REO Model A History

After leaving the Olds Motor Works in 1904, Ransom E. Olds founded the REO Motor Car Company in Lansing, Michigan, and its first car was completed in October 1904 and shown at the New York Automobile Show in January 1905. The opening range was a sixteen-horsepower twin-cylinder car priced at about $1,250 and a smaller single-cylinder runabout at about $650.

The twin-cylinder Model A was a five-seat car with a side-entrance tonneau body, started by cranking a side handle to turn over its large two-cylinder engine. It sold strongly straight away: by 1906 REO's sales had surpassed those of Olds's former company, and in 1907 REO was one of the four wealthiest automobile manufacturers in the United States, with gross sales of about $4.5 million.