John C. Higdon was one of the early names in motoring, having built his first car in 1896. A decade later Higdon founded the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company in St. Louis, Missouri. That same year the company debuted the Model A Runabout, a 2- to 3-horsepower single-cylinder high-wheeler built on a 62-inch-wheelbase chassis. Metal-banded wooden wheels were standard and could be optioned with rubber for $25. At just $250, it was one of the most affordable cars on the market and was advertised as costing less than owning a horse. That, combined with a top speed of 18 mph and a claimed 100 mpg, made the Success an appealing proposition.

Like George B. Selden, the patent attorney who famously collected royalties from early automakers, Higdon used his legal expertise to secure and capitalize on patents for his own car’s designs. He later took several competitors to court, including the Economy Motor Buggy Company and the W.H. Kiblinger Company, a predecessor to Auburn. However, the Success Automobile Manufacturing Company went out of business in 1909, before Higdon’s lawsuits against his rivals reached final verdicts.

This 1906 Success was originally owned by W.L. Bristoll of Mount Blanchard, Ohio. A successful coal and grain elevator dealer, Mr. Bristoll was also a sales agent for Success automobiles. Mr. Bristoll famously drove a Success from his home to Columbus, Ohio—nine hours down and a little less than eight hours back—stopping and showing off the car along the way and later writing to the St. Louis-based company boasting of the successful trip and customer interest. This Success remained part of the Bristoll family for decades and was later tucked away in a barn in Mount Blanchard. Mr. Bristoll’s only child, Marguerite (Salisbury), eventually inherited it. Robert “Bob” Rutherford of Fremont, Ohio, acquired the car indirectly from Mrs. Salisbury, possibly in the 1980s. Mr. Rutherford picked up the car roughly 30 miles from his home, where it had been stored in a barn near Bradner, Ohio, not far from Perrysburg. Mr. Rutherford fully restored the car and showed it at numerous events, including the Old Car Festival at Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan, and the Labor Day weekend Milan Melon Festival in Ohio. In 2008 Mr. Rutherford sold the car to a noted collector of early motor cars, David Kolzow of Mendota, Illinois. The Success was later acquired in January 2013 by the Vehicle Vault Collection and has since been on display in the collection.

This 1906 Success features a brass headlamp, carriage steps, a horn, and a button-tufted bench seat. The single-cylinder air-cooled engine is fueled by a Lunkenheimer carburetor, and the engine is paired with a two-speed planetary gear transmission, with power transmitted through a chain drive to the driver-side rear wheel.

One of only approximately 600 Success high-wheelers built from 1906 to 1909, of which very few are believed to survive, this Model A Runabout offers a direct portal to the dawn of the automotive age—"an automobile that takes the place of a horse.”