the rural NEW-YORKER 
September 11, 1915, 
the rural new-yorker 
1117 
1116 
mmm 
| '. I :: jjj 
~ : W.^ 
;£2ii& 
SPECIFICATIONS 
The New REO SIX 
Wheel Base— 126 inches. 
Springs—Front — Semi - elliptic— 
38" x 2" with 8 leaves. Rear — 
Cantilever—50 \i" x 2^" with 8 
leaves. 
Front Axle— I-beam, drop forged 
with Timken roller bearing spin¬ 
dles. 
Rear Axle— Full floating, Timken 
roller bearings at differential and 
at wheels—two universal joints 
in propeller shaft—torque taken 
by separate torque arms—gear 
ratio 4 to 1. 
Tires— 34" x 4j^" front and rear. 
Non-skid on rear. 
Motor— Vertical, six-cylinder, cast 
in threes, modified L type with 
integral head, with inlet valve in 
head. Valves protected. Exhaust 
valve seated directly in the 
cylinder. 
Cylinder Dimensions—3 y§ "x5^s" 
Horsepower—45. 
Lubricatio n — Automatic force 
feed by plunger pump with return 
system. 
Carburetor— Automatic, heated 
by hot air and hot water. 
Ignition— Combined generator and 
magneto, driven through tim¬ 
ing gears with 100 ampere hour 
storage battery and emergency 
dry cells. 
Starter— Electric, separate unit, 
worm gear connected to trans¬ 
mission. 
Transmission— Selective swinging 
type with single rod, center con¬ 
trol. 
Clutch— Multiple dry disc, faced 
with asbestos, with positive and 
instant release. 
Brakes— Two on each rear wheel, 
one internal, one external, 14" 
diameter drums—service brake 
interconnected with clutch pedal. 
Steering—Gear and sector with 18" 
steering wheel. 
Control— Left-hand drive, center 
control—spark and throttle on 
steering wheel with foot accele¬ 
rator. Positive—thief-proof lock¬ 
ing device. 
Fenders— Drawn sheet steel of 
latest oval type—shield between 
running boards and body—close 
fitting, quick detachable under 
pan—aluminum bound, linoleum 
covered running boards. 
Gasoline Capacity— 18 gallons. 
Tank in rear with Stewart 
Vacuum System supply. 
Body — Seven-passenger — touring 
car type with extra wide full “U” 
doors front and rear. Genuine 
leather upholstering. Deep cush¬ 
ions and backs. 
Finish— Body, Golden Olive—run¬ 
ning gear, black—equipment 
nickel trimmed. 
Equipment— Fully electric lighted 
throughout; improved 5-bow, one 
man, mohair top with full cur¬ 
tains; mohair slip cover; dear- 
vision, rain-vision, ventilating 
windshield; speedometer; electric 
horn; extra rim with improved tire 
brackets; power tire pump; jack; 
complete tool and tire outfit; foot 
and robe rails. 
Price— $1250,f. o.b. Lansing, Mich. 
SPECIFICATIONS 
The New REO the Filth 
Wheel Base —115 inches. 
Springs —F ront—Semi-elliptic 
38" x 2" with 7 leaves. Rear— 
three-quarter elliptic. Lower sec¬ 
tion—44%" x 2" with 7 leaves; 
upper section 22 13-16" x 2" with 
7 leaves. 
Front Axle—I-beam, drop forged, 
Timken roller bearing spindles. 
Rear Axle—Tubular—semi-float¬ 
ing, Timken roller bearings at dif¬ 
ferential—Hyatt High Duty roll¬ 
er bearings at wheels, pinion inte¬ 
gral with stub shaft—two uni¬ 
versal joints in propeller shaft— 
torque taken by separate torque 
arms—gear ratio 4 to 1. 
Tires—34"x4" front and rear. Non- 
skid on rear. 
Motor — Vertical, four - cylinder, 
cast in pairs, modified L type with 
integral head, with inlet valve in 
head. Valves mechanically oper¬ 
ated and protected. 
Cylinder Dimensions— 4j^" x 
W'. 
Horsepower—35. 
