The Adams was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 automobile

Automobile

An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...

 manufactured in Bedford

Bedford

Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

 between 1905 and 1914.

American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

-born Edward R. Hewitt had helped Sir Hiram Maxim to build a large steam plane in 1894. He later designed a "gas buggy" along the lines of an Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile

Oldsmobile was a brand of American automobile produced for most of its existence by General Motors. It was founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897. In its 107-year history, it produced 35.2 million cars, including at least 14 million built at its Lansing, Michigan factory...

; this machine was built by the Adams Manufacturing Company. The Adams had a supposedly foolproof epicyclic transmission with a 10 hp

Horsepower

Horsepower is the name of several units of measurement of power. The most common definitions equal between 735.5 and 750 watts.Horsepower was originally defined to compare the output of steam engines with the power of draft horses in continuous operation. The unit was widely adopted to measure the...

 (7.5 kW) single-cylinder engine. Indeed, "Pedals to push, that's all" was used as the marque's slogan. Hewitt eventually returned to the United States to manufacture similar cars under his own name, after which more conventional shaft-driven cars with vertical engines were produced (beginning in 1906). Models offered included two- and four-cylinder

Cylinder (engine)

A cylinder is the central working part of a reciprocating engine or pump, the space in which a piston travels. Multiple cylinders are commonly arranged side by side in a bank, or engine block, which is typically cast from aluminum or cast iron before receiving precision machine work...

 ones and one of the first British V-8s

V8 engine

A V8 engine is a V engine with eight cylinders mounted on the crankcase in two banks of four cylinders, in most cases set at a right angle to each other but sometimes at a narrower angle, with all eight pistons driving a common crankshaft....

; this last had a 35/40 hp (26/30 kW) engine based on the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 Antoinette model (an aeroengine for which Adams were agents). But the V-8 was plagued by crankshaft

Crankshaft

The crankshaft, sometimes casually abbreviated to crank, is the part of an engine which translates reciprocating linear piston motion into rotation...

breakages. In 1910, the company produced an advanced 16 hp (12 kW) model with front-wheel brakes; it came with compressed-air starting, tire-inflating, and jacking equipment. The "pedals-to-push" gear was still offered, as was a conventional four-speed transmission and an unusual planetary gearchange (three-speed), which was operated by a pedal that moved in a gate. The company folded for good in 1914.