Articles of Interest
Barley Motor Car Co.
was a manufacturer of automobiles in Kalamazoo,
Michigan. It manufactured the
Roamer automobile (1916-29) and, briefly, the Barley (1922-24) and the Pennant
(1924-25). In 1913, Albert C. Barley bought the assets of the Streator Motor
Car Co., which was put into receivership in 1911. Streator was itself the
product of the Erie Motor Carriage Co. and had been manufacturing the Halladay automobile since 1905. Barley's new company was
called Barley Manufacturing Co. and he reopened the factory at Streator, Illinois
and continued to produce the Halladay for a few
years. Barley, Cloyd Y. Kenworthy,
a New York auto dealer then selling only
electric automobiles, and Karl H. Martin, who later developed the Wasp
automobile, decided to build an upscale automobile, and incorporated Barley
Motor Car Co. in New York
State in September 1916
with a very small capitalization of only $50,000. It was established for the
purpose of building motor trucks, cars, autos and accessories. Shortly
thereafter, the company issued more classes of stock and was recapitalized with
an additional $760,000, obtaining the existing assets of Barley's manufacturing
company. Manufacturing was soon moved to Kalamazoo,
occupying the former Kalamazoo Buggy Co. factory. The initial model introduced
in 1916 was called the Roamer. The name was suggested by Kenworthy's
chauffeur after a popular racing horse of the era. The car was very stylish and
the grill was nickel plated and modeled after the Rolls Royce grill. The
initial model was called Roamer Six, a four-door touring car with a 6-cylinder
Continental 24-hp engine. Oscar Wilde purchased one of the first cars built and
his endorsement was featured in early advertising. Several models of the car
were introduced over succeeding years. In 1918 the model C6 succeeded the Six but with a Continental 12XD engine developing 54-hp
available in eight body styles from $2200 to $4900. In 1920, the model D4
Touring with a four-cylinder Duesenberg 75-hp engine went for $5,300
(4-passenger) and $5,400 (7-passenger). By 1922, only the model 6-54 remained.
The Roamer was marketed since its inception as "America’s Smartest Car." It
was also successful in many early racing events. After six records were set for
one kilometer, one-, two- three-, four- and five-mile sprints by a Roamer with
the Rochester-Dusenberg engine at Daytona Beach in
1921, the advertisements crowed that "America’s Smartest Car Makes
America’s Fastest Mile." In 1922, the company introduced a lower-priced
line called the Barley, named for Albert C. Barley, president of the company.
The first Barley model 6-50 debuted in September offering torpedoes and sedans
with a Continental-6 engine. The following year a Sport Sedan and Touring Sedan
were added. The prices ranged from $1395 to $2250. In 1924, the company
announced a reorganization. Roamer Motor Car Co. was
to be incorporated at Toronto, Canada, headed by George P. Wigginton,
and the car would be manufactured at Toronto.
A. C. Barley sold his interest in Roamer and the Kalamazoo factory remained
the Barley Motor Car Co. and continue to manufacture the Barley.
However, the Barley was not successful and it was rebranded
the Pennant outfitted with a Buda 4-cylinder engine and targeted at the taxicab
market. Its main competitor was the Checker, also built in Kalamazoo. The Pennant trade-dress was a
maroon upper body and ivory lower body. Both the Barley and Pennant were out of
production by 1925, and A. C. Barley was out of the automobile business.
Meantime, Roamer abandoned the Continental 6 engine and adopted the Lycoming
8-cylinder engine developing 88-hp but sold at the same price as the former
6-cylinder engine. The new model was called model 8-88 and is offered in seven
body styles. Sales were disappointing however. In 1926, the Dusenberg
Motor and Car Company was in distress and the Lycoming
engine was no longer available to Roamer. In 1926, the Roamer Motor Car Co.
bought the Rutenber Motor Co. of Logansport, Indiana,
a company of which A. C. Barley had been an officer years earlier. The Barley
family had been large shareholders in the company. Rutenber
had an extensive factory complex and built engines used in many early
automobiles. Sales were weak and declining so that even before the stock market
crash, in 1929 the company stopped manufacturing and was dissolved.
