• Air-cooled four-cylinder engine • Present ownership since 1990 • Restored in Belgium in 1993 • Starts and runs with a valid Contrôle Technique America's longest-lived and most successful air-cooled automobile, the Franklin was the work of engineer John Wilkinson, whose innovative design, produced in prototype form for the New York Automobile Company, was taken up by Syracuse-based die-casting manufacturer Herbert H Franklin.

Franklin's company sold its first car (a runabout) in June 1902 and a dozen more before the year's end.

In an age when the customary power unit for such a vehicle was a water-cooled single-cylinder, Wilkinson's 1.7-litre, air-cooled four was highly unusual.

The Franklin's other advanced features included overhead valves (inlets mechanically operated from 1905), throttle speed control, float-type carburettor, two-speed planetary transmission and full-elliptic springing.

This Franklin's early history is not known prior to the 1970s when it was owned by a Mr Ran...