History of the 'Black Beast'

The ALCO-6 racer nicknamed "The Black Beast" was built in 1909 by the American Locomotive Company. It has a 134-inch wheelbase, an 11-liter motor and can reach a top speed of 120 miles an hour.

After it was retired from racing, the Black Beast ended up in Brussels, Belgium, and was eventually found by Long Island racing historian Howard Kroplick, who purchased it and brought it home to America and Long Island in 2008.

"It was in pretty good shape when we found it… we did more conservation then restoration… we got it up and running and it sounds great," says Kroplick.

Based in Providence, RI, the American Locomotive Company specialized in steam locomotives in 1908-1913. They made about five thousand cars. There are only 12 cars known to exist today and the Black Beast is the only race car known to have been built by the company.

The historical significance of the Black Beast is that it was the second American-built car to win the historic Vanderbilt Cup Races held on Long Island from 1904 to 1910. William K. Vanderbilt II commissioned what some compare to as "early NASCAR" races and built the first paved roadway known as the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway. The original road ran from Queens out to Lake Ronkonkoma.

"The motor parkway was the first road ever built specifically for automobiles… It was mainly built for the races but then it became a toll highway for touring cars and it lasted for 30 years till 1938," says Kroplick.

The goal of the races was to encourage American auto manufacturers to build better cars then the European cars, which won every race until 1908. "Vanderbilt really wanted the American cars to upgrade to compete with the European cars … He had a big influence on improving American cars," says Kroplick.

"For the first couple of races, the French cars always won… in 1908, the Locomobile, an American car, won for the first time and the Black Beast won it the following year ... These races had major contributions for upgrading the American cars, but also for laying the foundation of our parkway system with the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway."

Kroplick said the Vanderbilt Cup races were the "Super Bowl" of its time. "They would draw, I think the first was about 50,000 people to Long Island. By 1910, over 300,000 people attended these races. These were major events. It was front page news," he said. 

The races lacked crowd control, allowing spectators to get very close to the cars. "This is the first time they saw machines like this," Kroplick said. "Two of the cars cashed [and] there were several injuries, two of the mechanics died during these crashes ... As much as they had a great time with the races … they really got a lot of criticism after 1910."

The Cup races moved off Long Island and headed down south to places like Savannah, GA and Milwaukee, IL. The races eventually stopped in 1960.

"This was like Nascar … they were loud, they drew in a lot of people. This really inspired Indianapolis to build a speedway…" Kroplick said.

The Black Beast went on to win the 1910 Vanderbilt cup race the following year and went on to race in 15 other major races, including the first Indy 500 race in 1911.

As for its future plans, Kroplick says he intends to show the Black Beast at local car shows around Long Island to celebrate and share the historic racer's story. A full list of future appearances and events can be found here.

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