Lost Car Companies of Detroit by Alan Naldrett

Author:Alan Naldrett [Naldrett, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-01-24T16:00:00+00:00

WINTON DRIVES HIS “AUTOMOBILE” FROM CLEVELAND TO NEW YORK

From the late 1890s to the early 1900s, the leading automotive city was Cleveland, Ohio. With easy access to glass, steel and rubber, Cleveland retained the number two position even after Detroit became the undisputed Motor City. Leading the Cleveland pack was car pioneer Alexander Winton.

Before Scotsman Alexander Winton, who owned a bicycle shop, started assembling a standard automobile model in 1896, auto companies would customize each automobile to the customer’s specifications. Winton assembled the same standard auto each time, starting a precedent in the industry. The Winton Motor Company was the first to construct “ready-made” cars, as opposed to “custom made.”

In 1897, Winton drove one of his cars, named the Winton, from Cleveland to New York City, an eight-hundred-mile trip. When this feat did not receive much media attention, he repeated it and made sure he had the attention of the newspapers by having the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper sponsor the trip. He was accompanied by Plain Dealer reporter Charlie Shanks, who is credited with popularizing the French phrase “automobile” for the vehicle they were riding in. On this second trip, Winton was met by more than one million people when he arrived in New York. The trip did much to popularize the automobile. In 1903, a Winton was driven from San Francisco to New York, the first transcontinental auto trip.

The Winton Company was a pioneer in the auto field until 1924, when Winton dissolved the company. Before that happened, he had one unhappy customer try to tell him how to improve his vehicles. Alex Winton said something along the lines of, “If you know so much, why don’t you make your own car?” The customer was James L. Packard, who replied that maybe he would. He later went on to found his own company, the Packard Motor Car Company, which made luxury cars for more than fifty years.

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