Bidders ‘revved up’ for 1906 Daytona trophy
Picault bronze sells for double the high estimate
A patinated bronze trophy by French sculptor Emile Louis Picault (1833-1915) astounded everyone when it sold for over $43,000 at a recent sale held by Miller & Miller Auctions Ltd.
The Dec. 8, 2018 sale, Automobilia, Bronzes & Americana – The Aarssen Collection, included 438 lots and drew widespread interest and generated strong prices. But no one predicted the 48-inch trophy (122 cm), estimated at $15,000 to $20,000 (CDN), would fetch $43,660 (a price that includes the buyer’s premium).
The bronze figural trophy was presented at the 1906 Ormond-Daytona Beach Automobile Races and was considered the event mascot. On the lower right side appears the name ‘E. Picault’. The base reads ‘Corinthian Prize presented by George W. Young, Ten Mile Corinthian Automobile Championship, Ormond Daytona Beach Florida, Jan. 22nd to 27th 1906. Prior to the Florida races the trophy had been displayed at an auto show at the Armoury in New York and was reported to have attracted “a great deal of attention and admiration”.
Known as Speed Carnivals, the annual Florida races lasted less than a decade, “but saw American motoring grow from rich man’s sport to national obsession,” said Beverly Kate Kimes in her 1987 American Heritage magazine story entitled The Dawn of Speed: The Ormond-Daytona Automobile Races.
“Beach racing made wonderful sense at the turn of the century,” she wrote. “Unlike Europe, whose fine roadways went back to Napoleonic times and beyond, the United States was ill prepared for the burgeoning horseless age. Less than seven per cent of the nation’s roads were surfaced at all, which meant that except for horse tracks occasionally rented for the purpose, there were few places in America to exercise one’s automobile.”
That is, until the Ormond-Daytona races. The stretch of beach was described as “smooth as a billiards table” and “one of the finest natural racecourses in the world”.
The annual event took place at the end of January and even the area’s most expensive hotels were booked to the hilt. The idea for the races first emerged in 1902 when, according to Kimes, there were only about 5,000 native-built cars in the entire country.
Two years before Picault’s trophy was presented at the 1906 races, Henry Ford had driven his latest race car across the ice of Lake St. Clair in Michigan, reaching a speed of just over 91 mph. At the time, it was the fastest speed recorded in America.
According to the Kimes story, the Speed Carnival of 1906 was more businesslike than previous years and most of the drivers were professionals who drove cars entered by the factories who made them. It was the Stanley Steamer, driven by Fred Marriott, that broke the one-mile speed record that year – and generated some fierce competition, not to mention raised eyebrows.
A Frenchman, Victor Hémery, driving a Darracq, vigorously objected when his vehicle was declared 44 pounds too heavy for one of the races. “His outburst was recognized as profanity even by those with no knowledge of French,” recounts Kimes. And there was more.
“During the early qualifying runs, seeing Fred Marriott’s Stanley Steamer as his most formidable opposition, Hémery pulled alongside the car and revved his engine furiously, in hopes that flames from the Darracq’s exhaust might set the Stanley’s canvas and wood body afire.” In the end, Hémery was disqualified and the Stanley Streamer won six races and set a record for exceeding two miles in a minute.
This Picault bronze harkens back to that eventful year and more generally to one of the most famous historical automotive events in North America.
Author - Diane Sewell
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