Baker, 1919, Rauch & Lang, eletric

Baker, Rauch & Lang “Double Drive Coach”, 1919

Electric powertrain was successful both in Europe (the first person who reached 100 kph was the Belgian Camille Jenatzy in 1899 in his electric torpedo “Jamais contente”) and in the USA, where in 1894 the first electric taxi cabs were driving around New York; in 1904 one third of the entire American car pool on the road was electric and in 1912, they produced 10.000 electric vehicles per year. The electric car was silent, simple, clean and easy to handle: in fact it was the favourite car of high class ladies, who could use it without the help of the chauffeur, that driver-mechanic who was necessary for the complicated petrol cars of the early 1900s. From the Twenties, electric powertrain was only used for commercial vehicles: do you remember the milk delivery vans in American movies?
The car displayed at the Museo was built by Baker, Rauch & Lang. It could be driven, through a metal bar, both from the front and rear seats: in this latter case, the two front seats could be moved facing the rear ones and the interior became a perfect lounge! Considering that the car didn't make much noise, a mechanical system sounds a bell similar to a tram when reversing the car. The car has a driving autonomy of about 70 kilometers.
In the 70s the company was bought by Linde AG, the biggest elevator and industrial material handling company, renaming it Baker Material Handling Corp.

Luciano Nicolis used to drive it around Villafranca to prove that even in the 21st century this electric car was still reliable.
Grandma Duck, in the famous comic, used to drive an electric car just like this one!

Whatch the Ruoteclassiche video to discover the history of a similar car.

2018, TEST DRIVE Baker elettrica e Silvia Nicolis
2019, Evento Ci.Te.Mo.S, Vicenza.