 Original story – and Author of this humorous, entertaining and informative article, was By James J. Bradley. A master historian and beloved curator of the Detroit Public Library’s National Automotive History Collection. He died several years ago. He developed this story for Cars & Parts just prior to his death, and it is presented here as a tribute to on of automotive history’s most distinguished caretakers — James J. Bradley. Transcribed to the site: By Frank Nathanson, in 5 parts. |
| WOULDN’T YOU REALLY RATHER HAVE  A KLINK? OR, HOW ABOUT A DODO? |
| Owners who boast about their cars’ performances should have stood at the side of a gravel road about 1912 and clocked one of the American Underslung roadsters doing 70 miles per hour over it’s rough surface, riding so smoothly that the driver did not even spill cigarette ashes on his vest. The low-hung American Underslung, with flat fenders coming as high as the top of its radiator, was just one of the more than 3,000 different makes of separate, distinctly different cars produced in the United States. They came in all colors of the rainbow and had dozens of kinds of transmissions, controlling devices, body shapes and engines. Some were huge high-wheeled juggernauts, others were small enough to park under an old-fashioned front porch with their tops up. All but a handful are now ghost cars that gave chugged away to join the book of legends about the automobile industry, a book more packed with tragedy, comedy, pure melodrama and excitement that any other industry in America. A tiny niche in the history of this phantom parade should be reserved for the colorful and sometimes bizarre names their builders selected for them . . . names like Monarch, Paragon, O-We-Go, Alpena Flyer, Bugmobile, Black Hawk, Dixie, Silent Sioux, Cyclone, Coey Bear, Skimabout, Sphinx and Seven Little Buffalos. Manufacturers must have figured that half the battle was starting their infant products out with illustrious names. As a result, the motorcar terminology which developed is not quite as prosaic as it may seem at first glance. It is often honeycombed with interest and sentiment, sometimes reflecting romance in everyday life. True, the christening ceremony itself was usually unimpressive. Bottles of champagne were seldom broken over the hoods of cars. (Though corks may have popped in the directors’ board rooms and silent prayers for dividends offered). In spite of formal rites, we can be sure that the name for the gasoline infant had been chosen with care. Tomes on geography, mythology, history and botany, Latin dictionaries and other source books were searched; in recent years individual judgement has been supplemented by sophisticated computer methods, market surveys and consumer polls. The Argo Electric, for instance, was saved from the humiliation of a more pedestrian name because Benton Hanchett knew mythology. In 1909 when a Saginaw, Mich. firm was seeking a name for its new auto, Hanchett, a leaned and well-read man, as well as a director of the company, recalled the exploits of Jason and his band of Grecian heroes. Their perilous but successful voyage in the good ship Argo in search of the Golden Fleece suggested to Hanchett hat his company’s quest for sales and profits in a car similarily named, might be blessed by the gods. Unfortunately, the Argo foundered on the shoals of bankruptcy a few years after its launching. Another venture into mythology proved more auspicious when the Ford Motor Co. brought out a new model in 1938. The company called its car the Mercury after the swift messenger of the gods and a god of commerce and travel in is own right. The selection of Mercury’s winged cap signifying speed was a prophetic choice of a trademark. Earlier attempts to build Mercury cars in Philadelphia, Pa., Hollis, N.Y., and Cleveland Ohio, had all failed. The most successful of the lot was the two-passenger, belt-driven Mercury cycle-car mad in 1913-1914 in Detroit, Mich. (The cycl-ecar fad which swept the automotive world in 1913 and 1914 represented an attempt to combine the best features of the light car and the motorcycle. More than 100 different makes of cyclecars were announced in those two years. All were doomed to the same inglorious end as a 1912 cyclecar which had carried the name of an extinct bird, the DODO). From 1906 to 1931 a firm in the small town of Hartford, Wis. turned out one of America’s great automobiles, the Kissel Kar. A dream, strangely enough, was partly responsible for its name. When the first Kissel was built, a conference of the company’s directors was arranged in Chicago with officials of the McDuffee Automobile Co., which had applied for exclusive distribution rights for Illinois. After terms were settled, a discussion arose as to what the car should be called. The name “Wisconsin” was an early favorite. But it was finally conceded that the name of the 23-year-old builder, George A. Kissel, might be a better choice. Formal arrangements were postponed indefinitely, and a week or so after the conference, Mr. Harvey, an officer of the McDuffee company, wrote to Kissel that his wife, in a dream had come upon an inspired idea — that of spelling “car” with a “K” and including it in the title. (Kissel dropped Kar from its name in 1919). The Kissel Car was followed by the Browniekar in 1909 (Newark, N.Y.), the Kline Kar (York, Pa.) in 1911, the Keller Kar, Chicago, 1914, and the Little Kar from Dallas, Tex. in 1920 END OF PART I. |
