Original Photograph of "The Desert Flyer.".

Near Rhyolite, NV: A. E. Hoyt, [ca. 1909). Original photograph measuring 5 x 3 inches on a mount measuring 7 x 4 3/4 inches. Captioned in the plate in white - "The Desert Flyer, A. E. Hoyt, Rhyolite, Nevada." Very good.The Desert Flyer was an open air car with three commodious bench seats and no storage. While we could find no other image of this automobile we did find this - "A. J. P. Bertzchy attempted the manufacture in 1908 of a behemoth he calledthe Desert Flyer, weighing five tons and meant for hauling loads of miners about the goldfields of Nevada, but the effortgot no further than a prototype built in Chicago" (P. G. Hockett, As If in a Dream). The existence of this very photograph gives lie to that statement but undoubtedly the history of The Desert Flyer was a very brief one indeed. Death Valley is not kind to motorized vehicles, especially those weighing five tons.