Engine – 236.5-Cubic-Inch Air-Cooled Overhead-Valve Inline Six-Cylinder
Transmission – Three-Speed Manual
Horsepower – 46 HP
Wheelbase – 119 inches
Brakes – Four-Wheel Hydraulic Drum Brakes
Coachwork – Walker Body Company
Production – One Known Example

“Aura Vincit—Air Conquers”

The Franklin automobile originated through the collaboration of engineer John Wilkinson and Syracuse industrialist Herbert H. Franklin. Wilkinson, a Cornell engineering graduate, had completed two experimental air-cooled automobiles for the New York Automobile Company by 1901 but had not been compensated for his work. He subsequently met Alexander T. Brown, an investor in several upstate New York businesses, who introduced Wilkinson and his automobile to Franklin, then a former newspaper publisher and manufacturer of die castings.

After riding in one of Wilkinson’s prototypes, Franklin determined that the H. H. Franklin Company should manufacture automobiles. Brown became a principal investor, and, following litigation, the New York Automobile Company was absorbed into the Franklin enterprise. The first production Franklin was sold to S. G. Averill of New York City on June 23, 1902, for $1,200. Twelve additional automobiles were completed that year.

The earliest Franklins were runabouts powered by transversely mounted, air-cooled four-cylinder engines with overhead valves. Their construction also incorporated throttle control, float-feed carburetion, two-speed planetary transmissions, full-elliptic springs, and wooden frames. These features established Franklin's engineering philosophy of simplicity, flexibility, and reduced weight.

Several of these principles endured for much of the company’s existence. Full-elliptic suspension provided a flexible ride while reducing tire wear, and laminated wooden frames remained in use through 1928. Franklin engines retained overhead valves throughout production. Lightweight construction also encouraged the use of aluminum, including the company’s early adoption of aluminum pistons in 1915. Relative to its income, Franklin maintained one of the automobile industry’s largest engineering budgets.

The durability of Franklin’s engineering was demonstrated in 1904, when L. L. Whitman and Franklin representative C. S. Carris drove a runabout from New York to San Francisco in fewer than 33 days, reducing the existing transcontinental records set by Winton and Packard by nearly half. Further technical development brought standardized production of six-cylinder automobiles in 1914. Franklin also became an early advocate of the enclosed automobile. Its first production sedan appeared late in 1913, and the company subsequently remained closely associated with that body style. Although Franklin generally avoided competition, its automobiles achieved several notable demonstrations of performance. Southern California distributor Ralph Hamlin won the 1912 Los Angeles-to-Phoenix contest in a Franklin, while a 1917 economy run involving 179 Franklins produced an average of 40.3 miles per gallon.

However, despite these successes of engineering purposiveness, the first substantial challenge to Franklin’s established philosophy came during the summer of 1923. Dealers increasingly argued that the company’s unconventional appearance restricted sales. A delegation led by Hamlin, Franklin’s Southern California distributor since 1905, traveled to Syracuse and threatened to surrender its franchises unless the company introduced a more conventionally styled automobile. Herbert Franklin accepted the dealers’ argument, but Wilkinson opposed fitting an air-cooled automobile with a false radiator. His belief in form following function had produced a one-piece hood hinged at the front and designed for easy removal. A radiator-like grille served no mechanical purpose and, to Wilkinson, represented the subordination of engineering to appearance. He resigned from the company in protest.

The false radiator marked Franklin's first significant concession to contemporary design ambitions—slowly eroding the purity of the company’s philosophy of purposeful engineering. Designer J. Frank de Causse transformed the imposed conventional frontage into a more resolved design language for the Series 11, introduced in 1925. Under his direction, Franklin established a custom department and expanded its offerings through coachbuilders including LeBaron, Brunn, Derham, Holbrook, Willoughby, Locke, and Merrimac. De Causse demonstrated that conventional styling could coexist with Franklin engineering, at least while the luxury-car market remained strong during the 1920s. The Series 11 included a low boattail speedster, making Franklin—long associated with enclosed sedans—one of the earliest American manufacturers to catalogue the sporting body form. Following de Causse’s death in 1928, Raymond Dietrich became increasingly influential in the development of Franklin coachwork. Introduced during the same year, the Airman represented the continued development of Franklin’s air-cooled six-cylinder automobile. Its name recognized aviator and Franklin owner Charles Lindbergh.