_______________________________________________________________
Fords, fries, friends and fun
fill the local DINER
Saturday night is
"cruise night" at the Happy Day Diner on U.S. Route 40 east of Baltimore. That means in
addition to the usual run of customers stopping in for a cheeseburger or
chicken pot pie, a few other ingredients are added to the mix.
Here's one now: a bright, fire-engine-red 1963 Ford
Fairlane, owned by Terry Lewis, president of the Antique Motor Club of Greater
Baltimore. Then there's Michael Polis' 1931 Ford Model A Deluxe Coupe, just
back from a chug to Indianapolis.
Pretty soon, Ray and Ginger Rothenbach's 1974 Chrysler New Yorker rolls in with
all the aplomb of a cruise liner under full steam.
Before the night is out, more than 50 hot rods, street
rods, and classic cars will be parked outside. Inside, waitresses serve up
piles of french fries and mounds of rice pudding and, of course, more than a
few milkshakes, thick and rich, in those stainless steel containers that
conjure up more than a few memories.
"We like a place that we can come to and get our
chairs out and hang out like the 1950s," says Carl Machen of Essex, vice
president of the Antique Motor Club of Greater Baltimore and the proud owner of
a 1956 vintage truck.
"You'd be surprised how many people stop by to see
the cars and end up going in for a meal," Mr. Machen says.
He is also one of the Route 40 Cruzers, an informal
collection of car enthusiasts from a variety of car clubs who come together to
gossip, gab and take a gander at each other's cars. No purists here: A
carefully restored classic car can sit cheek by jowl with a street rod with a
Ford body, a Chevy engine and a state-of-the-art sound system.
By Lisa Rauschart
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON
TIMES
August 11, 2005
Hudson Motor Company
In 1919 Hudson introduced the Essex brand line of automobiles; the line
originally was Hudson's
line for middle class auto buyers, designed to compete with Ford and Chevrolet,
as opposed to the more up-scale Hudson
line.
One of Hudson's
most famous cars was the Terraplane produced between 1932 and 1938, first as
Essex-Terraplane in 1932-1933, and then as Terraplane until 1938.
The company had a number of 'firsts' for the auto industry. These included the
self starter, dual brakes, and the first balanced crankshaft, which allowed the
Hudson
straight-6 engine to work at a higher rotational speed while remaining smooth,
developing more power than lower-revving engines. Most Hudsons had straight-6 engines.
At its peak in 1929, 300,000 cars were produced in one year - Hudson and Essex
combined - including contributions from Hudson's
other factories in Belgium,
England
and Canada.
Hudson ceased
auto production from 1942 until 1945 in order to manufacture war materials
during World War II, including aircraft parts and naval engines.
After the war, Hudson initially did quite well, and their late-1940s low and
rounded "step-down" styling, which lasted through the 1954 model
year, was ahead of its time when introduced, and quite aerodynamic for the era.
This, the Hudson's light weight, and its well-built engine made the sportiest
model, the Hudson Hornet, a successful auto racing contender, dominating
NASCAR in 1951, 1952 and 1953. Later, these cars met with some success in drag
racing, where their high power-to-weight ratio worked to their advantage.
Like many other smaller North American auto manufacturers, Hudson found it
increasingly difficult to compete with the Big Three (Ford, GM and Chrysler)
during the 1950s. Those large companies could afford constant development and
styling changes, so that their cars looked fresh every year (even if less changed
beneath the surface), whereas the smaller manufacturers could only afford
gradual change. They could not keep up with the churning of automotive fashion,
and sales slipped. Merger was seen as the only way to survive at all, even if
much of the individual makers' character would be lost.
