No grouping of Stevens-Duryea cars would be complete without a six-cylinder variant, and for William Alley, the groundbreaking Model U was the car of choice. This wonderful example has a known history from new, with the original owner believed to have been Reuben Whited, the purveyor of a gristmill in Elk City, Oklahoma. On file is a photo depicting Mr. Whited’s family in the car, circa 1916. Believed to have been used by the Whited family until the late 1910s, the car was later placed into storage and subsequently was discovered by Bud Catlett (later Harrah’s collection manager) in 1946.

A series of photographs on file show the car being extracted from an Oklahoma barn by Mr. Catlett. It appears to be largely intact, albeit well worn. Successive owners are charted by the Warwick Eastwood Register as Julian Malka of California in 1960; Jon Larson of Salt Lake City in 1970; Wayne Leonard of Longmont, Colorado, who acquired the car in 1976 and retained it until the mid-1990s, when it then moved to Bob Randolph of Colorado, and then Robert Bennett in 1998, who in turn sold it to Mr. Alley.

Under the ownership of Mr. Alley, a fresh restoration of this impressive, large, and original car commenced, with new upholstery in 2010 and renewed paintwork in 2019. This restoration project is near completion, offering the next owner of this Model U Five-Passenger Touring the opportunity to finish the project and display it at concours events.

*Please note that this vehicle is titled 1906.