Evolution Of The Automobile: Buckboards And Buggies

My favorite model building subjects are early cars–from the dawn of the automobile age to about the mid 1930s or so.

- Harry Pristovnik

Since my favorite aspect of building model cars is adding the small details that bring a model to life, early cars with their “openness,” exposing much of the mechanical details that were hidden under sheet metal in later cars, interest me most as subject matter. I love a cool looking new car as much as the next guy, but for me, building a model of an old “brass era” car is far more interesting and fun than building a model of a modern car.

I also enjoy building models of wheeled vehicles from before the days of the internal-combustion automobile, including buggies, wagons, stagecoaches, and all other sorts of horse drawn vehicles. Using wood as a building material also appeals to me as a fun alternative to styrene, so the fact that these horse-drawn vehicles were made of wood–and the fact that wooden kits of many of these vehicles are available–is another reason why I like building them.

With that in mind, I’d like to go through a quick tour of the early history of the automobile, using various kits I’ve built over the years as examples of the evolution from horse drawn buggy to self-propelled automobile. We will cover this history in three parts, beginning this month with the vehicles that Americans relied on in the years before the auto made them all obsolete. Things like buggies, buckboards, stagecoaches, and the like.