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Gilbert E. Porter – truck & bus
bodies - Sequoia was the name
given to the two roadsters that Gilbert E. Porter of Glendale built in 1926
and that he sold for $3,000 apiece. He had hoped to sell a lot more but, as
he later reminisced, "we got involved in suing a subcontractor, so I was
forced out of business'. Porter's principal livelihood was as a builder of
bodies for trucks and buses, though he did some custom designing of cars as
a sideline. The Sequoia was his idea of what a small sporting car should be:
short in wheelbase (98 inches) and with a boattail rear deck. A proprietary
six-cylinder engine provided the power; Porter's ingenuity was evident in
the car's three-piece curved windshield that was integrated with a sun
visor. Gilbert Porter's Sequoia, incidentally, was the second California car
reputed to have carried the name. The first, an electric from San Leandro in
1916, appears never to have been built, however, since there was no mention
of it in local newspapers for the entire year of 1916. |
