Selden Motor Vehicle Company

{{short description|Defunct American motor vehicle manufacturer}}

{{Infobox company

| name = Selden Motor Vehicle Company

| logo = The literary digest (1890) (14779726871).jpg

| logo_caption = 1919 Selden advertisement in The Literary Digest

| industry = Automotive

| predecessor = Buffalo Gasoline Motor Company

| founded = {{Start date and age|1906}}

| founder = George Baldwin Seldon

| defunct = {{end date and age|1932}}

| hq_location = Rochester, New York

| hq_location_country = United States

| key_people = George B. Selden, E. T. Birdsall, Frederick A. Law

| products = Automobiles

| production = 7,424

| production_year = 1908-1914

}}

File:Selden Model 25.jpg

The Selden Motor Vehicle Company was a Brass Era American manufacturer of automobiles. The company, founded in 1906, was based in Rochester, New York, and built automobiles from 1907 to 1914 and trucks from 1913 to 1932.{{Kimes-USCars3rd}}

History

The Selden Motor Vehicle Company was founded by George B. Selden, whose 1877 patent was the first U.S. patent of a "horseless carriage" which because of numerous later amendments was not granted until 1895.{{cite book |title=Rochester and the Automobile Industry |pages=2, 5, 6 |url=https://www.libraryweb.org/~rochhist/v43_1981/v43i2-3.pdf}} To make the patent more credible, in 1907 Selden built a car on the lines of the 1877 design. This patent would be declared "unenforceable" in 1911.{{Georgano-EncAuto3v}}

E. T. Birdsall designed the first Selden, a 30hp 4-cylinder car placed on the market in June 1907. A car in the $2,000 to $2,500 ({{Inflation|US|2500|1907|fmt=eq}}) price range, the Selden grew from a 109-inch wheelbase car to a 125-inch wheelbase. In 1911 George Selden's patent was declared unenforceable, and his factory had a fire that summer. Insurance covered the damages and production continued. Late in 1911, the company was reorganized internally, with Frederick A. Law, formerly with Columbia became designer and plant superintendent. The last Selden passenger cars were built in 1914.

In 1913, the company began production of Selden trucks and this successfully continued until the company's sale to the Hahn Motor Truck Company of Hamburg, Pennsylvania in 1930. Hahn and Selden went out of business in 1932. George B. Selden died in 1923.

Production models

Selden Model 25
Selden Model 29{{cite web|url= https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015036836156&seq=226 |title= Selden Model 29 |date=1909-01-15|publisher= Hand book of automobiles (1909) |access-date=2025-03-23}}
Selden Model 35 {{cite web|url= https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015022474715&seq=222 |title= Selden Model 35 |date=1910-01-15|publisher= Hand book of automobiles (1910) |access-date=2025-03-24}}
Selden Model 46

File:1909SeldenModel29ad.jpg|1909 Selden Model 29 advertisement

File:1910SeldenModel35ad.jpg|1910 Selden Model 35 advertisement

File:Selden 1911-0128.jpg|1911 Selden Model 46 advertisement

File:SeldenTruckad0820.jpg|1920 Selden Motor Trucks advertisement

External links

[https://www.conceptcarz.com/vehicle/z14740/selden-model-40r.aspx 1911 Seldon Model 40R at ConceptCarz]
Barnes, J. W. (1981, April). Rochester and the Automobile Industry. Rochester History, XLIII