| PART II. . . . . . . A LINK?. . . . . . |
| It would be impossible to fathom all the reasons which impelled inventors to name cars after themselves. In some instance, the decision stemmed from a domineering personality or egoism; in others, it was an expression of personal faith or even a search for immortality. It did declare to the world that the builder was proud of his name and his product and would not hide either behind some terminological mask. This penchant for self-naming added to the roster of American automobiles such unlikely-sounding names as: the Klink, a Danville, N.Y. car of 1910, (it is believed that only 20 Klinks were sold, mainly to the stockholders); the Twombly of New York City whose 1911 model featured a 206-pound engine that could be removed for rapid repair in a matter of three minutes; the Pungs-Finch (Detroit, 1904-1910), guaranteed to do better than 50 miles per hour; the Ricketts, made first in White Pigeon, Mich. and then South Bend, Ind., 1905-1910: the Neskov-Mumperow, St. Louis, Mo., 1921-1922: the McQuestion Streamer, Boston, 1901-1902, and the Prigg, a cyclecar made in Anderson, Ind. in 1914. One of the more euphonious names was coined by a gentleman who had a pretty romantic sounding name himself, Childe Harold Wills. A Ford engineer and one of the guiding geniuses behind the Model T, he left Ford in 1919 to build a car on his own. Wills located his factory on the shores of the Sainte Claire river in Marysville, Mich. and named his automobile the Wills Sainte Claire. An American creek inspired Wilbur Gunn to add a melodic-sounding name to England’s auto terminology. When Gunn started building a car in Middlesex the name he chose for it was the name of the stream he recalled playing in when he was growing up in Springfield, Ohio — the Lagonda. When there were too many senior members of a company to allow for a compound name, honors were sometimes equally distributed by the use of initials. Messers, Everett, Metzger and Flanders called their Detroit-made car (1908-1913) the E.M.F.; the letters in the C.G.V., a French car built under license in Rome, N.Y. around 1903, stood for Charron, Giradot and Voight; a company founded by three gentlemen named Fauntelroy, Averill and Lowe manufactured the FAL in Chicago from 1909-1915. In 1907 three wealthy young men in Brooklyn, N.Y. named Breese, Lawrence and Moulton joined forces to market a car which they claimed incorporated the best features of expensive European automobiles. their B.L., M line ranged from a sedate town car to a racy speed machine powered by and 85-hp engine. In 1909 the Hudson Motor Car Co. produced its first automobile. The company wisely refrained from giving it the name of its brilliant designer, Howard E. Coffin. Instead they settled on the name of the wealthy Detroit department store owner who was financing the venture, Joseph L. Hudson. The Hudson became a roaring success almost overnight. In 1918 a low-priced companion car, the Essex, was added to the company’s line. It owed its name to a map of England. Hudson had wanted a name with snob appeal and several top executives sat down with a map of the British Isles. Their scanning produced the name Essex. By 1929 Essex was the third larges selling car in the U.S. However, sales slipped badly in succeeding years and in 1932 the company brought out a beefed-up Essex called the Terraplane. Hudson’s advertising proclaimed that the Terraplane was “the plane that skims the earth . . .land flying is what Terraplaning is.” The aeronautical theme was further stressed by staging a grand presentation ceremony at which the car was unveiled with Amelia Earhart breaking a be-ribboned bottle of aviation gas over a Terraplane’s radiator. after miss Earhart’s dedication, the car was presented to Orville Wright. END OF PART II. |
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8 Mercury, 1914. This is one of five different automobiles named after the mythological messenger of the gods. With its belt-drive, tandem-type seating and narrow tread, the mercury was typical of the many cycle-cars marketed in 1913-14 |
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Klink |
| PART III. . . . . . . A LINK?. . . . . . |