On January 14, 1954,
Hudson merged
with Nash Motors to become American Motors. The Hudson factory was closed, and the remaining
years of Hudson
production consisted essentially of Nash cars with Hudson badging, dubbed "Hashes" by
some.
The brand name was discontinued at the end of the 1957 production year.
Author Unknown
Nash Motors
Nash Motors
was founded in1916 by Charles W Nash, initially absorbing the earlier Rambler
Motor Car Company. For decades it successfully marketed reliable but generally
unremarkable mid-priced cars for middle class buyers.
In 1924
Nash absorbed
Lafayette Motors.
1938 saw one of Nash's few automotive innovations by the generally technically
conservative company, when optional air conditioning was first offered in
non-luxury cars.
The Nash 600, a fastback made before and after World War II, was the first
mass-produced unibody construction automobile made in the United States.
Its lighter weight compared to body on frame automobiles and lower air drag
helped it to achieve excellent gas mileage for its day. The 600 was the first
of what some would call the "bathtub" cars from Nash, so called
because its sheet metal design, when flipped over, seemed to resemble a common
bathtub. (Alternatively, some saw it as a "bathtub" on tires upside
down.) The "bathtub" designs would continue on in Nash cars until the
early1950s.
In 1954 Nash merged with Hudson Motor Cars and formed American Motors (AMC).
The Nash make of automobiles was continued as a line of AMC cars through1957.
The small Metropolitan of this period was an early example of a captive import
and one of the few small car successes of its time.
The Rambler make was then revived and used as late as 1969 (Rambler American).
The AMC make began to be used in its place beginning with the 1967 models
because its customers began to associate the term "Rambler" with
stodginess - not a help in selling its cars. By the 1970 model year, all models
were referred to as AMC makes.
AMC itself entered a brief period of partnership with Renault in the 1980s and
then was finally acquired by Chrysler Corporation in 1987. Thus Nash was one of
the predecessor companies of the currently Daimler Chrysler firm
Author Unknown
Winton Motor Carriage Company
The Winton Motor Carriage Company of Cleveland, Ohio
was a pioneer United States
automobile manufacturer. Winton was the first American company to sell a motor
car.
The company was incorporated on March 15, 1897 by Scottish
immigrant, Alexander Winton, owner of the Winton Bicycle Company. Their first
automobiles, called "horseless carriages," were built by hand
and assembled piece by piece. Each vehicle had fancy painted sides, padded
seats, a leather roof, and gas lamps. The Goodrich Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio
made the rubber tires for Winton cars.
By 1897, Winton had already produced two fully operational prototype
automobiles. In May of that year, the 10 horsepower (7.5 kW) model achieved
the astonishing speed of 33.64 mph (54.14 km/h) on a test around a Cleveland horse track.
However, the new invention was still subject to much skepticism and to prove
his automobile’s durability and usefulness, Alexander Winton had his car
undergo an 800 mile endurance run from Cleveland
to New York City.
On March 24, 1898
Robert Allison of Port Carbon,
Pennsylvania became the first person to buy an American-built
automobile when he bought a Winton after seeing an advertisement in Scientific
American. Later that year the Winton Motor Carriage Company would sell
twenty-one more vehicles. The following year, more than one hundred Winton
vehicles were sold, making the company the largest manufacturer of gas-powered
automobiles in the United
States. This success led to the first
automobile dealership being opened by Mr. H.W. Koler in Reading, Pennsylvania.
To deliver the vehicles, in 1899 the innovative Winton company built the first
auto hauler in America.
Publicity generated sales and in 1901 the news that both Reginald Vanderbilt
and Alfred Vanderbilt had purchased Winton automobiles, boosted the company’s
image substantially.
In 1903 Horatio Nelson Jackson made the first successful automobile drive
across the United States
in a new Winton.
Winton continued successfully through the 1910s marketing
automobiles to upscale consumers.
