[1] His steam engine design was used in various automobiles from the early 1900s, including a 1969 General Motors prototype and the first successful steam-powered aeroplane.

The company became one of the biggest manufacturers of miner's and blacksmith's tools on the US Pacific coast during the California Gold Rush.

Between 1906 and 1909, while attending high school, Ab and brothers John, Warren, and Bill built their first steam car in their parents' basement.

In January 1917, Doble's new car, the Doble-Detroit, caused a sensation at the National Automobile Show in New York.

The Dobles had not entirely worked out various design and manufacturing issues, and although the car received good notices and over 10,000 orders, about 11 were built.

When John Doble died of lymphatic cancer in 1921 the surviving brothers reunited in Emeryville, California.

He sold it in England to Mortimer Harman Lewis (editor of The Engineering and Boiler House Review) of Hyde Park, London, just before he departed for the US.

[9] He went to New Zealand in March 1930 where he worked under a 3-year contract for A & G Price Limited at Thames on the development of a steam engine for buses.

By 1932 the first had covered more than 20,000 miles (32,000 km) and a second was ordered by a private company, White and Sons, for their Auckland to Thames Service.

Several shunting locomotives (switchers) and an undetermined number of railcars were fitted with Doble/Sentinel machinery for sale to customers in Britain, France, Peru, and Paraguay.

In Germany, during the 1930s Henschel & Sohn buses and trucks, powered by Doble designed steam engines, were operated.

Doble was hired as the chief engineer for a new bus powerplant for a revived Stanley Steam Motors Corporation in Chicago.

After this he retired to Santa Rosa, California, where he sold Electrolux vacuum cleaners to pay his living expenses.

The project was for a low-weight car built around a unique "torque box" chassis similar to an aeronautical wing section.

[16][17] Doble moved on Holland Drive in Santa Rosa, California, in 1950, where he stayed until his death on July 16, 1961, of a heart attack.