Vanderbilt Cup Races

John Walter Christie (May 6, 1865 – January 11, 1944) was an American inventor, designer and builder of a wide variety of motorized vehicles. He was also a well known early American race car driver.

He is probably best known for developing the Christie suspension system used in several World War II-era Tanks. From 1918 to his death in 1944, Christie actually built a staggering array of different AFV's, or amoured fighting vehicles, as they are called by Military historians.  The complete history of these vehicles may soon be told by historian Neal Gunderson.

But before that, between 1904 and 1910, based in New York City, Christie built front wheel drive automobiles. Based on his US Patent No. 761,657 filed Jan.18, 1904, the main object of his invention was to "secure the greatest simplicity of high-speed front wheel drive, combined with front wheel steering".  His invention consisted of locating the engine between the driving wheels with it's crankshaft adapted, through clutches at each end, to directly drive the front wheels.  The "Christie Direct Action Motor Car Company" was formed in 1905 to operate the business. He did not patent and was not the first to invent front wheel drive or sliding pillar independent front suspension, although he used both on all his automobiles.

Like many others, to promote his automobiles, Walter Christie went racing.  He drove against famous American race drivers Barney Oldfield, Louis Chevrolet and George Robertson. He competed in the 1905 and 1906 Vanderbilt Cup Races (see the 0:26 second mark of the film below.) against the very best European drivers who came to the USA. Great names like Lancia, Jenatzy, Wagner, Cagno, Nazarro and Clement. Although he didn't finish anywhere near the front of the field, one must remember that to qualify for the Vanderbilt Cup race, American automobile manufacturers had to first race against each other in an Elimination race. Christie was up against multi-car teams from larger American automobile companies, who often used paid professional drivers (foreign drivers were allowed too), but he made it through to the main event each year.

In 1907, Christie built, tested and then shipped to France his latest racing car for the 1907 French Grand Prix. Also see above Peter Helck painting. Christie drove the car himself, but dropped out on lap 4 of 10 laps.  Not a great result, but many other big name manufacturers didn't finish either.  A FIAT won, their other 2 cars retired.  Two of three Mercedes retired. The entire three car Panhard team retired. 

Film of the race still exists and it includes Two short clips of the Christie in action.  60 years later, Dan Gurney became the only American to win a Grand Prix in his own car. 

Walter Christie also competed 5 times at the Ormond/Daytona Beach races, between 1905-1910.  His last race car reached 118mph on the beach, the fastest  American gasoline automobile in 1910. But not as fast as Barney Oldfield in a Blitzen Benz at 131mph.

Christie personally drove and developed his race cars until they became very fast on the oval dirt tracks of the period. But he never reached his dream of becoming an established automobile manufacturer.  He built at least one very nice Touring car and an attractive Roadster but there is no record of any additional production car sales. None of the half dozen or so cars he built are known to have survived.

Christie also built and patented a front wheel drive Taxicab in 1909. It had a transverse 4 cylinder motor, much like modern front drive automobiles. This allowed Christie to offer a clever feature where the entire front drive unit could be separated from the car for maintenance in a claimed 45 minutes. Another fresh front drive unit was installed to keep the Taxicab in continuous operation.  Unfortunately there is no evidence that Christie built more than the one prototype.  The prototype remained in the possession of one of Christie's investors for many years, but eventually it was scrapped. There's a story that Austin Clark had the hood (bonnet) at one time.

Next Christie built two airplane engines which were seen at the 1910 Belmont Park aviation meet. This was a big international competition, 30 of the world's greatest aviators competing in a variety of events for large cash prizes.  Christie's single overhead cam V-8 aviation motor was used by the famous early aviator Charles Hamilton.  The Christie V-8 looks similar to and could have been the precursor of the very successful Hispano Suiza V-8, one of the best Allied aircraft motors of WWI.  But that one Belmont event seems to be the beginning and end of Christie's aviation efforts.

In 1912 Christie began selling the 'Christie Front Drive' to fire departments all over the USA (perhaps worldwide).  Most fire engine equipment was horse drawn in those days. Christie's front drive tractor units replaced the horse, without having to replace all the other equipment. With estimates as high as 600 sold, this was Christie's largest manufacturing success.  Several Christie Front Drive tractor units remain today in museums in the USA. The mechanical design details of these vehicles have nothing whatever in common with Christie's earlier automobiles.

By 1918 Christie stopped selling the fire engine tractors and devoted the remainder of his life to Amoured Fighting Vehicles of various kinds.

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