Lubrication—Automatic force 
feed by plunger pump with return 
system. 
Carburetor —Automatic, heated 
by hot air and hot water. 
Ignition —Combined generator 
and magneto, driven through tim¬ 
ing gears with 100 ampere hour 
storage battery. 
Starter —Electric, separate unit, 
six volt, connected to trans¬ 
mission. 
Transmission —Selective swinging 
type with single rod center control. 
Clutch —Multiple dry disc, faced 
with asbestos with positive and 
instant release. 
Brakes —Two on each rear wheel, 
one internal, one external, 14" 
diameter drums—service brake 
interconnected with clutch pedal. 
Steering —Gear and sector with 18" 
steering wheel. 
Control —Left-hand drive, center 
control—spark and throttle on 
steering wheel with foot accelera¬ 
tor. 
Positive—Thief - proof locking 
device. 
Fenders —Drawn sheet steel of 
latest oval type—shield between 
running boards and body—close 
fitting, quick detachable under 
pan—aluminum bound, linoleum 
covered running boards. 
Gasoline Capacity —16 gallons. 
Force pump on dash for emer¬ 
gencies. 
Body —Five-passenger— streamline 
touring car type with extra wide 
full “U” doors, front and rear. 
Genuine leather upholstering. 
Deep cushions and backs. 
Finish —Body, Golden Olive, run¬ 
ning gear, black; equipment 
nickel trimmed. 
Equipment —Fully electric lighted 
throughout; improved 5-bow, one 
man mohair top with full side cur¬ 
tains; mohair slip cover; clear-vi¬ 
sion, rain-vision, ventilating wind¬ 
shield; speedometer; electric horn 
extra rim with improved tirebrack- 
ets; pump; jack; complete tool 
and tire outfit; foot and robe rails. 
Price —$875, f. o. b. Lansing, Mich. 
Here Are the New REO Modols and the New REO Prices 
Look at the Cars, Consider the Values, and Wh v 
Read Carefully the Explanation of 
n Your Astonishment Has Somewhat Abated, 
low These Prices Were Made Possible 
WE FEEL WE MUST EXPLAIN—to our more intelligent 
readers why and how it is possible to place such cars in 
your hands at such unheard of prices. 
FOR WITHOUT THAT EXPLANATION without 
reasons so logical they must satisfy you—you could not 
accept these values as genuine. 
OF COURSE THE PRICES ALONE would not astonish— 
might not even interest—you. For mere price taken by 
itself, indicates nothing to the intelligent buyer. 
BESIDES YOU’VE BEEN SURFEITED with announce¬ 
ments of “big cars at little prices”—this year more than 
ever before. 
MOST MAKERS SEEM TO HAVE LOST THEIR HEADS 
in the fierce battle of price competition. As a result you’ve 
seen price reductions that we think must have indicated to 
your mind clearly one of two things— either that the value 
was not there last season or couldn’t be this. 
SO MERE PRICE—EVEN THESE sensational new Reo 
prices—would interest you only mildly if at all. 
BUT KNOWING AS YOU DO REO STANDARDS of 
excellence in materials and manufacture; knowing as you do 
the Reo reputation for making only cars of sterling quality; 
knowing and estimating as you will, Reo integrity in selling 
as well as in making, you must marvel at these prices. 
YOU KNOW THESE TWO REOS—you know that in all 
the world there have never been two models that enjoyed 
greater popularity. 
AND RIGHTLY SO—for we maintain that these are the 
ripest, the most refined, and the most nearly perfect auto¬ 
mobiles ever turned out of any factory—simply because 
they have been made in their present form—in all essen¬ 
tials—for more years than any others; and more time, 
and more experience, more skill, and more care have been 
devoted to refining and perfecting these chasses. 
IF YOU WERE TO ASK US to state what, in our opinion, 
is the strongest thing that can be said about the Reo product v 
for next season, we would say without a moment’s hesitation, 
“We have no new model to offer.” 
NONE OF THE GRIEF that you and we know is inseparable 
from a new and untried car, to face during the coming months. 
