"THE ARISTOCRAT OF MOTORDOM"

The Baker Motor Vehicle Company of Cleveland, Ohio, produced what is widely considered the highest-quality American electric car in an era when that was a serious challenger to internal combustion engines. Bakers were known for elegant design, very luxurious but tasteful interior appointments, and solid engineering. They were favored by the cream of society and appropriately priced. Not for nothing did the firm advertise its product as “The Aristocrat of Motordom.”

The Model V offered here is a four-passenger Special Extension Coupe, the last of the truly top-of-the-line enclosed styles with the most beautiful—and lightest, and thus best-performing—aluminum bodywork, a style discontinued after this year. It is based on a light chassis with a Gruenfeldt solid rear axle and semi-elliptical leaf springs, and a 60-volt battery delivering power to a General Electric high-speed motor through a five-speed rotary controller, a sophisticated design which returned good power.

This car was formerly owned by Hugh Holbrock, a prominent Hamilton, Ohio, attorney and colorful character known for his joie de vivre. With his wife, Clara, Mr. Holbrock built an enviable collection of both antique automobiles and horse-drawn conveyances, and was known for using them in local events and parades. Following Mrs. Holbrock’s passing, the couple’s collection was sold at auction in 2005, and the Baker Electric was acquired by James Cousens of Michigan, at the time the most prominent and prolific collector of vintage electric vehicles.

Mr. Cousens commissioned a meticulous full restoration of the car by the noted restorer Bill Auerbach, including patent leather fenders reconstructed by Amish craftsmen and a correct brown broadcloth and brocade fabric interior by Mark Larder. Very few electrics, much less Bakers, have been restored so comprehensively and to such an extremely high standard.

After the Baker had spent several years as the centerpiece of Mr. Cousens’ Cedar Crossing Collection, the collection was sold en masse to Houston collector John O’Quinn. Mr. O’Quinn’s estate, in turn, sold the Baker in 2012 to the renowned enthusiast Terry Adderley, from whose wonderful private museum it was acquired by the present owner. Its restoration continues to present beautifully, with its exterior and interior finishes in superb condition, complete with the simple controls and instrumentation characteristic of the model.

Indisputably one of the very best-restored extant examples of perhaps the most prestigious pre-war American electric car, this Baker Electric has everything to recommend it to the collector of fine automobiles who seeks an electric and desires absolutely the very finest.