It was a challenge that got people’s motors revving. In 1916, W.D. Randall, president of Randall Manufacturing Co., of Baltimore, bragged to a customer that the Ross Eight automobile was of such high quality that it could travel from Baltimore to Cumberland in high gear and without shifting gears.
Some of his friends heard the boast and told him he was “talking through his hat” since he was the agent for Ross Automobiles in Baltimore. One of Randall’s friends said he had even tried doing just that, “but it couldn’t be done except with a high-priced car of excellent make,” the Cumberland Evening Times reported.
However, Randall insisted it could be done and that he would do it. He started taking bets that he could drive his Ross Eight all the way from Baltimore to the Queen City in high gear and without shifting gears, despite needing to traverse multiple mountains.
He met with Frank O’Brien, automobile editor of the Baltimore News, and C.C. Rohr and A.S. King, representatives of the Finance and Guarantee Co., of Baltimore, who would accompany him on the trip.
The journey began in front of the Baltimore News offices, and until Randall pulled up in front of the Cumberland Evening Times offices, “the gears were not even touched. A number of stops were made along the way, but in each case the car was left in high gear, and was again started without changing gears,” the Evening Times reported.
As one ad for the Ross Eight noted, “Yet it is this very excess of power that gives it the capacity for such easy, slow speed without any change of gears anywhere.”
It was considered an amazing feat for a very high-powered car but impossible for a low-priced car. The Ross Eight cost $1,350.
“One of the most remarkable feats accomplished by the Ross was when Mr. Randall stopped on Polish Mountain, almost half way up the steep slope to allow Mr. Rohr to run back about twenty yards to get his cap which the wind had torn from his head,” according to the newspaper.
He went up Sideling Hill, which had been freshly tarred, at 40 mph and did not vary more than 3 mph doing it.
The successful high-gear journey took 5 hours and 3 minutes without any engine or tire trouble. “This is likewise considered remarkable, especially when it is taken into consideration that at least a half-dozen stops were made en route, which took up at least twenty minutes,” the Evening Times reported.
John L. Ross had started Ross Automobile Co. in 1915. The Ross automobile had a Herschell-Spillman V-8 engine with body styles, including sedans and town cars.
The car’s wheelbase was 130 inches. Each car’s body and wheels were finished in green and the radiator and fenders were black.
Similar tests of the Ross Eight took place throughout the year. It was the first car to climb San Francisco’s Fillmore Street hill in high gear, where grades can be more than 25%. This happened about a month after the Baltimore to Cumberland run.
“Entering San Francisco almost unheralded, the Ross Eight car created a sensation, the likes of which has never been known in that city,” the Del Norte Triplicate reported. “Shortly after the arrival of the car, it climbed the famous Fillmore Street hills from Union to Broadway with gears locked in the high. This most remarkable demonstration was witnessed by hundreds of people, San Francisco reports state that the Ross accomplished the task so easily that many were dubious with regard to its being a stock car.”
The company did not last long. It went into receivership and the plant was sold in February 1918.