BOTH REO MODELS—Reo the Fifth, “The Incomparable 
Four,” and the new Reo Six—have long since passed the 
experimental stage. Both have been tried and proven— 
and not by factory testers, but by thousands and tens of 
thousands of owners, and in every land. 
THINK WHAT THAT MEANS. Consider the satisfaction 
it is to us to know—to know absolutely—that every car that 
leaves this factory in the coming year will carry with it 
absolute satisfaction—absolute certainty of satisfaction—to 
its new owner. 
THINK WHAT THAT MEANS to men whose hearts are in 
their work and who believe in carrying personal integrity 
into corporate affairs. 
FOR WE REO FOLK ARE that kind of people—we state it 
not boastfully but just as a simple fact. 
IT’S OLD FASHIONED, WE KNOW, and not considered 
“good form” in some circles these days, 
BUT WE LIKE TO FEEL toward every man who buys a 
Reo car as if he were our next door neighbor whom we 
expected to see frequently and whom we’d meet gladly 
and with pride in the car we had sold him. 
THIS YEAR OF ALL YEARS we are glad we have nothing 
radically new, nothing experimental—nothing even doubt¬ 
ful or questionable to offer our hosts of friends. 
OF COURSE WE CONSIDERED this matter from every 
angle. We are conversant—have been for months with 
everything others were trying to do. 
OUR ENGINEERS ARE JUST AS ALERT as others—just 
as enterprising and just as prone to experiment and to ex¬ 
plore new and interesting fields. They enjoy working 
mechanical puzzles just as keenly as any, But 
MOST OF ALL WE CONSIDERED it from the standpoint 
of those thousands and thousands of friends who have 
learned to lean upon us,secure in the belief that we will offer 
them nothing but that of which we ourselves are sure. 
AND WE BASED OUR PLAN ON THE ASSUMPTION 
that what the great majority of intelligent buyers want is 
not novelty—not mechanical puzzles nor engineering leger¬ 
demain—but service. Just dependable enjoyable automo¬ 
bile service and low upkeep cost with minimum deter¬ 
ioration in the value of the article from year to year. 
AND ON THAT BASIS WE KNEW that nothing our 
engineers could design or our factories build, could give quite 
as much service and satisfaction as these two Reo models, 
on which our engineers have concentrated for years and 
both of which, as a result of those years, and of our pride 
in our work, have been refined to the last degree and the 
last little detail. 
“BUT THE PRICES?” YOU ASK. “Why and how were 
these necessary and possible. Why necessary—how possible 
for this product, not merely as good as formerly, but better.” 
“WHY—WITH A DEMAND that, all through last season 
was greatly in excess of the possible output of the factories, 
was it necessary to reduce prices at all. And then, why so 
great a reduction?” 
WE WILL ANSWER THAT QUERY. 
IT WASN’T NECESSARY —any more than it was necessary 
to devote the thought and the energy and the expense to 
the improvement of cars that already represented values so 
great that every Reo car was snapped up the instant it 
came from the factory. 
IT WASN’T NECESSARY either to improve the quality or 
to reduce the price—except that it is and always has been 
the Reo desire to give Reo buyers greater value than could 
be obtained elsewhere and just as much more as our greater 
experience and superior facilities could give. 
BUT IT WAS POSSIBLE—and that was sufficient. 
THE REASON IS INTERESTING—interesting and instruc¬ 
tive and makes mighty profitable reading to any prospective 
buyer of an automobile. 
A COMBINATION OF FACTORS and conditions that are, 
we believe, unique with Reo, made these prices for these 
quality-cars possible. 
WE MAINTAIN THAT NOWHERE ELSE in this indus¬ 
try do all these factors and conditions exist in combination 
as they do with Reo. 
NO; PRICES OF MATERIALS HAD NOTHING to do 
with it—prices of no important materials are lower, while 
prices of many are higher now than a year ago. Only way cost 
of materials in a car can be reduced this year is by reducing 
quality of materials—using inferior or substitutes. 
YES; THERE IS ANOTHER WAY—the simple expedient 
of reducing the amount of materials. In other words, reduc¬ 
ing the weight of the car. 