| The Blood Brothers of Kalamazoo, Mich., tried unsuccessfully to sell cars called the Blood in 1901 and again in 1913. Their third attempt a year later showed a neat bit of verbal gymnastics. This time they called their vehicle the cornelian after the blood-red gemstone of the same name. Though the Cornelian was short lived, it is well-remembered by Indianapolis 500 race historians. Louis Chevrolet took a Cornelian racer to Indianapolis in 1915 and posted the fastest qualifying time of the entire field. Long before the individual car makers began to coin trade names for their products, a good acceptable name had to be found for the self-propelled vehicle itself. In a way, the automobile had a gestation period of thousands of years. Ever since man started to set his thoughts down in written form we catch shadowy glimpses of the idea of the modern automobile. In the Iliad (Alexander Pope’s translation) Homer describes Vulcan’s efforts to build a line of motorized three-wheelers this: “There the lame architect the goddess found, Obscure in smoke, his forges flaming round. While bathed in sweat from fire to fire he flew; And puffing loud, the roaring bellows blew. That day no common task his labor claimed; Full twenty tripods for his hall he framed, That placed on living wheels of massy gold, (Wondrous to tell), instinct with spirit rolled. From place to place around the blessed abodes, Self-moved, obedient to the beck of gods.” (One might facetiously infer from the “wheels of massy gold” that Vulcan had anticipated a modern practice of the auto industry; that is the construction of special customized models intended for show only). The old-testament prophet Nahum predicted that “The chariots shall rage in the streets, they shall jostle one against another in the broadways; they shall seem like torches; they shall run like lightnings.” The literature of the middle-ages continued with many uncannily accurate descriptions of what was to become a reality someday. Yet when the automobile did arrive, America at least, was unprepared with a name. Some of the terms used in the 1980’s to describe the motorized vehicle were: autocar, electrobat, auto-vim, autocycle, motor buggy, horseless carriage, quadricycle, motor wagon and mechanical carriage. The Chicago Times-Herald newspaper thought it had settled the matter in 1895. The paper offered a $500 prize for the best generic term to call the newfangled invention; the winner was “motorcycle”, a term that was lampooned by most of the press and pretty well ignored by the man on the street. Instead, America looked to France, the leader of the auto world and, as far as society was concerned, the arbiter in language matters. With society’s acceptance of the French term “automobile” (plus other French motoring words such as chassis, garage, chauffeur, taxi cab, coupe, cabriolet, etc.), the wrangling over a suitable name gradually subsided. However, some purists were still uneasy about another facet of the horseless carriage, its sex. The French practice of assigning a gender to nouns caused grammarians to wonder whether the automobile was masculine or feminine. The august French Acadamey pondered the question and solemnly proclaimed the “L’Automobile” to be masculine, as masculine as a three-day growth of whiskers. With its usual Freudian commonsense the public continued to refer to the automobile as “she” — praising “her” virtues and grumbling about “her” fickle ways. This feminine mystique was occasionally recognized by a gallant car maker who would choose a female name for his auto. M.P. Moller had been associated with the automobile industry in Hagerstown, Md. as early as 1904. Though a naturalized American citizen, Moller always retained fond memories of his native Denmark. In 1922 when He brought out a car, it was named the Dagmar after his lovely daughter, Mary Dagmar Moller. her middle name was that of the legendary queen of Bohemia whose stature stands in a park in Ribe, Denmark. As befitting a car named after a queen, the Dagmar was a beauty and every inch a lady, one whose proud lines set her far above the more plebian Fords, Chevrolets and Overlands of the day. The glamor of a real-life queen helped enhance the Dagmar’s image. When Ruth Malcomson was crowned Miss America in 1924, the Moller motor Co. presented her with a Dagmar sport Victoria. The car was painted a gleaming yellow and blue and upholstered with bright red leather. The handsome pair was a crowd-stopper wherever it went. Cars and courting seemed made for each other and song writers filled the air with melodies such as “Take Me On A Buick Honeymoon,” “Tumble In A Rumble Seat,” and “I’m Going To Park Myself In Your Arms.” Suitors in 1902 could have called for their dates in an Ohio-made car called the Darlin: a few years later a Queen (Detroit, 1904-1906), a Princess (Chicago, 1904-1905) or an American Beauty (Plainfield, N.J., 1916 were available. (It would be nice to think that Chevrolet had had Cupid in mind in naming its 1972 imported truck the LUB. Unfortunately, no assist to young love was intended. The letters were merely and acronym for the type of truck, a Light Utility Vehicle). END OF PART III. |