Production exceeded 14,000 automobiles in 1929, but the company had expanded through substantial borrowing shortly before the collapse of the luxury-car market. Output fell to fewer than 2,000 automobiles by 1932, and a banking syndicate assumed control with Edwin McEwan in charge. Under creditor direction, Franklin’s earlier compromises gave way to automobiles that departed more fundamentally from its established philosophy. Notably, the Franklin Twelve represented the most conspicuous of these departures. Franklin engineers Edward Marks and Carl Doman had developed a promising V-12 prototype, but its production form was placed on a substantially heavier, truck-like chassis. The new construction eliminated the full-elliptic suspension and tubular axles that had long contributed to Franklin’s flexibility and reduced weight. At approximately three tons, the completed automobile weighed roughly one-third more than the prototype. Its LeBaron coachwork was formal and elegant, but the underlying car no longer embodied the lightness that had guided Franklin engineering.

The Olympic, introduced later in 1932, moved still further from Franklin practice. Its chassis and body were supplied by Reo in Lansing, Michigan, after which Franklin installed an Airman engine, hood, hubcap emblems, and other identifiers in Syracuse. The Reo instrument panel retained a provision for a water-temperature gauge, an instrument unnecessary in an air-cooled Franklin. That unused location provided a visible indication that the Olympic had been conceived according to another manufacturer’s engineering requirements. Franklin produced only 360 automobiles in 1934, its final year. The company’s failure did not demonstrate that air cooling or Wilkinson’s principles had become unworkable. Instead, external commercial pressure, economic collapse, and creditor intervention progressively deprived Franklin of the independence required to pursue them.

It was before these final departures, during Franklin’s last period of sustained success, that the Series 12-A Airman Convertible Sedan now preserved in the Singleton Collection was constructed. Its fully convertible four-door body was designed by Raymond Dietrich and constructed by the Walker Body Company of Amesbury, Massachusetts, under the auspices of Franklin’s Custom Body Division. It is presently believed to be the only Franklin constructed with this body. Franklin engineer W. Chapin Condit later recalled the automobile arriving at the factory Experimental Room accompanied by Herbert Franklin, Raymond Dietrich, and its new owner, identified as “Mrs. Oberdorfer.” Her husband operated a Syracuse foundry that supplied many of the cast-aluminum components used in Franklin automobiles.

The car reappeared during the 1960s and was acquired by Harrah’s Automobile Collection in 1965. Bill Harrah maintained a particular interest in Franklin, with more than 80 examples passing through his collection. Plans for an expanded museum included a reconstructed Franklin dealership containing eight different 1928 body styles. This Convertible Sedan was intended as the centerpiece of that display. Harrah entrusted its restoration to Franklin historian and specialist Thomas Hubbard. Completed in 1968, the work returned the automobile to colors derived from promotional artwork prepared for the design and Franklin’s Custom Body Division. During the dispersal of Harrah’s Automobile Collection, the Franklin passed to General William Lyon in 1987. It entered subsequent long-term ownership early in 1988 and remained largely unexhibited but carefully preserved for nearly four decades before entering the Singleton Collection in 2026.

This Series 12-A Airman is significant both as an expression of Franklin engineering and as an individual custom automobile. Its air-cooled six-cylinder chassis represents the development of the principles that had guided the company since 1902, while its one-off Dietrich design documents Franklin’s emergence as a producer of custom-bodied cars. Its Oberdorfer association, Hubbard restoration, and long history within Harrah’s collection provide a remarkably complete record of its creation, interpretation, and preservation, reflecting a period of time when “Air truly did conquer.”