J. Walter Christie Followed His Heart

One of the most curious characters among a crazy cast of personalities during the early days of automobiling and motor racing was American John Walter Christie, aka J. Walter or Walter. Almost certainly a genius, his is the case of a person driven by his passion, his self-righteousness, his quirky brand of living on his own terms.
 
Like most of his contemporaries from his age of motorsport, sometimes referred to as the “Heroic Age,” Mr. Christie’s story has faded into obscurity. Only a few such as myself remain intrigued by this era and bark at the moon about it during the wee hours from the most remote corners of relevance.
 
Christie’s genius and imagination must have been obsessive to the point of a single-mindedness that made him intensely focused on engineering to the detriment of every other aspect of his profession. That certainly applied to his business interests where, based on results alone, no one could detect an ounce of exceptional brainpower from the P&L statements. The fact is, he failed at business.
 
In my own life experience I have seen a person’s brilliance in one area bring about their downfall in everything else. It’s not that they are so lacking in talent that they could never succeed in other areas. The truth is they are so brilliant and focused on what they respect as a worthy pursuit they brush aside other professions or skills as simplistic and in little need of attention. For Christie, he may have believed he could sleepwalk through business matters and do just fine.
 
Whatever the reason, he joins hoards of others whose consuming interest in their passion blinds them to the need to tend to other matters. It’s not that he did not establish businesses. In 1899 at age 33 he founded the Christie Iron Works, a company predicated on a new lathe he had designed through his experience working for others as a machinist and studying engineering.
 
He was soon swept up in the burgeoning automobile industry where virtually every 19th century manufacturer of sewing machines to locomotives to farm equipment saw opportunity as the market exploded. Not unlike information technology of the past 40 years much of this was the domain of an emerging generation of young adults — the first to grow up with horseless carriages.
 
True to form, Christie was different. Born literally weeks after the close of the Civil War he was older than most of his contemporaries — especially those who dared to climb behind the wheel of race cars. He was nearly 40 by the time he started his automobile company in 1905, the Christie Direct Action Motor Car Company.
 
Distinctive of the Christie cars was the massive front axle that not only encased the gears of direct drive but also symbolized the thinking of a man who needed the challenge of carving an unconventional path through life. Christie’s cars, unlike all the others, was direct drive.
 
In 1905 almost all car drivetrains were chains much like those of the safety bicycles that had seen explosive growth in the 1890’s. The chains were beefed-up to handle the power of dozens of horses, but the design principles were identical to the bikes. A few cars delivered their power to their wheels through the driveshaft we expect today. The problem with that solution at the time was that the factor of torque frequently made a pretzel of the primitive metallurgy that forged those early driveshafts.
 
I am only guessing, but it’s reasonable to think Christie saw a superior alternative in the direct drive action of effectively coupling the axle and the engine. What’s more, it was not that his cars were not fast. They frequently were. In the winter of 1909 Christie drove one of his machines to new world track records at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway just weeks after the oval had been paved with 3.2 million bricks. Later, in 1916, Barney Oldfield stormed an eight-year-old Christie racer around the Brickyard for the track’s first 100 mph lap.
 
The real issue for Christie cars was they always seemed to break. That’s what happened at the 1907 French Grand Prix — then the most important race in the world. With his nephew Lewis Strang (who the following year became America’s super star race driver) riding as mechanician, Christie tackled the international event that pitted the best representatives of automobiling nations around the world against each other.
 
Theoretically.
 
America, despite the advances of the first full century of the industrial age, was still buffered from Europe’s influences by the expanse of oceans. The prospect of shipping race cars, parts, equipment and support crews was a significant undertaking. The principal players in the industry at the time were based first and foremost in France, but also there was a strong contingent from both Italy and Germany.
 
These factors combined to force the executives of a very short list of truly viable U.S. car companies to take a deep breath when the subject of traveling so far away to run against such formidable competition was broached. Pope-Toledo and Winton Motor Carriage Company embarrassments in the Grand Prix predecessor contest, the James Gordon Bennett Cup, were vivid memories.
 
The Americans had been shellacked in their only significant auto race, the Vanderbilt Cup with Panhard and Darracq manhandling the home team. Only Locomobile of Bridgeport, Connecticut showed much spunk but had never seriously challenged the invaders. Ford, Buick, Marmon, National and others had yet to develop meaningful contenders.
 
Christie had stumbled through the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup, literally getting in the way of Vincenzo Lancia’s dominating Fiat to produce a metal-contorting altercation that cost the Italian what should have been a magnificent triumph. As for Christie and his car, who cares? He was hopelessly out of contention, accident or no.
 
There was a collective cringe across the captains of the American automobile industry when J. Walter decided take on the French GP challenge. Predictably, his car failed early finishing in the ruck. His return home was met with derision. Leaders of companies with active factories saw the result as an absolute embarrassment for the reputation of American product in general.
 
Still, J. Walter moved forward, flailing away at bolstering his brand. There was that time trial at the new Indianapolis Motor Speedway but also he eagerly injected himself into the mix at the storied Ormond-Daytona Beach time trials of the first decade of the 20th century.
 
He found a kindred spirit in the indomitable Barney Oldfield, another character who danced to his own rat-a-tat-tat. Together they toured the country, especially in 1908, staging match races in Oldfield’s infamous “barnstorming” troupe. The operative word there is, “staging,” as the events were rightfully seen as more show than legitimate competition. Indeed, the principals of such events frequently took turns “winning.”
 
By 1911 Christie read the tea leaves for his future in automobiling. He moved to military equipment and began designing high-speed first generation tanks. While that sounds like perfect timing for the emerging Great War in Europe he ended up missing the market timing.
 
He forged ahead post war and while his products were reviewed and rejected by the American military he was embraced and saw some success with Britain and Russia. Understand, though, that Christie never manufactured the products. He merely sold those countries the rights to produce the machines. This acceptance was perhaps Christie’s greatest business success and it came very late in the man’s life as he passed away without any fanfare on January 11, 1944.