| PART IV. . . . . A K L I N K? . . . . |
| Herr Emil Jellinek, honorary consul general of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and a wealthy sportsman, agreed in 1901 to sell the entire year’s production (36 cars) of a German firm if they were named after his beautiful daughter, Mercedes. From 1904 until 1907, when fire destroyed the factory, and American Mercedes was made in Long Island, N.Y., by William Steinway, the piano builder. A car introduced in 1908 carried the name of another Jellinek daughter, Fraulein Maja. Though the Maja soon died, the Mercedes carries on the Jellinek name. Washington’s diplomatic corps, in late late teens and early twenties, sparkled with town cars made by Rolls-Royce, Packard and Hispano-Suiza. Their stables also included a few elegant equipages turned out by a little firm in Newark, N.J., the Phianna Motor Co. One of the organizers had twin daughter, Phyllis and Anna, hence the name Phianna. As the 19th. century waned, it was becoming increasingly clear that the horseless age was just around the corner. Engineers had mastered the technique of transferring power from an engine bolted to a buggy to a set of road wheels. It seemed, too, that America was waiting for something like the automobile to come along. Psychologically the times were right for it. The horseless carriage was the symbol of a new type of frontier, one to replace the old geographic frontiers which had pretty well disappeared by the 1890’s. Manufacturers of bicycles, carriages, guns, pulleys, boats, farm implements, gas and steam engines, locomotives and other diverse products scrambled to capitalize on what they believed would be a huge, new market. Often long-established firms with nationally know products would transfer their brand name to a car. Peerless of Cleveland started with washing machines, changed to bicycles in the 1890’s and to automobiles in 1901 — all of which carried the name Peerless. The corporation successfully switched to beer making after the demise of the Peerless car in 1932. The White Steamer (1901=1912) was designed and built in Cleveland by the makers of the well-known White sewing machine. Rambler, Columbia, Pierce, Pope and Lozier were bicycle names adopted by car makers. The name Studebaker stood for prestige many years before the automobile was developed. Two brother, Henry and Clem Studebaker, started making things that go on wheels around 1852. Fleets of Studebaker wagons carried arms and provisions for the union armies during the Civil War; by the beginning of the 20th century Studebaker wagons and carriages were known throughout the world. When the descendants of the two brothers put electric cars on the market in 1902 (followed by gas driven models in 1904), they bore the Studebaker family name. Joseph W. Moon’s predecessors had sold moon carriages throughout the Midwest for many years. His St. Louis, Mo. firm recognized the advantages of contributing a name that was associated with craftsmanship and quality. Its car, introduced in 1905, was called the Moon and advertised to be “as carefully finished as a fine old grandfather clock.” However, when Moon introduced a companion line in 1925, another name was needed. The brand new straight eight was called Diana after the moon goddess. The company carefully explained in a special pamphlet why they had selected that particular name. Readers were told, “Among the immortals’ cloud-capped Olympus, home of the ancient god, none was fairer, none more daring than Diana, goddess of the moon, goddess of the chase, goddess of war . . . Jupiter, sire of Diana and king of all the god, had bestowed upon this his favorite daughter, the qualities of a super-sportswoman; speed, strength, great endurance and athletic skill.” Moon contended that its new Diana symbolized the classic ideal in automotive science. Moon also created one of the most beautiful ornaments to ever grace a radiator. It was an exquisitely designed figurine of the goddess standing on tip-toe, her arm crooked and bow bent, seemingly captured at the very moment that she had released her silver arrow which, in mythology, never failed its mark. The Diana’s travels throughout the automotive world were not as unfaltering as its namesake’s silver arrow; in 1928 production of the Diana ceased. (The arrow, a swift instrument of piercing, was linked with the name of George n. Pierce, to produce the Pierce-Arrow, buffalo, N.Y., 1909-1938. intended or not, the hyphenated name represents on of the few puns generated auto names). Christening automobiles for states and cities was another popular way of solving the