A sleek 1936 Stout Scarab will be part of this weekend’s Concours d’Elegance. (Photo courtesy of Concours d’Elegance)
By Dave Elbert
The 1936 Stout Scarab will be a “star car” at this weekend’s Concours d’Elegance in Western Gateway Park. It rolled off the assembly line in Dearborn, Michigan, and resembles a stretch version of the original Volkswagen Beetle with a rear-mounted, rear-facing V8 engine.
Aviation engineer William Stout used aircraft technology to design his “car of the future,” which originally sold for $5,500 — ten times the price of a Ford sedan.
This year’s display of vintage and classic cars is set for 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Sunday around the Pappajohn Sculpture Park (where local car dealerships once lined “auto row” for most of the 20th century).
Did you know that Des Moines played a key role in automobile history? Here are three locally made vehicles that were ahead of their time. (Sorry, none are in this weekend’s show.)
Des Moines’ original “car of the future” was the world’s first electric vehicle. Local chemist William Morrison worked on the nine-seat, electric carriage for three years before its public debut on Sept. 4, 1890. “The electric buggy met with great applause” from 85,000 spectators as it rattled and wobbled down Walnut Street in the Seni Om Sed parade, according to Bill Jepson’s authoritative 2007 book, “Made in Iowa: Iowa’s Automobiles, An Entertaining and Enlightening History” (from which all three black and white photos came).
Morrison’s innovation was the “24 storage battery cells placed beneath the seats” that powered a trolley car motor. “The cells were charged without being removed, the process taking ten hours.” The batteries reportedly could drive “about 100 miles, without recharging, at a rate of six to 12 miles an hour.”
As many as 12 electric carriages were made in Des Moines. None survive, although in 2021 Boone County farmer David Junck created a replica of Morrison’s EV, which Junck now drives in parades.
Des Moines’ most successful automobile venture was the Mason. The vehicle was designed in 1906 by Fred and August Duesenberg, the brothers who went on to design race cars and luxury automobiles in Indianapolis.
The Mason was manufactured in Des Moines from 1906 until 1909, when Fred Maytag (of washing-machine fame) bought the company, rebranded the car as the Maytag-Mason and moved operations to Waterloo, where production ceased in 1914.
While the Duesenbergs were still in charge in 1906, the brothers staged a famous publicity photo of their Mason climbing the steps of the Iowa Capitol.
Des Moines’ third “car of the future” was the 1952 Saturn. Yes, nearly four decades before General Motors claimed the Saturn name plate in 1990, an Ames contractor named Lloyd Templeton hired a Des Moines body shop to build his personal dream car of the same name.
Templeton’s Saturn looked vaguely like the original (1953) Chevrolet Corvette, but the Saturn was 4 feet longer with much bigger tail fins. It also had two asymmetrical doors of different lengths. The Frankenstein creation was made of parts from eight cars and two boats, according to Jepsen.
Templeton drove his Saturn to California and showed it to Bob Hope, prompting the comedian to say that when he lifted the 90-inch hood it was “like looking into Martha Raye’s mouth.”
Jepsen devoted six pages of his book to Templeton’s Saturn. After Templeton died in 1991, the car ended up with Illinois auto collector Joe Bortz, who told Jepsen the Saturn was “the most important non-Detroit car built between 1948 and 1952.”
Dave Elbert has covered local history and Iowa business news for more than 40 years, first for the Des Moines Register and then the Business Record.