FOR IT IS A FACT THAT YOU CAN reduce the cost of 
an automobile twenty-five per cent by simply cutting the 
weight down that much. Some do—to the danger point, we 
believe. 
REO CARS ARE LIGHT CARS—but not light to the point 
of flimsiness. They are as light as may be without sacrifice 
of safety or durability. 
SO THAT EXPEDIENT of cutting down the amount of 
materials that go into the car was not to be thought of, any 
more than was the other of using materials of inferior quality 
or substitution. 
IN THE MAKING OF REOS this year we are using—not 
better because they are not to be had—but the same quality 
of materials as formerly. So that isn’t the reason. 
COST OF MAKING IS, HOWEVER, somewhat less, thanks 
to the fact that in many ways we have been able to reach a 
still higher degree of efficiency. 
ONE BIG ITEM IN COST REDUCTION of these models 
was the fact that both had passed the experimental stage. 
WHEN WE TELL YOU that, had we found it necessary to 
project a new model to take the place of either of these, we 
would have set aside a fund of at least $100,000 to defray 
the cost of the experiment—and would have doubled the 
amount had our plan been to supplant both—you will see 
where we have been able to place to the credit of Reo 
buyers for the coming year a fund of at least $200,000. 
IT TAKES AT LEAST THREE YEARS to perfect any new 
automobile model. Anyway it takes that long to get 
a car to the point of perfection where we are willing to offer 
it to Reo buyers and back it with the Reo guarantee. 
THAT S ONE REASON WHY you’ll never see a brand new 
idea in a Reo—not until it has passed the realm of specula¬ 
tion and uncertainty and become a certainty. 
ANOTHER ITEM THAT HELPED tremendously was the 
fact that the tool cost on both these famous models had long 
since been absorbed—charged off—permanently disposed of. 
THAT IS A BIG ITEM. You’d be surprised—unless you also 
are a manufacturer—to know how big. 
THE MOST IMPORTANT FACTOR in the reduction of 
manufacturing cost and at the same time the making of 
a better product, is to be found in Reo itself. 
NEVER SINCE THE DAY REO WAS incorporated has 
there been a single change in the personnel of the executive 
organization. 
JUST CONSIDER if you are a business man—and you are or 
you are not interested in the purchase of an automobile— 
what that means in economical production and in quality 
of a product. 
THE SAME PRESIDENT presides who occupied the chair 
at the first meeting of Reo. 
THE SAME GENERAL MANAGER DIRECTS; the same 
engineer designs; the same expert handles the funds; the 
same purchasing agent buys; the same factory superintend¬ 
ent oversees; and finally, the same men direct the sales 
who have handled these important departments since the 
first Reo was designed and made and sold. 
ALL WE’VE LEARNED WE’VE KEPT right in the Reo 
organization. 
AND IN THE FACTORY. Do you know there are scores of 
men in the Reo factories today working on these latest Reo 
models who worked on the very first Reo? Hundreds who 
have been here six to ten years. 
SO THERE AGAIN WE CAN SAY “All we’ve learned we’ve 
kept.” Every man has become a specialist—is an expert— 
at his particular task. 
CONTRAST THAT with the kaleidoscopic changes you’ve seen 
in this new industry—changes so frequent and so radical 
that today you can find no one to back up the guarantee of 
the car you bought yesterday. 
AND IT’S A MATTER OF PRIDE with us to know that 
Reo workmen are an exceptionally intelligent class of citi¬ 
zens. Compare the work such men must turn out with that 
of illiterate, unskilled types that populate most factories. 
IF YOU COULD COME AND SEE—if every prospective 
buyer could visit all factories and compare methods instead 
of prices and see the superior quality of materials and of 
workmanship that goes into Reos—well, we never would be 
able to make enough Reo cars to go ’round. 
BUT TO RETURN TO OUR TEXT which was, how prices 
of these great cars could be reduced at the same time that 
quality was improved. 
REO DEALERS ARE RESPONSIBLE—the credit is theirs— 
for the biggest item. For, but for the unprecedented action 
and the hearty co-operation of hundreds of Reo Distributors 
we could not have placed these cars in your hands at these 
prices. 
