A Rain of Automobile Makers.
The year of the Spanish-American war—1898—saw the beginning of a veritable rain of automobile manufacturers in the United States. In that year the Stanley, Stearns, Thomas, Matheson, Winton, and the Waverley Company entered the field.
In 1899, there appeared the Locomobile Company, Olds, Baker-Electric and Pierce-Racine (later absorbed by J. I. Case and now the Case car).
In 1900, Packard, Peerless, Glide, National Electric, Lambert, Elmore, Babcock, Jackson, Knox and Lane were entrants in the lists.
In 1901, Acme, Gaeth, Pierce-Arrow, White, Royal Tourist, Stevens-Duryea, Waltham-Orient, Pope-Toledo, Welch, Pullman and Rambler.
In 1902, Cadillac, Franklin, Pope, Studebaker, Sultan, Okey, Walter and Schacht.
In 1903, Ford, Auburn, Overland, Moline, Premier, Corbin, Bergdall, Holsman, Columbus and Chadwick.
In 1904, Buick, Cleveland, American Napier, Stoddard-Dayton, Marmon, Mitchell, Jewel, McIntyre, Pittsburgh Electric, Ranch & Lang and Simplex.
In 1905, Alco, American, Dorris, Johnson, Jonz, Kisselcar, Maxwell, Monarch, Reo, Studebaker, Garford and American Mors.
In 1906, Anderson, A. B. C., Cartercar, Brunn, Thomas-Detroit, Kearns, Sterling, Mora, Moon, Pennsylvania, Palmer & Singer and Staver.
In 1907, Albany, Atlas, Brush, Bertolet, Byrider, Carter, Chalmers, Coppock, De Luxe, Oakland, Regal, Selden, Speedwell, Interstate, Lozier and Great Western.
In 1908, Sharp-Arrow, Pittsburgh 6, Crown Midland, Rider-Lewis, Paige-Detroit, Velie, Cole, E. M. F. and Hupmobile.
In 1909, Hudson, Advance, Cunningham, Coates-Goshen, Ohio and Abbott.
Since 1909 to date new cars put on the market include:
Stutz (1911), Chevrolet (1912), Grand, Chandler, Saxon and Scripps-Booth (1913), Dodge and Dort (1914), Owen Magnetic (1915), Drexel and Elgin (1916). Other automobiles in the field are the Maibohm, Allen, Ben-Hur, Crow-Elkhart, Harroun, Lexington and Madison.
A table giving a complete list of automobiles is printed elsewhere in this volume.
The earlier manufacturers of motor cars included many who had been engaged in manufacturing bicycles, and following them was a group that had successfully manufactured wagons and carriages. Still another set of manufacturers were machinery men.
In the list of names of automobile companies which have been organized during the period of the industry’s development, there are some which have gone out of business, but not many.
The industry, generally speaking, has had comparatively few complete failures. Mortality has been lower with it than with many other business enterprises.
This is chiefly due to the intelligence which the manufacturers brought to the business, plus the demand which sprang up for the automobile as soon as the people, instructed with great and liberal space by the press, realized it was the vehicle that could give what they wanted. Never was the value of a concerted campaign of education better demonstrated.
That unusually intelligent study of the subject of suiting the popular desire was given by manufacturers is evidenced in many ways, but in none that is so typical as was the standardization of motor cars.
At one stage of the industry its very life was threatened by a lack of uniformity in the mechanical construction of the various types of the automobile.
The big idea that has made Henry Ford’s millions was a combination one. It was the building of a motor and car combined which could be constructed at a cost that would command large quantity production. This conception by Ford, alone, simple though it was, proclaims him the genius he undoubtedly is.
The purchase of cars between 1898, when sales first began to be made, and 1903, when Ford put out his car, was practically confined to people of wealth and leisure. It required both to own and operate an automobile. Men bought them at a cost of $3,000 to $12,000 each. Purchasers were exhilarated by auto-intoxication—with little thought of the practical uses the invention could be put to. Snobbishness, social impression and display of superior wealth were back of many purchases.
But for the manufacturers’ quick recognition that the future of the automobile did not rest with the rich, that to be a great money-making industry, they must make automobiles for the mass and not for the class, the business would probably today be no further advanced than it was fifteen years ago. A parallel of what might have been may be found in yachting or motor boating—two methods of deriving pleasure and speed which are confined to the rich, largely because prohibitive in cost to the mass.
Popularization of the automobile demanded standardization. Automobilization of the nation would never be accomplished if the hundreds of manufacturers that sprang up produced hundreds of different cars with different sizes of parts, and different standards, requiring owners of cars with which something had gone wrong, to wait indefinitely for a particular device used by a certain company.
Early owners of cars learned by bitter experience what it meant to have a screw loose or a tire put out of business in a town where the supply stores did not sell that particular screw or that particular tire. The spread of distance, annihilated by the auto, was threatened by difficulties such as these.
High maintenance and repair costs ate up many an automobile buyer in the early days of the craze. It wasn’t the original cost, although that was high enough; it was the upkeep.
Men of real ability—competent business men and expert engineers—got into the business, fortunately, largely for the rewards it promised, and by standardization and systematization brought the cost production down.