During 1914, Chevrolet introduced a new four-cylinder line, built on a longer-wheelbase chassis with a higher level of standard equipment than was found on the comparable Ford, including an electric starter, demountable rims, and even a fabric top and windshield. Even the styling was more modern than the Model T, with three new body styles that all featured concealed door hinges, than the height of advanced design. These included the Baby Grand touring car and two roadsters, the Amesbury Special and the Royal Mail, with the latter being a more conventional but sporting design, with a flat rear deck.

The early Royal Mail offered here was recorded in the Antique Automobile Club of America’s 1968 roster as a fully restored car, held in the ownership of one C.L. Bowers. In 1974 it was acquired, likely from Mr. Bowers, by the famed Harrah’s Automobile Collection of Nevada. Sold at one of the landmark Harrah’s auctions in 1985, it was purchased there by William Hefner, a prominent Chevrolet dealer from Fort Wayne, Indiana. Mr. Hefner donated the car to the nearby Auburn Cord Duesenberg Automobile Museum in 1998; obviously not quite fitting the museum’s mission, it was deaccessioned four years later via a seller in Illinois. Clive and Janet Cussler acquired it from the same seller in 2012.

Since displayed in Janet Cussler’s Collection, the Royal Mail proudly wears its older restoration, still in very attractive overall condition, with the interior showing well and the deep gray paint holding a good, rich shine. Mrs. Cussler notes that the engine was rebuilt in 2018. At the time of cataloguing the car’s speedometer recorded 90,000 miles. It has abundant charm and, as a relatively early example of the iconic four-cylinder Chevrolet, has much to recommend it to the studied collector of that company’s finest models. Its provenance—Harrah, Hefner, and now Cussler—is hard to beat.