LIKE THE FACTORY ORGANIZATION the Reo Dealer 
Organization has been with us from the first. Many of the 
principal Reo dealers have sold Reos exclusively ever since 
the first Reo was made. You will understand therefore, that 
the bond between Distributors and factory is a very 
intimate and a very powerful one. 
Reo Motor Car Company, Lansing, Mich., U. S. A. 
WE TAKE THEM INTO OUR CONFIDENCE to a greater 
degree than is usual in this business. We have no secrets 
from them. 
THAT’S WHY REO DEALERS are so loyal—they know— 
they do not guess, they know—that in Reo cars they give 
their customers more value than they can find elsewhere. 
WELL, THIS SEASON WE WERE CONFRONTED with a 
problem—-price competition to an extent greater than ever 
before. 
OUR DEALERS INSISTED that, even though fortified with 
Reo quality and prestige, still they could not wholly ignore 
price competition. 
WE CONTENDED that price did not matter; that it fooled 
no one—or at most only a small percentage of buyers and 
they not the most desirable. 
WE SHOWED THEM that the cost of making Reos could not 
be materially lessened without reducing the quality—and 
that our plan was to improve the quality wherever possible. 
WHY, WE REO FOLK wouldn’t want to be in business if 
we couldn’t feel we could make better cars this year than 
last; next year than this! 
WE SET OUR OWN STANDARDS and will always ignore 
those of others—at least when they trend downward! 
BUT THEY PROTESTED that the average buyer saw only 
the price tag. That while he saw the reduction in price he 
did not notice the reduction in quality—in value. So they 
wanted a competitive price on Reos as well as Reo quality 
in the product. 
THERE WAS ONLY ONE WAY it could be done—that was 
if the dealers would agree to handle Reo cars on a smaller 
margin of profit than is the rule with other cars. We told 
them that if they would agree to that, we could set a price 
on Reo cars that would create a genuine sensation. 
AND THEY AGEED! It is an unprecendent action we 
believe. And that the hundreds of Reo Distributors as¬ 
sented to the plan was due to another unparalleled con¬ 
dition—namely, the extremely low cost of selling and of 
giving service on Reo cars. 
A CANVASS SHOWED this remarkable condition: That the 
average cost of the dealer’s guarantee on a Reo car—the cost 
of keeping it in perfect running order and its buyer thor¬ 
oughly satisfied was less than six dollars per car per year! 
JUST COMPARE THAT with the cost of maintaining some 
makes of cars. 
WHY, ONE OF OUR DEALERS who handled two other lines 
last season—but who says he will handle Reos exclu¬ 
sively hereafter —tells us that the average cost to him per 
car on one of those lines was $60 and on the other $49— 
while Reo averaged in his case $4.75 per car per year! 
AND THAT WASN’T ALL. The factor that Reo Distribu¬ 
tors consider most important is the customer—satisfied or 
the reverse. For you must know that though that dealer 
spent $60 to keep a certain car running he still could not 
keep the man to whom he had sold that car satisfied—not 
even by taking it back and standing the full loss himself. 
HE COULD NOT REIMBURSE HIM in dollars for the de¬ 
lays, the disappointments, the aggravations he had suffered. 
SO REOS WILL BE SOLD in the future on a lesser margin 
from dealer to user (and factory margin has always been as 
close as was safe) than any other automobile in the same 
class or of higher price. 
AND YOU AS A REO BUYER get the full benefit. 
AND YOU GET MORE THAN THAT. You get more than 
a Reo at the price. 
YOU RECEIVE AN ASSURANCE, a guarantee that cannot 
be over-estimated—in the fact that Reo cars have proven 
so good—so absolutely dependable—so economical in up¬ 
keep and operation—so wonderfully satisfying to their 
owners that those dealers feel they can handle them on that 
small margin. 
WE THINK WE HAVE PROVEN TO YOU how and why, 
and therefore, that you do receive a higher percentage of 
value for your money when you buy a Reo than is possible 
in most, or perhaps any other automobile. 
