PACIFIC SPECIAL

California Motor Car Co. (1911-1913)

Cole California Car Co. (1913)

Oakland, California

This is a Pacific Special radiator emblem (1911-1913)     sam
Size: 100mm wide 55mm high     MM: Unknown

The California Motor Car Company leased a factory in 1911 in Fruitvale, a suburb of Oakland in California, to build a motor car called the Pacific Special.

The Pacific Special was initially a four-cylinder assembled touring car, designed by Andrew K. Schram. The Standard Catalog records that the first Pacific Special prototypes were built in late 1911 and the first batch of twelve cars were delivered in the summer of 1912. Little more was heard of the Pacific Special until 1913, by which time Andrew Schram had departed and the company, now renamed the Cole California Car Company was in the hands of Frederick W. Cole of San Francisco. 

There were plans for a new four-cylinder model and/or a six-cylinder model but these did not materialise and it was all over by 1914. 

Total production figures for the Pacific Special are not known, although it is recorded that both touring and roadster models had been produced.

Emblem

The blue and black enamel Pacific Special radiator emblem shown above depicts the sun, in the style of a wheel, sinking into the Pacific Ocean behind the Golden Gate. This Pacific Special radiator emblem is extremely rare.