problems of nomenclature. Flint, Mich. had the honor of giving its name to a car in 1902 and again in 1924; the only common bond between the two Flints being the locale of their construction. There were three separate Toledos, at least five Milwaukees, and around 20 different cars which included the word “Detroit” in their names: Detroit Electric, Detroiter, Detroit Aire Cooled, Welch-Detroit, Detroit, etc. The Midwest’s prominence in the auto industry resulted in six Michigans made by six separate companies, six Ohios, four Wisconsins and four Illinois’. Other parts of the United States had aspirations of automotive greatness as shown by these car names: Arkansas, Rhode Island, Texas, California, Oregon, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland, Kentucky, Louisiana and Oklahoma Six. Whereas many builders tried to localize interest through their name, an Indianapolis company took a different approach. it was its ambition to produce a machine that would be nationally know so it called its car the National (1900 – 1924). The goal was realized as blue-bonneted Nationals swept numerous stock car races and in 1912 won the Indiannapolis “500.” Other auto makers must have thought there was some magic in the name with National cars being produced in Stamford, conn., 1898 – 1900; Oshkosh, Wis., 1902 – 1903; Providence, R.I., 1903; Detroit, Mich., 1914; Belvidere, Ill., 1903 – 1906, and Boston, Mass., 1899 – 1900. END OF PART IV. |
| PART V. . . . . A K L I N K ?. . . . |
| A sturdy Greek by the name of Pheidippides who lived five centuries before Christ was indirectly responsible for adding a foreign place name to the list of American cars. When Militades’ army of Athenians had defeated the Persians on the plains of Marathon, Militades dispatched Pheidippides, his fastest runner, to announce the news to Athens, 26 miles away. Noah Webster added “marathon” to the dictionary and when a Nashville firm offered a prize for the most appropriate name for its new car, a young southern woman submitted the name Marathon. The company declared that the word epitomized the endurance of its machine. The Marathon was introduced in 1908 with an advertisement proclaiming it to be “The car for long strenuous service”; it came to the end of its run in 1914. The devastating mortality rate among car companies suggests a tenuous, but nevertheless striking, parallel to Darwin’s theory on the survival of the fittest. Cars, like Darwin’s species, were born into a fiercely competitive world. Any inherent weakness — whether of a mechanical, aesthetic or corporate nature — was tantamount to a one-way ticket to the junkyard and oblivion. (Temporary reprieves were sometimes realized through mergers and reorganizations. However, these stratagems only delayed the inevitable). With few exceptions, the cars which survived were those named after men, Walter P. Chrysler, whose Dutch ancestors spelled their name “Greisler,” marketed the Chrysler automobile in 1924 and remained a dominant force in the industry for many years. On the other hand, David Dunbar Buick, a manufacturer of plumbing equipment, quietly dropped from the automotive scene shortly after the Buick appeared in 1903. A Swiss mechanic, Louis Chevrolet, gave his name to General Motor’ best seller. Chevrolet came to America to sell a wine pump he had invented but found cars more interesting and turned to racing. He helped design the first Chevrolet (1912); by the time Billy Durant regained control of General Motors in 1916 on the strength of the Chevrolet’s popularity, its namesake had long since left the company. John and Horace Dodge stopped making parts for Ford in 1913 and built the Dodge a year later. Tragically, both brothers died in the prime of their lives in 1920, their deaths occurring within 11 months of each other. The compounding of family names with the generic term “mobile” (from the Latin Mobilis: to move) resulting in combinations such as Cartermobile, Clarkmobile, Hupmobile and Fordmobile. One of Henry Ford’s early models carried the latter name; it soon became just plain Ford. The Oldsmobile was Ransom E, Olds’ progeny. To auto buffs, however, that Oldsmobile is the jaunty little curved-dash model immortalized in Gus Edwsards’ song of 1906, “In My Merry Oldsmobile” not the sleek Toronados of today. A falling out with stockholders precipitated R.E. Olds’ resignation in 1904. He established a new company and named another car after himself; this tie giving it his initials, REO. (The Reo car lasted until 1936; the Reo truck, until 1967).The company also adopted the Cadillac family’s coat of arms as an emblem for its car. Henry M. Leland, a New England machinist par excellence, went to Detroit in 1890 and launched two automobiles that are still in production. His first, the Cadillac, came out in 1902. Leland chose to name it after