[1] His father, F. M. Stearns, had built a fortune in the stone-quarry industry, and decided to indulge his son Frank with a fully equipped machine shop located in the basement of his home on the prestigious Euclid Avenue.

The first production model evolved in 1898; it was a gasoline-fuel buggy-style automobile with a one-cylinder engine (horizontal under the floor), tiller steering, wire wheels, planetary transmission, and chain drive.

As early as 1901, he introduced a steering wheel instead of the tiller, and advanced to a gasoline runabout with a 1656cc (101ci) one-cylinder engine under the seat bench, and single chain drive.

Equipped with a front-mounted, 24 hp (17.9 kW) water-cooled flat twin and tonneau, and three-speed transmission was fitted.

[4] In 1904, Stearns had a very European four-cylinder of 36 hp (27 kW), with pressed steel chassis, wheelbase of 111 inches (282 cm), and four-speed gearbox, but a distinctly American (i.e., backward) coil and battery, rather than the magneto typical in Europe.

It was a huge automobile with a four-cylinder L-head engine with a block cast in pairs and mechanical operated side valves delivering 40 HP.

[8] Believed to be the fastest stock automobile of its period, Barney Oldfield won the Mount Wilson hillclimb in a Stearns Six (which was a 45/90 of 12913cc/788ci).

In 1910 at Brighton Beach, Al Poole and Cyrus Patschke won a 24-hour race, covering 1253 mi (2016 km) at an average 52.2 mph (84.0 km/h).

Price when new was US$3,200 or 3,500, depending on source, which put in easily in the luxury class although this was the least expensive of 4 model line for Stearns and Stearns-Knight that year.