Handmade History

A passion for building gripped William Eggers early in life.

Eggers, who cheerfully claims to be a craftsman in 10 trades, uses most of those trades when he painstakingly creates replicas of vehicles that had signature roles in the evolution of transportation.

Eggers moved to Goshen about 20 years ago from Manhattan where he was a carpentry contractor. He is renowned for his meticulous reproduction of historical “firsts”—the world’s first bicycle, the world’s first car, the world’s first gas-powered airplane, the world’s first ladder firetruck and the like.

In between he has built or customized about 75 historic motorcycles ranging from an 1867 Roper Steam Velocipede to a custom 1930 Indian four-cylinder motorcycle that sold at Sotheby’s in 2000 to a private museum in London for $80,000.

His projects take about a year to complete and cost many thousands of dollars. “I will have $30,000 or $40,000 in a project,” he said. “Museums want me to donate them but I can’t afford to give them away.”

Sometimes he will put them out on temporary loan to museums and exhibitions and he has sold many of his vehicles to private museums and collectors.

His interests have ranged from recreating Wells Fargo stagecoaches to the Little Rascals race car and the world’s first pickup truck, invented in 1896 by Gottlieb Daimler. The truck, which could reach a top speed of 6 mph, was basically a wagon with an engine and could run on gasoline, coal gas or lamp fuel.

With any project he starts construction by building the frame and wheels and then the body and fittings. He noted that the original Daimler truck rolled on hard iron wheels. He modified it to have a steel band around the wheels for strength and a rubber inset. “When I sold it, the new owners did not want steel ruining the floors,” he explained.

In 1902 Studebaker built America’s first electric truck and more than a century later, Eggers stylistically replicated it, bringing history to life. He has even recreated the chariots used by Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in the movie “Ben Hur.”

He is currently building a coal delivery dump truck.

“I tend to like to replicate ‘firsts,’” said Eggers as he stood in his immaculate workshop in the basement of the home he built for himself and his late wife in Goshen. When he is nearing the end of a project, he calls on a friend with a computer—he has none—and asks her to research whatever has currently caught his fancy.

“She will do the research and find pictures for me,” he said. “Often there is only one of these vehicles in the world or maybe there are none still existing and I have to work from pictures. Everything I have done is either from pictures or models I have found.”

He makes all the wooden components, figuring the proportions from his source material and making his own scale ruler to determine proportions for the different parts.

Even some of the supposedly metal parts of the vehicles are now crafted from basswood. Eggers, 82, is an expert welder but had to stop much of his metal work when a doctor advised him to give up arc welding when he had a pacemaker implanted.

Eggers also uses aluminum which is lighter and more malleable than steel because he works alone and must be able to move the parts himself. The “metal” parts are painstakingly painted to replicate steel, so successfully so that visitors are always deceived about the material underneath.

He turns to the Amish for some component parts such as tufted leather cushions, oil lamps and springs. The fabric sails for the Daimler aircraft were sewed by his friend and neighbor, Darline Hache.

Eggers can’t quite remember when his obsession with building things began. As a tiny child he was given erector sets and other toys of the era but didn’t really want them. He wanted to build things with real tools.

“There was only my mother and me because my father died when I was five,” he said. “I started doing everything around our home.” A prodigy, he re-roofed the family home at the age of 12—to the consternation of neighbors who remonstrated with his mother. “He knows what he is doing,” she calmly replied.

He was about the same age when he built his first go-cart, powering it with the motor off the family lawnmower. He was pulled over by the State Police barreling down Sunrise Highway in Queens at 35 to 40 miles per hour.

The police returned him to his parent, who promised “to take care of this.” When they left, his mother turned to him and asked if he had built the go-cart. He replied that he had. “I’m proud of you,” she said.

In high school he worked with a high school teacher to construct two prefabricated houses and in the Army he was given a hammer rather than a gun. When he enrolled in a construction technology course in college he was advised he should withdraw. “They asked whether I was going to be a contractor and when I said yes, they said I should just get started because I knew more than the professors,” he reported.

For 55 years Eggers was a carpentry contractor in Manhattan until the September 11th tragedy. He and his son were working near Ground Zero when the horrific event occurred and he quickly moved up his proposed date for retirement to Goshen.

Now he avows, “I’m having too much fun working in my shop every day.”