Chassis No.

J11926


Engine No.

H1159



Cleveland, Ohio's F.B.

Stearns Company staked its reputation on refinement and the Knight double-sleeve-valve engine, which it championed for quietness and durability at the very top of the luxury market.

Period sales literature even boasted that the Stearns-Knight engine "improves with use...

The patented Knight sleeve valve engine is the only motor-mechanism known that, to a limit never yet reached, grows better, sweeter, more thoroughly satisfactory with every mile!"



By the late 1920s, the line culminated in the J8-90, a 385-cu-in sleeve-valve straight-eight on a massive, partially boxed chassis.

Marque research indicates that just 388 J8-90s were produced across 1928–29, with only about 11 complete cars known today, which seldom appear for public sale.



Long held in Southern California, chassis J11926 later passed through the hands of noted Knight devotees Richard Hamilton, Ken Lane, and Peter Woyen and Mark Young.

By the time o...