1915 Winton Six Limousine
The first
part of the 1900s saw dozens of new automobile companies starting up. Rapid
innovation and intense competition led to the end of production by Winton in
1924. However, Winton continued in the marine and stationary gasoline and
diesel engine business, an industry he had entered in 1912 with the Winton
Engine Company. It became the Winton Engine Corporation, a subsidiary of
General Motors on June 20,
1930. It produced the first practical 2-stroke-cycle diesel engines
in the 400 to 1,200 hp (300 to 900 kW) range, which powered early
Electro-Motive Corporation (of GM) diesel locomotives and Navy submarines. That
part of Winton devoted to the manufacturing of diesel locomotives in 1935
became part of the Electro-Motive Corporation--later a Division--of General
Motors, and is still in business today. By 1936 Winton was producing engines
for only the marine, Navy, and stationary applications. GM reorganized the
company in 1937 as the Cleveland Engine Division of General Motors, and closed
it down in 1962.
Edsel
The Edsel, a
then-new make of automobile manufactured by the Ford Motor Company, was
introduced amidst a considerable amount of publicity on September 4, 1957. The firm had recently
earned its status as a publicly-traded corporation, rather than being entirely
owned by members of the Ford family, by being able to sell cars that weren't stuck
with Henry Ford's antiquated preferences after the
sellers' market of the post-war years had closed. The new management compared
the roster of Ford makes with that of General Motors, and noted that Lincoln
competed, not with Cadillac, but with Oldsmobile.
The plan was developed to move Lincoln up market and put another
make in beneath it, with yet another (Continental) at the very top. Research
and development had begun in 1955 under the name "E-car" which stood
for "Experimental car".
This represented
a new division of the firm alongside that of Ford itself and the
Lincoln-Mercury division, which at the time shared the same body. Continental
was also sold in the latter division. Although Edsel would share its body with
Ford, it would be sold through a new division. This short-lived Edsel division
existed from November 1956 until January 1958, after which Edsels were made by
the Mercury-Edsel-Lincoln division (referred to as MEL).
Edsel was sold through a new network of 1500 dealers. This briefly brought
total dealers of all Ford products to 10,000. Ford
saw this as a way to come closer to parity with the other two companies of the
Big Three: Chrysler had 10,000 dealers and General
Motors had 16,000. As it was quickly realized that Edsel was failing many of
these dealers’ added Lincoln-Mercury, English Ford and/or Taunus dealerships to
their lines with the encouragement of Ford Motor Company.
For the 1958
model year, Edsel produced 4 models, including the larger Citation and Corsair,
and the smaller, more affordable Pacer and Ranger. The Citation came in 2 door,
4 door, and two door convertible versions. The Corsair came in 2 door and 4
door versions. The Pacer came in 2 doors, 4 doors, 2 door sedans, and 2 door
convertible. The Ranger came in 2 door, 4 door, 2 door sedan and 4 door sedan
versions. The Bermuda Wagon, Villager Wagon, and Roundup Wagon were based on
the two smaller Edsel models, and shared body structure with the '57-59 Ford
wagons. It included several features that were, at the time, cutting-edge
innovations, among which were its "rolling dome" speedometer and its
"teletouch" transmission shifting system, on the center of the
steering wheel. 63,110 Edsels sold the first year, below expectations but the
second largest car launch for any brand to date. Only the Plymouth introduction in 1928 was better.
For the 1959
model year there were only 2 Edsels: the Ranger and the Corsair which was
really a relabeled Pacer. The two larger cars were not produced. The new
Corsair came in 2 doors, 4 doors, 4 door sedans, and 2 door convertible. The
Ranger came in 2 door, 4 door, 2 door sedan and 4 door sedan and the Villager
station wagon. 44891 cars sold in model year 1959.
For the 1960 model year, Edsel's last, only
the Ranger and Villager were produced. A mere 2848 cars were produced before
the Edsel was dropped on November
19, 1959