First Customer Part 1

At three minutes to nine on the first morning of September, the Teucher Motor Company owned fifty completed motorcars.

At nine o'clock precisely, it acquired something considerably more perilous.

Customers.

Ernest Teucher stood by the tall, multi-paned windows of the third-floor administration office, his hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the south yard. Rain had fallen before dawn, leaving the crushed limestone dark and slick. Raindrops clung to the eaves, dropping in slow, rhythmic beats onto the tin roofs of the loading sheds.

Below, marshaled with military precision, sat the fifty production Model Ones.

Five immaculate rows of ten. Dark Brunswick green coachwork, flat brass radiator shells catching the pale gray morning light, and black canvas weather hoods folded tightly behind the rear tonneaus. Every wheel sat straight; every brass headlamp pointed true; every twin-cylinder block was filled with oil and cooling water.