Breakthrough: The starter motor

By 1910 the fight was over – and as we all know, petrol won, driven largely by the success of the Ford Model T. But these early electric cars held out for a surprisingly long time, well into the 20th century, despite the (by modern standards) feeble energy density of their lead-acid batteries, unreliable brushed DC motors, and speed controllers that were basically variable resistors, with their inherent massive efficiency losses. 

How, then, did they hold out against the increasing sophistication of the internal combustion engine, literally exploding with progress in that first decade of what would become the century of the piston? For that matter, how did steam power hold out so long, with cars like the Stanley Steamer still selling in respectable quantities until around 1915? 

Well, one reason was that electric – and steam – cars did not have to be started by hand-cranking. And all petrol cars (there were no diesels, as of yet) did. This was because the electric starter would not be invented until 1911, by two General Motors engineers – Charles F. ‘Boss’ Kettering, a prolific inventor who also came up with leaded petrol and the Freon refrigerant that enabled mass production of refrigeration equipment, and Henry M. Leland, the founder of the Cadillac and Lincoln brands – and inventor of the electric barber clippers.

As usual, even the best ideas are rarely completely novel – one Clyde J. Coleman had filed a similar patent for an electric starter as early as 1903, but Kettering and Leland have, rightly or wrongly, gone down in history as the inventors.

If you’ve never hand-cranked a car, you may not fully understand the true significance of this seemingly simple invention. I have. My dad taught me the art on his 1926 Model T. Firmly engage the simple dog clutch on the business end of the starting handle into the exposed end of the crankshaft, positioning it at about 3 o’clock. Don’t even try to ‘wind’ the engine like a clockwork toy – anyway, good luck winding the draggy old 2.9-litre lump that powers a Ford T; you’d need biceps like Thor. 

Instead, you gently torque the handle to about 7 o’clock, until you feel the compression push back as you approach top dead centre of one piston. Then, assuming the driver has selected the appropriate amounts of throttle, ignition advance, mixture and choke, you whip the crank handle up with a sharp pull from the shoulder. My dad impressed on my youthful self that you should never – repeat, NEVER – cede to the temptation to wrap your thumb around the handle to get a ‘better’ grip. 

No, the thumb needs to be kept well out of the way, so that you pull up with an open hand, four cupped fingers doing all the work. This is in case the engine backfires – quite possible at any time, rather more likely if your driver is a little too enthusiastic with the ignition advance, therefore increasing the chance of that big ol’ half-litre piston firing early and spinning the crank handle the ‘wrong’ way, with a kick that can break or dislocate a wayward thumb. 

This routine is one of the enjoyable chores of operating a Ford Model T these days, an agreeably arcane rite, like starting a Tiger Moth by swinging the prop. But imagine it’s no longer a beloved old vintage car, perfect for waving at kids as you putt-putt by on a sunny Sunday morning run. Imagine instead that you are a farmer on the dirt road at the edge of a wet Ohio pasture in 1910, with damp ignition coils and tired muscles from your day’s work. 

Night is falling and a wind-squall is chilling you to the bone as you bend over the T’s radiator, hoping the goddamn thing will start first pull, half-regretting the mare you sold to buy it from the fast-talking Ford salesman in Columbus. Make no mistake and forget all nostalgia – hand-cranking a car was a disagreeable, painful and potentially dangerous chore.

Take another look at the wonderful advertisement for the 1912 Columbia Runabout above. Not only has it a dedicated electrical charging station (yup, 110 years ago…) but note the customer – it’s a woman, in a very elegant gown and a hat fit for the Royal Box at Ascot. Now, this is not a precursor to the car industry’s well-known penchant for peddling metal by using young women to attract or distract the male gaze. No, this is much more targeted marketing, as we’d say these days. 

Electric cars really did appeal specifically to early female motorists. Why? Again, because of the hand-cranking problem. Perhaps it’s because the physical strength required to hand-crank an engine was more of a challenge for female than male customers, or maybe women were simply smart enough to realise all that sweaty exertion was unbecoming, and so demanded better. Female fashions of the time – trousers were still a daring item of clothing – did not exactly help, either.

So Kettering and Leland’s invention was truly epoch-making. The genius of these early starter motors was not so much actual starter motor itself: that was simply the application of a well-known technology, the simple brushed DC electric motor, a version of which Michael Faraday had demonstrated as far back as 1821. 

No, the clever bit was the clutch – the so-called ‘Bendix’ that was permanently engaged with the flywheel, only to be ‘thrown out’ or disengaged by a helical secondary gear as the motor caught and accelerated the flywheel faster than the electric motor’s shaft. This was the true genius idea – using a differential rotating speed to generate a linear motion, and hence a sliding disengagement action.

The first car to apply the electric starter in production was Leland’s own Cadillac Model Thirty in 1912, and it quickly became commonplace, with only the cheapest and most basic vehicles holding out with hand-cranked starting handles into the Thirties. I can’t quite identify the last production car to come with a cranking handle, but it may well be the Citroën 2CV, which I understand offered one as an option right up until the end of its long life, in 1990. 

Now, let’s not fall into the trap of over-claiming the significance of Kettering and Leland’s wonderful invention. Some would accord it almost sole credit for being the ‘killer app’ of its time that allowed the ICE to snuff out electricity and steam as motive power sources. I would dispute that – it certainly played an important part, but I would credit other factors also, like metallurgical breakthroughs, massive cost-reduction through the application of mass-production principles borrowed from the small-arms industry and huge advances in spark-ignition systems, to name but three.

Ironically, the Model T itself was a very late adopter of the technology – electric start was only offered as an option from 1926 onwards, at the very end of the T’s long lifetime, when an ageing Henry Ford finally ceded to pressure from his ill-fated son Edsel to offer such fripperies as all-metal construction, colours other than black…and electric start.

So, the next time you turn the key, push the START button, or even hit the little icon on your smartphone to start your car’s engine, please give a little mental thumbs up to Messrs Kettering and Leland for their invention, 111 years ago. Hopefully, those thumbs will never have to feel the pain of a starting handle kicking back like a particularly cantankerous mule.