Originally known as the S&M Simplex, this great American marque was born from the New York City import firm of Smith & Mabley Inc. In 1907, the Simplex Automobile Company emerged when wealthy textile importer Herman Broesel acquired the firm’s assets – including their East 83rd Street factory and brilliant chief engineer, Edward Franquist. Franquist had been working on a design to match or exceed the best of Europe, and Broesel gave him the means to realize it.

The result was nothing short of extraordinary. The new Simplex automobile took its inspiration from the German Mercedes-Simplex and employed a 597 cid T-head four-cylinder engine with nearly 3” valves and gun iron castings, delivering 50 hp to a four-speed transaxle with dual chain drive. Built for speed, endurance, and elegance, the Simplex 50 HP was a genuine thoroughbred.

Its competition record was immediate and impressive. In 1908, a Simplex 50 HP shattered records at Brighton Beach, covering 1,177 miles in 24 hours – over 70 miles ahead of the nearest rival. In 1909, it won the National Stock Chassis race outright. Even in road-going form, a Simplex could top 75 mph with ease. Buyers of these $5,000 machines – an astronomical price at the time – included America’s wealthiest families. Custom bodies from elite East Coast firms like Brewster, Quinby, and Holbrook were fitted to the Simplex’s robust Krupp steel chassis.

The 50 HP was built in limited numbers through 1913. When Broesel died in 1912, his heirs sold the company to a Wall Street syndicate that included the B.F. Goodrich family. A new long-stroke engine was introduced, and production moved from Manhattan to New Brunswick, New Jersey. In 1915, the Crane- Simplex Model 5 debuted – a refined luxury car far removed from the raw sporting might of the 50 HP.

With America’s entry into WWI, the Simplex factory was repurposed for Hispano-Suiza aero engine production, and the marque quietly faded away. In total, just 1,460 Simplex chassis were built between 1907 and 1915.

The cars quickly became coveted antiques. Famed collector Henry Austin Clark Jr., who owned several, vividly recalled his first drive in a 50 HP:

“With the cutout open, the sound...is something like a minor disaster in an ammunition factory... As I reached second gear and accelerated, the entire car shook itself like a wet dog and took off down the road... I had just begun to realize why people used to pay over $5,000 for one of these cars in 1910.”

This 50 HP Simplex, chassis 5009325, was originally delivered to Seth Grant Malby of Ogdensburg, New York, in 1909. Mr. Malby, a Cornell-educated mechanical engineer and naval architect, later rose to leadership roles at Alcoa and served on the War Production Board during WWII. His father, a US Congressman, gifted him the Simplex in celebration of his college graduation.

The Simplex remained with the Malby family until around 1951, when it surfaced in Auburn, New York, with early collectors Harold Bertrand and Margaret Lewis. Mr. Bertrand restored it that year, after it had been dormant since 1916. The car quickly earned accolades, winning “Best Restoration” at the New York State Fair and a class award at the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Concours d’Elegance.

In 1952, Margaret Lewis moved the car to Camden, and it appeared in several events, including the Jaycees show in Rome. That June, Mr. Malby took the car back to drive in his Cornell reunion parade – apparently believing it was still his. However, soon after, Mr. Bertrand sold the Simplex to Warren Swift Weiant Jr., a fellow Cornell engineer from Newark, Ohio.

Mr. Malby later sued Mr. Bertrand and Mr. Weiant to recover the car. Weiant, who had purchased it from Mr. Bertrand for $1,750, produced a valid title. Mr. Bertrand unexpectedly died a week after the suit was filed, and Mr. Malby’s efforts to reclaim the car ended when his suit was dismissed with prejudice in 1960. Mr. Weiant, a board member of the AACA, became one of the car’s greatest champions. He and his wife Eleanor drove it extensively – on the 1954 to 1957 Glidden Tours – and in 1956, they won the Thompson Products Award for Best Performing Car.

The car’s crowning moment came in 1968, on the Commemorative Transcontinental Tour celebrating the famous 1908 New York-to-Paris race. Starting in Times Square, the Weiants and the Simplex drove 3,300 miles to San Francisco, winning the New York Times trophy for most points retained. Including their drive to the start and back to Ohio, they logged 6,700 miles – in a 60-year-old car with no windshield.

In the mid-1970s, Weiant sold the Simplex to noted collector G. Whitney Snyder of Sewickley, Pennsylvania, whose family had owned a similar 50 HP model since new. Mr. Snyder used the car on several major tours and was sold by his estate in 2002, when it was acquired by Stan Lucas.

One of the crown jewels of the Lucas collection, this 50 HP Simplex has been shown sparingly over the last two decades. Finished in tasteful dark green and retaining its original Holbrook-Singer Toy-Tonneau coachwork, the car is a sight to behold. Though mechanically dormant in recent years, it remains a highly authentic, tour-proven machine awaiting sympathetic recommissioning.

Among pre-WWI American automobiles, the Simplex stands tall, with few genuine rivals in terms of quality, performance, and prestige. The original 50 HP model, with its short-stroke engine and chain drive, is considered the purist’s Simplex, and fewer than 20 examples are known to survive.

This particular car is believed to be the oldest extant 50 HP Simplex in complete, as-delivered order. With continuous provenance, illustrious former keepers, original coachwork, and a record of serious long-distance performance, chassis 5009325 is a museum-grade example of one of the finest American motorcars ever built.

Opportunities to acquire a true 50 HP Simplex are exceedingly rare. To find one with this pedigree, presentation, and originality – offered publicly for the first time in over two decades – is something special indeed.