The 1911 Mercer 35R Raceabout
The Mercer Raceabout sketched the blueprint: light weight, a competent chassis, minimal creature comforts or useless gadgets, two seats, and with a willing engine driving the rear wheels.
A host of cars followed the Mercer’s lead over the decades after its creation, including the Jaguar XK120, roadsters from the likes of MG and Alfa Romeo, the Datsun 240Z, Mazda’s RX-7 and Miata, and today’s Toyota GT-86/Scion FR-S/ Subaru BRZ triplets.
Like many of the aforementioned sports cars, owners of the Mercer Raceabout could take their autobobiles directly to the racetrack. After finishing 15th in the 1911 Indianapolis 500, the Mercer team reinstalled their car’s headlights and fenders and drove it back to the company’s headquarters in Mercer County, New Jersey.
Mercer made do with a smaller engine in a lightweight car. That was not a prescription for victory at a track like Indianapolis, but on smaller circuits and in hillclimbing competition, which rewarded handling over horsepower, the Mercer was a force. Spencer Wishart, one of the top drivers of the era, once drove a Mercer straight from an Ohio dealership to a dirt-track event and won a 200-mile race.
The Raceabout was designed from the ground up to perform. Designers achieved a low center of gravity by placing the engine deep in the chassis, and by giving the driver and passenger low seating positions.
The car had no top, no body, and only minimal fenders. The driver sat behind a steeply raked steering column and no windshield to speak of. The external shift column used an H-pattern arrangement to select each gear, another feature that later became typical.
The foot brake was marginal at best, so a hand lever controlled rear drum brakes to add much-needed stopping power. Mercers utilized shaft drive between the engine and rear wheels, whereas most competitors of the day used chain drive.
Modern-day writers repeatedly comment that the car feels remarkably modern and nimble to drive, save for its inadequate brakes. As Ken Purdy wrote in The Kings of the Road, Most antique automobiles are not fast, and this one is.
Mercer guaranteed its customers that the car would top 70 miles per hour, a bold claim in the pre-World War I era. Its inline four-cylinder, 4.9-liter engine produced 56 horsepower at 1,900 rpm, but the torquey T-head engine had less than 2,300 pounds of curb weight to carry around. With a little tuning, 100 mph could be reached.
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| Mercer 35R Raceabout |
Mercer Raceabout Specifications
Number Remaining : 30 to 35
Clutch : Steel-steel, oil immersed
Transmission : Three-speed manual
Carburetion : Fletcher or Stewart updraft
Ignition : Dual, magneto
Weight : 2,240 lbs/1,015 kg
Today the Mercer Raceabout is the most desirable pre World War II car built in America. They typically change hands at more than $1 million. They have never been inexpensive, like the everyman sports cars that came after it. When new, a Raceabout cost $2,250, comparable to the price of a home.
That said, it’s impossible to overstate the importance of the Mercer’s influence. Every time an automaker decides to go back to the roots of what truly makes a car fun to drive, they build another link in the chain stretching back to the Mercer Raceabout.