Cars that did'nt make it minor makes

Just commented on a durant thread. And got to thinking about minor car brands of the late 20s to the 30s that didn't make it. Wonder if you guys have any of these brands built or in process. Brewster, Continental, Crosley, Cunningham, De vaux, Dupont, Durant, Elcar, Gardner, Jordan, Kissel, Mercer, Peerless, Ruxton,or Stearns-Knight. I am sure there are some sub makes that were built under these names but that could be for another time or throw one in that I missed if it is a minor make that did not succeed for to many years...ghost

 

The list could get big of failed car companies could get big.....LOL

 

Back in '86 I got (FOR FREE) a '29 Oakland. There was a tree growing through the floorboard and out the side window, and the owner said if I can cut the tree down for him, the car was mine. So it came to be. Since Oakland was a sister company to Pontiac, I figured the best thing was to make it Poncho-powered. Had a junkyard 326 freshened up and ready to go into it, got sidetracked with other projects, and eventually sold the shell for $250.
So yep, Oakland. I liked the oval back window.
Had a friend who had a '25 Star, too, which I think was the economy line for Durant.

 

Couple that I remember striping
Metz
Pope-Toledo
Willys knight
Overland
Maxwell

 

Yep Star was a durant sub model. Along with Flint, Locomobile, Princeton, Rugby, and Eagle. All were gone except Durant by 1930

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=295077

Click the link and follow it to the list of defunct USA auto manufacturers. I was shocked! There are probably over 1000 now defunct manufacturers and lines!!!

 

Almost forgot Erskine, and Rockne. Named after Knute rockne the football coach and Russel Erskine who took over for J.M. Studebaker in 1915. And was the former accountant at Studebaker. Both these were cars of studebaker line in the 20s and 30s.

 

McKay, Whitney, Locomobile, Stanley, Doble... all steamers.

 

a little of topic but russell erskine was born here huntsville al. used to have a motel/building named after him. he is buried here also.someone here was supposed to have one of his personal cars.could be urban legend. like i said of topic........a lot.sorry

 

Jeffery
Moon
Marmon

 

Here is one that was short lived, 1907-1913. The Brush featured wooden axles and a wooden frame.

 

cool.

 

Ghost, There were over 5,000 makes of cars built in the USA 1805-1942, some good some bad and some truely GREAT cars, some of the later failed because they were too good and the companies lost money on them. The Standard Catalog of American Cars is a great source of info on them.

 

Whippets!!!! OH YEAH!!!

 

About 40 years ago i found a run down 1920s VELIE (U.S. make ) in Australia. Never seen another since.

 

Cunningham? Now that would be a HAMB-friendly ride, but in spite of our prediliction for modification, any non-original tweaks to a REAL Cunningham would be a travesty. Briggs Cunningham was right there with Max Balchowsky during the 'we want OHV power' era. Cunninghams racers are mostly all accounted for, but some HAMBers may not know that he actually placed quite well at LeMans with two 53 Caddies, one with the stock body, the other known colloquially as "Le Monstre" for reasons that will be readily apparent if you find a picture of it.

dj

 

Don't forget the builder of the most beautiful car ever m***-produced, the Cord 810. Mechanically a POS, but they sure were purdy!

 

How about an Aussie one.

the

LIGHTBURN ZETA

Lightburn made washing machines, cement mixers etc. so I guess that qualified them to make cars too! its true. There were popular on the drag circuit in Australia way back when. and they were already fibregl*** flipper bodies ready to go.


check this out.
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/car_info_lightburn_zeta.htm

 

Try this list of defunct auto mfgs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_defunct_United_States_automobile_manufacturers

 

How do you qualify that statement? Ever see how many miles are on em? I know of one that logged 45,000+ miles in the last few years without a single failure.

one of my all time faves is the Peerless V-16. Only one ever built that can be seen at the Crawford Museum in OH.

 

That's a BIG list! I remember years ago the Washington Post or the B'More Sun had an article in the Sunday paper and listed all the US MFGrs. I didn't see the Greenfield from Ohio on that list so the list is likely bigger than the one posted.

 

How's about the Franklin? Used to send the gas station attendants crazy looking for the radiator cap (they was air-cooled).

