trenton’s industrial era, the prominent Roeblings and Kusers founded theMercer Automobile Company in 1909 to manufacture “a car in a class by itself.” In 1910, Mercer introduced its two-seater Raceabout in its signature color canary yellow. Washington A. Roebling II, grandson of John A. Roebling of Brooklyn Bridge fame, won second place in his Mercer Raceabout in the International Light Car Race in Savannah that year, just two years before he was lost in the Titanic disaster on his way home from a European driving tour.
Amateur and professional racers, including the notable “speed kings” Hughie Hughes and Ralph De Palma, won Mercer racing glory in numerous races across the country over the next several years. A Mercer driven by Trenton’s own Eddie Pullen was the first American car to win the American Grand Prize Race in 1914.
