Automobile Quarterly's "This Day in Auto History" newsletter reminds us that on the first day of summer, 1911, a stock Metz roadster left Iron Hill, MD at one minute past midnight, destination Vermont. On the way it passed through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. The manufacturer advertised it as "The Car that Covered Nine States in a Single Day." Considering the lack of paved roads and the reliability of automobiles in those years, it was actually quite a feat. Three years later a Metz 22 Speedster was driven to the Colorado River at the bottom of the Grand Canyon with L. Wing of the Metz Agency in Los Angeles at the wheel and reporter O.K. Parker as passenger. Parker described it as "probably the most strenuous undertaking ever carried out in the annals of American motoring. To make that trip and to return to the plateau thousands of feet above, all on the car's own power, negotiating deep sand arroyos, frightfully steep grades, great boulder filled gorges and slimy mud flats, is a feat extraordinary." Metz automobiles were manufactured in Waltham, a western suburb of Boston, from 1909 to 1921. Four Metz cars are on display at the Waltham Museum.