 

Don't forget White...........or did someone say that already......

 

Found a 1929 Jordan Model G in a shed locally. Still haven't been able to pry it loose from the owner. Not gonna give up.....

 

This is what I am looking for. teens, 20s, 30s, any one trying to get a hold of one, or in the process of building one. And pics if you have them I almost got a 30s Rockne a few years back it was a coupe and I am still kicking myself over not trying harder to get it...ghost

 

This is off topic but I found the read interesting and I'd like to share.

How the Big Three Came to Be

Dateline: 1/24/2000
</V<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</o:lock><?xml:namespace prefix = v ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" /><v:shape id=_x0000_s1026 style="MARGIN-TOP: -115.3pt; Z-INDEX: 1; MARGIN-LEFT: -90pt; WIDTH: 1in; POSITION: absolute; HEIGHT: 63.75pt; mso-wrap-distance-left: 0; mso-wrap-distance-right: 0; mso-position-vertical-relative: line" o:allowoverlap="f" alt="old car" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:***le="curved" src="file:///C:/DO***E~1/BOBBY/LOCALS~1/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.gif"></v:imagedata>ffice:word" /><?xml:namespace prefix = w ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com</w:wrap></v:shape>There have been several thousand auto manufacturers in the United States since the car first began, yet only three remain today. What happened to all the rest?
Ransom E. Olds can be credited with helping start the automotive craze. In 1896, he began manufacturing Oldsmobiles from his Detroit, Michigan plant. ***isting Olds was Roy Chapin, who would later co-found Hudson Motor Car Co., and Jonathan Maxwell, who would later build the Maxwell.
In March, 1901, fire swept through the Olds Motor plant. The only car that survived was a single-cylinder Curved Dash Olds. Olds immediately regrouped and focused all efforts on the small Curved Dash car. By late summer, Olds had so many orders for the car that he needed help building engines. The man he found was Henry M. Leland, head of Leland and Faulconer Co., a large local machine shop. Olds also needed transmissions and he contacted machine shop owners John and Horace Dodge. The Dodges brothers also built engines, transmissions and axles for Henry Ford who was ***embling cars at his plant in Detroit.
Leland took it upon himself to improve upon the Olds engine by redesigning valve ports and raising the compression. Olds liked his engine the way it was and was not impressed. In 1902, Leland took his redesigned engine to a meeting of directors of the Henry Ford Co. The directors were impressed with Leland's engine and decided to build a new car using the engine. At Leland's suggestion, the car was named after the French explorer who founded Detroit, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac. The Cadillac Motor Car Company was formed in 1903 with Leland as president.
Leland later sold his Cadillac division to General Motors in 1909 and served as an executive running that division. In 1917, he left GM and started the Lincoln Motor Co. to build airplane engines. In 1920, the company switched over to automobiles. Lincoln became a fierce compe***or to Cadillac in the luxury-car market. Leland sold Lincoln to Ford Motor Co. in 1922 for $12 million.
David Dunbar Buick had made his fortune in the plumbing business by porcelainizing cast iron for tubs and sinks. He later turned his talents to automobiles. By 1903, he had built 16 cars and 37 by 1904. It was in 1904 that Buick was approached by William Durant, grandson of a Michigan governor, and a self-made millionaire. Durant was also a partner in Durant-Dort Carriage Co., which became the largest maker of horse-drawn carriages in the country. In 1904, Durant reorganized the Buick Motor Co. A**** the people that Durant brought into Buick was Charles Nash, an ***ociate in the carriage business. Nash later became president of Buick. David Dunbar Buick had left the company by this time.
In 1908 Durant started General Motors. During the first year, Durant brought in Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland plus a few supplier firms and a few lesser known auto makers. By the second year, Durant had acquired 30 firms, including 11 auto makers. Not all of Durant's buy outs were successful and the bank eventually took over the General Motors.
