Some chaps may float with their girl in a boat;

Some may fly in the air;

Some think the trolley just the thing:

Some the reins and a pair.

But the wise old guy who knows the real thing

Is easily within his reach,

Makes no mistake, but orders at once

An IMPERIAL and a “peach.”

—Period Imperial advertisement

The Imperial was the product of the Imperial Auto Company in the early motoring hotbed of Jackson, Michigan, from 1908 to 1915. A mid-sized “assembled car,” meaning that many of its components were sourced from other manufacturers and assembled in Jackson, it was well-designed and attractive. Imperial’s manufacturer eventually merged with Marion, builder of the Model 33 also in the Noto Collection, and this firm eventually merged into Handley-Knight, which became the predecessor of the legendary Checker Cab Company. As radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Among the finest Imperials was the 1912 Model 34, a five-passenger touring car with a Milwaukee Motor Company 40-horsepower four-cylinder engine mounted on a 116-inch-wheelbase chassis. “You will find no more handsome design, no greater motor efficiency, no more luxurious upholstering, and big, roomy bodies…than you will find in Imperial cars,” boasted the firm’s advertising.

This particular example was discovered in its original condition in the mid-1950s and became part of the collection of G. Morse and Dorothy Sawyer’s Sandhills Museum, an early roadside attraction displaying “antique autos, guns, musical instruments, lamps, dishes, and other unusual antiques” in Valentine, Nebraska. When the museum’s collection was sold in 2015, the largely complete, solid Imperial was purchased by Manny and George Dragone of Connecticut. Following a full restoration, documented by photographs included in the accompanying history file, it was shown at the 2016 Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance. The car was then acquired from the Dragones by Charles J. Noto for his collection in 2016.

Still in excellent and show-ready condition, this car must surely be one of the nicest-restored, best-preserved surviving examples of the rare Imperial, one of the many marques that formed the early American auto industry.