Sieur Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, the French exp0lorer who founded Detroit in 1701. The company also adopted the Cadillac family’s coat of arms as an emblem for its car. In the coat of arms there is a shield topped by a crown with seven pearls indicating the family’s descent from ancient counts of royal French stock, a most appropriate ornament for a car that has come to symbolize prestige and luxury. In 1921 Leland marketed his second car, the Lincoln. it was named for the first man He had voted for in a presidential election, Abraham Lincoln. The Mercury, Pontiac and Plymouth are exceptions to people-named cars. As previously noted, the Mercury owes its name to Roman mythology. The Plymouth was unveiled on July 28, 1928 at Madison Square Garden. Chrysler Corp. provided the rationale for its name in an early sales brochure: “Because it so accurately typifies the endurance and strength, the rugged honesty, the enterprise, the determination to achieve and the freedom from old Limitations of that Pilgrim band who were the first American colonists, Walter P. Chrysler’s new offering to the American public has been named the Plymouth in honor of their firs daring settlement.” An American Indian was responsible for the name of the Pontiac automobile. When the car was brought out in 1926, the company stated that it was being named after “Pontiac, chief of the Ottawas and accepted leader of the Algonquin family of tribes … a name symbolic of the finest virtues of their race.” GM placed a bust of Pontiac on the radiator; beneath him, embossed in natural copper was a medallion showing the chief in profile with the new car’s slogan, “Chief of the Sixes.” (A well-known Apache chief, Geronimo, who led bloody and spectacular raids against the white man in the 1880’s was honored by having a car named after him, the Geronimo, made from 1917-1921 in the Enid, Okla.). American Motors cars of more recent production included one whose name was chosen with the help of computers. To women, the computers found, the word Javelin had an impression reaction of luxury; to men, sports; to youth, advance design and quality. When American Motors introduced a new compact in 1970 it flew in the face of superstition by calling it the Gremlin. The word “gremlin” had entered our language during World War II and meant a pesky little imp who was to blame for fouling up war machinery. The company hoped the Gremlin would be a troublemaker for small imported cars. Car companies, like individuals, have sometimes tended to romanticize certain facets of their early years. a case in point is the amusing whopper Apperson concocted, with tongue in cheek, we must presume, to explain how its famed Jack Rabbit model came by its name. In 1904 an Apperson touring car driven by Jack Frye of Los Angeles won the motor Age Cup Race. Motoring magazines nicknamed his car “Frye’s Rabbit” as it continued to win races and established a reputation for speed. “Jack Rabbit” was a natural transition. The company officially adopted the name in 1907 when it brought out a model called the Jack Rabbit. Leaping in full stride across its radiator was a large metal rabbit — an unmistakable ornament which immediately identified the product at a glance. Apperson presented a much more delightful account of the Jack Rabbit’s derivation in one of its 1913 house organs. The new version began with an account of how, in 1896, four eastern sportsmen seeking rest and recreation on a hunting trip had penetrated the desolate wastes of South Dakota. One night after a 287-mile run in their Apperson through wintry breezes and now flurries, they arrived at the shack of a settler named Nathan Hicks. There, the story continued, the four travelers found Hicks’ food supple nearly exhausted Looking over the prairie, the hunters could see big fat jack rabbits gleefully chasing one another. Eureka! The food problem was solved . . . except for one little matter. The hunters had left their guns and ammunition at the last stop. Their hunger, however, goaded them on and armed with fishing spears they sped across the prairie in their Apperson, harpooning jack rabbits right and left. They returned triumphantly with 28 rabbits in their bag — and the biggest, fattest jack rabbit ever seen in the county impaled on the Apperson’s crank handle. It had been hit with such great force, they figured, that the handle had penetrated the rabbit and the speed of the car was sufficient to hold him there during his death struggles. The tale ended by informing Apperson owners that : ‘To this day the Jack rabbit has remained there and the machine has been know a the Famous Apperson “Jack Rabbit.” You will find it upon the front of the radiator of every machine of this make that you see, and by it you will know that the automobile bearing it was built by the Apperson Bros. Automobile Co. i Kokomo, Indiana, U.S.A.”  |