In 1912 Durant went into partnership with Louis Chevrolet and formed Chevrolet Motor Co. Chevrolet had built a high-quality car bearing his name. While Chevrolet was visiting Europe in 1913, Durant changed the design of the car to a smaller version. The 1914 Royal Mail and the 1915 Baby Grand were the first cars to sport the now-famous Chevrolet bowtie insignia. When Chevrolet returned, he was not pleased with Durant's redesign and quit the company.
Durant's Chevrolets were a great success. The company grew rapidly and Durant used profits to buy up GM stock. GM, meanwhile, was coming back out of trouble under the guidance of Nash, president of GM, and Walter P. Chrysler, the new head of Buick.
Durant was eventually able to buy back GM in 1916 and fired Nash. Nash took over the struggling Jeffery Motors Company founded in 1879. The name was soon changed to Nash and a car called the Rambler brought the company a tidy profit. In 1954, Nash merged with Hudson to form American Motors. Hudson had been founded by Roy Chapin who has worked with Ransom Olds. Roy Chapin Jr., would later serve as chairman of American Motors.
Walter P. Chrysler resigned from GM in 1920 shortly before Durant was forced to resign. Chrysler agreed to manage the financially troubled Willys-Overland Company. In 1923, he put together an engineering team under Fred Zeder, who had designed engines for Studebaker. When Willys-Overland began to show a profit, the bankers who had drafted Chrysler, asked him to do the same for Maxwell. Chrysler purchased Zeder's engine for Maxwell and began building a new car at the old Chalmers plant in Detroit. Maxwell had been started in 1904 by Jonathan Maxwell, former ***ociate of Ransom Olds. Hugh Chalmers in 1908 had bought Thomas-Detroit, part of a company which had been launched in 1906 by Roy D. Chapin and Howard Earle Coffin, both of whom had been ***ociates of Ransom Olds. Several models of the Maxwell with the Zeder were shipped to New York for the 1924 auto show with the name "Chrysler" on them. Later that year, Maxwell-Chalmers was reorganized into Chrysler Corp.
John and Horace Dodge got their start in the automotive business through contract work for Henry Ford and Ransom Olds. In 1914, they began their own automobile business. The Dodge brothers were pioneers in the manufacturing of cars with all steel bodies. The brothers died within a year of each other in 1920. Their widows asked Frederick Haynes, manager of the Dodge plant, to run the company. Under Haynes, the company continued to grow and acquired Graham Truck in 1925, which became Dodge Truck. Joseph, Robert and Ray Graham worked for Dodge for a short time, then left to build the Graham-Paige car.
In 1925, Dodge Brothers Motor Car Co. was sold to the New York banking syndicate of Dillon, Read and Co. for $146 million. Less than three years later, the bankers sold it to Chrysler Corp. for $170 million.
In the mid 1940s, Henry J. Kaiser, who had built Liberty Ships during WW II, teamed up with Joseph Frazer. Frazer had worked for General Motors, Chrysler Corp. and Willys-Overland before joining the failing Graham-Paige Company just before the United States entered the war. Kaiser-Frazer surprised everyone by leading all the independent makers in production in 1947. 144,500 cars were sold under the Kaiser-Frazer name, topping Studebaker, Nash, Hudson, Packard, Willys and Crosley and trailing only the General Motors, Chrysler Corp. and Ford Motor Co. However by 1951, sales were down.
In 1954, Nash and Hudson combined to form American Motors and Studebaker and Packard merged in effort to survive. Kaiser pooled its resources with Willys-Overland to form Kaiser-Willys.
In 1987, Chrysler Corp. acquired American Motors Company. AMC was having trouble with foreign compe***ion and federal safety and environmental regulations. In its final years, AMC was primarily a manufacturer of non-AMC vehicles. French auto maker Renault bought a controlling interest in the company and AMC's Jeep line purchased from Kaiser in 1970. Finally, Renault sold out to Chrysler.
Today's "Big Three" auto makers, Chrysler (DaimlerChrysler), Ford and General Motors, who continue to gobble up the compe***ion through mergers and takeovers, can all be traced back to Ransom Olds and his sleek little curved-dash Oldsmobile.

 

There was a Flint at the Pileup the last few years. Had a Ford flatty swapped in.

 

Kreepea 1, Thanks for posting that automotive geniology record, proof again that the HAMB membership leads the way in things automotive.

 

The proposed al goremobile which the little people where to drive.

 

This list could be endless.....

1931 Cord Speedster and 1925 Kissel Gold Bug for Woodlite fans.