“Not so good. Why don’t you change the words around and call it The Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company?” This time Kettering was unimpressed. But Chryst’s suggestion prevailed and the company was incorporated July 22, 1909. Remembering the experience of the two small Providence manufacturers, Deeds projected the company on a fifty-fifty basis with a capital stock of $150,000, two-thirds of which was common stock. The shares were equally divided between the two men. Each was a joint owner with the other in all contracts and patents. Deeds became President and Kettering Vice President. With incorporation, a modest office was opened in the United Brethren Building on Main Street with a staff consisting of one man who was clerk, bookkeeper, secretary, and general factotum.
Chryst had succeeded Kettering in the NCR Inventions Division, but spent every moment of his spare time at the barn. He was immensely proud of his choice of the company name. As he worked about the barn he began to refer to it as “Delco.” Soon Deeds, Kettering and the rest of the “Barn Gang” took it up. In this way the name that became a household word came into being.
Then trouble broke. Soon after the first ignition sets had been delivered to Cadillac, Kettering received a telegram from Leland saying that the controlling relays, the heart of the ignition system, were sticking. “Come at once” was Leland’s command. Kettering was certain that the specifications given to the Kellogg Company were accurate. He went to Detroit, tried out the system, and sure enough the controlling relays stuck. Leland had announced that the new ignition system would be placed on his 1910 car. He prided himself on the integrity of his word. It was up to the “hayloft wizard” to make good.
Kettering put the relays in his bag and took the midnight train back to Dayton. The next twenty-four hours would be crucial for Delco. As sleep evaded him he reached into his bag, got out one of the relays, and began to feel the pole pieces and the armature. Then, in the darkness of his upper berth, he discovered what was wrong. The Kellogg people had made the pole pieces a trifle rounded instead of perfectly flat. Kettering went straight to the barn from the railway station, machined the pole pieces down, and returned to Detroit on the next train with one source of trouble ended. Another anxiety developed when there was coil trouble. Again Kettering dashed to Detroit and worked a miracle.
The spark ignition, with the slogan, “Nothing on the dashboard but the switch,” went on the 1910 Cadillac and operated to the satisfaction of every user. A new cycle of the Motor Age dawned. Delco was launched.
A trouble far more serious than mechanical anxieties now developed. In his almost vicious assault on the barn problems, Kettering strained his eyesight. It augmented a weakness that had started in his college days when he burned the midnight oil. For a time it was feared that his vision would be permanently impaired. Despite this handicap he stuck resolutely to the job.
When the ignition contract was signed with Cadillac there were 308,930 automobiles and 6,030 trucks in the United States. These totals represented a tremendous advance from the day when it was a debated question as to whether the horseless carriage would be propelled by steam, electricity, or gasoline. Gasoline had won out and the internal combustion engine came into its own.
Another view of the hayloft workshop, W. A. Chryst with back to camera.
Although the automobile had “arrived” it still labored under a serious handicap. It was necessary to crank a car by hand in order to start it. Often it was a back-breaking and sometimes an arm-breaking operation. The crank still made the motor car something of a butt for cartoonists and jokesters.