The Mercer Raceabout Was America’s Sports Car Decades before the Corvette

In 1911, the Titanic was still floating. Arizona and New Mexico weren’t even states yet. The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) wouldn’t be formed for another 33 years, and the Corvette wouldn’t come about for another 42. Even in 1911, though, America already had a sports car—the Mercer Raceabout. One of these pioneering motorcars, built 111 years ago, is up for grabs at this year’s Monterey auctions.

Founded in 1909 in Trenton, New Jersey (which is in Mercer County), the Mercer Automobile Company was led by the Roebling family (of Brooklyn Bridge fame) and employed the engineering talents of Finley Robertson Porter. Mercer’s first cars arrived in 1910, but the company announced its most exciting model—the Raceabout—for the 1911 model year. Washington A. Roebling II conceived it while Robertson Porter brought it to reality.

At the heart of the new motorcar was its T-head four-cylinder engine. At 4.9 liters, it was relatively small in an era of monster motors, but with 55 hp it was potent (a Ford Model T made about 20), and the roadster it powered was light in weight. With minimal bodywork and no doors, top, or windows, you didn’t so much sit inside a Raceabout as you did sit on top of it. The low chassis and engine, meanwhile, made for a low center of gravity and superior maneuverability compared to almost any pre-World War I automobile. Each Raceabout came with a guarantee of 70 mph speed, when most cars on the road struggled to hit 45. It wasn’t hard to modify a Mercer to go even faster, either.

With world-class performance and ad copy like “The Mercer is the Steinway of the automobile world,” it’s no wonder that this car had a lofty price tag, too. Raceabouts cost about $2500, when a Model T cost well under $1000 and median household income was only about 700 bucks. Mercer’s target audience was wealthy sportsmen, who immediately took them racing. Raceabouts won five of the six races they entered in 1911, and one finished third overall at the second Indy 500, in 1912. Mercers also played out a fierce on-track rivalry with the Indianapolis-built Stutz Bearcat several generations before Corvette v. Cobra and Camaro v. Mustang. A four-speed transmission (up from three) arrived for the 1913 Mercer, which allowed even higher speeds. Cars used in competition could do 100 mph.

As a company, Mercer quickly changed direction in the 1910s. The Titanic may have been afloat when Washington A. Roebling II took the helm at Mercer, but he died on the infamous ocean liner when it went to the bottom of the North Atlantic in 1912. Robertson Porter left the company in 1914, and his replacement updated the Raceabout with a new L-head engine as well as more practical but less sporting and sexy enclosed bodywork. Two more of the Roeblings died in 1917 and 1918. Some corporate machinations followed, and the last Mercers left the New Jersey operation in 1925.

One original Raceabout, serial no. 35J-1273, sold new in 1913 to its first owner in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Six years later it sold to another Cambridge gentleman named Raymond N. Skilton, who rolled it while attempting to race a train. A period report reads “Mercer was going about 80 mph and clipped rear of mailman’s Buick which was backing out of a driveway. Mercer flipped several times. Minor injuries only.” Whoops.

Skilton promptly had the car repaired, including the fitment of a replacement chassis. He kept the car for another two decades. It sold to another Massachusetts man in 1941 for $30, though by this time the car was a little shabby, and it sold again in 1942 for $300 to early collector Jack Fetterolf. Noticing that early motorcars were starting to sell for real money in the postwar years, Skilton tried to pursue an ownership claim on the Mercer, alleging it was stolen when he owned it. The claim didn’t pan out, and Fetterolf wound up keeping the car until 1959.

The Mercer’s next owner was collector Dan Williams of Dallas, who bought it from Fetterolf for $14,000 in cash on an installment plan, plus a 1930 Packard on trade. Williams soon had it restored, and it has remained in his family ever since. After a brief time on display in 2011–12 at the Texas Museum of Automotive History in Dallas, it has been out of the public eye. Originally painted gray, today it wears a more charming yellow, and has nifty period accessories like a monocle windscreen, Rushmore searchlight, and scary-looking third “dickey” seat atop the passenger’s side running board. Coming out of 65 years of ownership with the same family, it has a known ownership from new in 1913 and has never been offered at auction before.

Many Raceabouts have been lost to history, and many that are out there today are less valuable Mercer models fitted with the more rakish Raceabout bodywork. This one is the real deal, though, and when it crosses the block at Broad Arrow’s Monterey auction, it has a presale estimate of $2,500,000–$3,000,000.